Shut up, amygdala, you’re fine
Her Perspective By Sharla Gorder
My room was pitch-black when I awakened this morning, and my thoughts were even darker. I peeked at my clock with dread. Damn. 3 a.m. Again.
With more than three hours until sunrise, I rolled over and pressed a pillow over my head — as though I might block all those strangely negative ruminations with a pouch of feathers. No such luck. They were coming from the inside.
“What is wrong with me?” I wondered. “What’s with all this pessimism? Where’s my attitude of gratitude? Why can’t I turn off this captious chatter and go back to sleep?”
At the very moment I was lamenting my 3 a.m. awakening, there were likely thousands of others in my time zone doing the same. Researchers estimate that up to 40% of adults report this disruption of sleep — specifically sometime between 2 and 4 a.m. — and the dilemma only worsens with age. I am not alone, though it certainly feels that way in the bleak, black, predawn hours.
The biological, neurological and evolutionary science behind this condition is fascinating. While it doesn’t offer a lot of clues as to how to remedy the situation, it does seem to scream some pretty good advice: Never trust a single thought you have at 3 a.m.
Here’s why: Your amygdala, the primal “fear center” of your brain, has an earlier wake-up call than the part of your brain (the prefrontal cortex) that is rational and analytical. During the second half of your nightly slumber, the hormone melatonin, which promotes sleep, ebbs, while the hormone cortisol, which encourages wakefulness, rises. This is why most of our deep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep occurs in the first half of the night, leaving us in lighter sleep during the second half.
And lighter sleep, of course, is more fragile and sensitive to unwanted disruptions. A distant car alarm at 3 a.m. is more likely to wake you than the same noise at 11 p.m. Minor aches and pains — arthritis, muscle soreness from a great workout, a kink in your neck from a weird sleep position — are also more likely to wake you in the wee hours. Earlier in the night, during cycles of REM sleep, your body goes through periods of actual paralysis. Only the muscles that support breathing and, interestingly, your eyeballs are capable of movement during these critical sleep phases. This lack of movement inhibits the production of synovial fluid in your joints, making them stiff and achy — and more likely to wake you up in the lighter sleep stages of the early a.m.
So, you’re awake.
And pissed off you’re awake … again. Your amygdala is up and at ’em, raring to go, enthusiastically reminding you of every possible danger, insecurity, grudge and fear that exists in the universe.
So helpful …
Yeah, maybe for our caveman ancestors a few thousand millennia ago. For us today, not so much.
That’s why our brains have evolved. The “newest” part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, can reason with our fretful amygdala. Problem is, the PFC likes to sleep in a bit. It is powerfully driven by nature — specifically morning light. And it learns how to anticipate sunrise through our circadian clocks, a collection of specialized cells called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
This is why “bright ideas,” dire assumptions and self-defeating thoughts you’ve had at 3 a.m. often seem absurd in the light of day. Maybe it’s not the best idea to quit your miserable job, learn to play the lute and become a traveling minstrel.
By the time the sun rises, your PFC is fully functional. You are rational again.
I need to remind myself of this in those dark, fretful hours. If you’ve ever been to Las Vegas, you’ve likely seen the T-shirts that say, “Shut up liver, you’re fine.”
I want to design a nightshirt for myself, imprinted upside down with glow-in-the-dark letters that I can read by glancing down …
Shut up, amygdala, you’re fine.
And I am.
