Withdrawal Insomnia: How to Sleep During Opiate Withdrawals

Trying to get restful sleep while going through opiate withdrawal is a challenge, but it's not impossible. Many people find that a combination of environmental changes, a new sleep routine, self-care, and a healthy diet can make a significant difference. Let's explore some effective strategies to help you overcome insomnia and get the rest you need for recovery.

How to Sleep During Opiate Withdrawals

Opioid withdrawal can cause significant sleep problems, including insomnia, which is a common and difficult symptom to overcome. To help alleviate insomnia, you can adjust your daily schedule, create a consistent bedtime routine, and make changes to your diet.

We know that sleep is crucial for your recovery, and there are many more details to cover. Keep reading to learn how to adjust your environment and daily habits for a better night's rest.

Withdrawal from opiates is a difficult, but necessary, step in addiction recovery. Regardless if someone is in recovery from heroin or prescription opiates, addictions can develop. Addressing these addictions is a complicated matter that involves detoxing one’s body, and experiencing the uncomfortable world of withdrawal.

Withdrawal’s symptoms can affect someone on both a physical and mental health level, and their effects are felt for a long period of time. While knowing how long withdrawal will last can vary from person to person depending on many factors — such as frequency of use, time addicted, how much was used at one time, and biological and genetic components — it is common for withdrawal to continue in some capacity for weeks, or even longer.

The list of withdrawal symptoms is extensive, with opiate withdrawal insomnia being a common and very difficult aspect to overcome for someone in addiction recovery from opiates.

 How to Sleep During Opiate Withdrawals: Can Set in Fast

Withdrawal from opiates can be felt very quickly. While many people think of withdrawal as a part of cutting out their opioid usage cold turkey, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. Withdrawal can set in once someone stops using their addictive substance overall, or even if someone decides that they simply want to use less of it.

Not only does the absence of opiates in this case trigger withdrawal symptoms to surface, but if the body doesn’t get the same level of opiates it has programmed itself to expect, it can also trigger withdrawal symptoms. Due to this, someone can begin experiencing withdrawal before they even realize it, which can drive them to crave using opioids even more intensely.

Common Symptoms of Opioid Withdrawal

Opioid withdrawal symptoms manifest differently in different people. However, there are some common symptoms that one should look for and expect when going through withdrawal. This can be unexplainable aches and pains, cramps, intense lethargy, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, anxiety, depression, irritability, mood swings, and insomnia.

Each of these symptoms can be very intense and extremely uncomfortable, so having medical surveillance and mental and physical aid from professionals during this time is important in addressing each of the symptoms that someone may experience. However, opioid withdrawal insomnia can be one of the more devastating effects of withdrawal, creating a difficult situation for effective detox and recovery going forward. It is paramount to know strategies to ensure that someone knows how to sleep during withdrawal.

Withdrawal is a difficult time as the body is trying to reestablish a new homeostasis. With the absence of opioids from one’s system, the body’s previous rhythm enters a transitional phase on both a biological and emotional level. Medical treatment and behavioral therapy are necessary to deal with the difficult symptoms that consistently occur. Depending on the individual and their own situation, medications may also be necessary during this time in order to alleviate some of the discomfort involved with withdrawal.

What Is Insomnia?

Insomnia encapsulates a few different factors. First, people who are suffering from insomnia, or opioid withdrawal insomnia, simply getting to sleep in the first place can be extraordinarily difficult.

However, it also involves a difficulty staying asleep even if someone had successfully managed to fall asleep, as well as sleep not being restful or rejuvenating for the person. Insomnia is something that needs to be addressed in order for someone to combat the rest of their symptoms, and recovery as a whole. Sleep is the only effective way for someone to combat fatigue, and lack of sleep can further destabilize someone’s emotional state.

This emotional deterioration, compounded with the emotional toll and mood swings that withdrawal brings, can create a very difficult situation for the person in recovery, and can inhibit their ability to effectively address their other symptoms and effectively set their own roadmap for recovery.

How to Alleviate Insomnia and Strive for Restful Sleep

Treating insomnia is a difficult prospect, as it involves a lot of adjusting one’s own schedule, as well as addressing many elements of behavioral therapy. However, learning how to sleep during opioid withdrawal is possible, though it involves addressing someone’s environment, schedule, their methods of self-care, and their dietary choices.

Environmental Factors to Improve Sleep

Creating a New Sleep Schedule

Reestablishing someone’s circadian rhythm during opioid withdrawal can be difficult. Learning how to sleep during opiate withdrawal involves creating a new schedule that is employed consistently. Practicing bedtime routines can also program the body to become tired at a consistent time, creating a better chance that someone is able to keep a steady sleep schedule.

First, it is important to establish a good time to get to bed depending on one’s own schedule, as well as a time that they should be waking up each day. For example, decide early on in recovery that you will be going to bed at 10:00 p.m. and waking up at 7:00 a.m., and keep that schedule from the beginning.

Just as keeping a consistent time for someone to go to bed can help program the body, the routines involved in getting ready for bed can also be curated to help someone induce sleep. Keeping bedtime routines can signal to the body that it is time to wind down and prepare for sleep, so a person is prepared to sleep before they even first lay down. Doing things like brushing teeth or attending to pets can be parts of this, but the routine is up to each person.

Someone may make a habit of checking the locks around their house first, stretching out their body, or engaging in meditation or yoga before bed. All of these things can be ways to signal to one’s own body that it needs to prepare for sleep soon, rather than simply lying down in bed and expecting the body to immediately shut down.

Self-Care and Sleep

Self-care also incorporates a social component that needs to be satiated, as well. During one’s day, it is important to find a social outlet in which someone can raise their voice. Feelings of isolation or defeat can follow someone through any part of the day, times of rest included.

If someone feels voiceless, or otherwise doesn’t have a social outlet, it can further the feelings of anxiety, depression, and affects someone’s overall mental health, which may already be in a fragile state due to insomnia, let alone opiate withdrawal insomnia.

Watch What You Eat

Someone’s diet also can greatly impact their ability to get a night of restful sleep. Someone who can’t sleep due to opiate withdrawal will want to keep a healthy diet. Not only is it important to watch what someone is eating, but also be mindful of when they are eating and drinking it.

Eating unhealthy foods may cause someone further gastrointestinal issues, and lead to diarrhea or frequent bathroom use, causing someone to have to wake up frequently through the night and interrupting established sleep cycles. Also, drinking anything involving caffeine can cause someone to remain awake and further throw off any established circadian rhythms that someone has been working hard to establish.

Learning how to get sleep during opiate withdrawal is a complicated process that may require someone to change multiple parts of their schedule and involves effort throughout the entire day, not just when someone is wanting to get to sleep.

All parts of withdrawal can be difficult to overcome, and getting professional help to deal with opiate withdrawal and opiate withdrawal insomnia is necessary in many cases. However, getting rest is paramount in order to address many of the other complicated aspects of addiction recovery.

It is important to remember that experiencing withdrawal is part of a transitional phase. While it may seem like the pain will never end, the body will begin to normalize itself over time and more deeply ingratiate someone’s sleep schedule into their daily routine, setting the groundwork for restful sleep and effective recovery treatment for opiate withdrawal and beyond.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• What are some common symptoms of opioid withdrawal?

Common symptoms include unexplainable aches and pains, cramps, intense lethargy, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, anxiety, depression, irritability, mood swings, and insomnia.

• How quickly can withdrawal symptoms set in?

Withdrawal can set in quickly, not only when you stop using opiates completely but also if you simply use less than your body is accustomed to.

• What is insomnia?

Insomnia involves difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting restful, rejuvenating sleep.

• How can a person's diet affect their sleep during withdrawal?

Eating unhealthy foods can cause gastrointestinal issues and frequent bathroom use, while consuming caffeine can make it difficult to fall asleep and disrupt your sleep cycle.

• Why is it important to create a new sleep schedule during withdrawal?

Creating a new, consistent sleep schedule and routine helps reestablish your body’s circadian rhythm, which signals to your body that it's time to wind down and prepare for sleep.

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Opiate withdrawal and the resulting insomnia can be overwhelming, but we want you to know that you don't have to face it alone. Our team at Chateau Health and Wellness Treatment Center understands the challenges you're experiencing, and we are committed to providing the guidance and support you need to reclaim your health. Our tailored programs address both the physical and emotional aspects of recovery, helping you find restful sleep and build a foundation for long-term wellness. If you're ready to take the next step on your journey, we encourage you to give us a call at (435) 222-5225 to discover how we can help you heal and thrive.

About The Author

Ben Pearson, LCSW, Clinical Director

Ben Pearson, LCSW - Clinical Director

With 19 years of experience, Ben Pearson specializes in adolescent and family therapy, de-escalation, and high-risk interventions. As a former Clinical Director of an intensive outpatient program, he played a key role in clinical interventions and group therapy. With 15+ years in wilderness treatment and over a decade as a clinician, Ben has helped countless individuals and families navigate mental health and recovery challenges.

Danny Warner, CEO

Danny Warner, CEO of Chateau Health and Wellness

Brings a wealth of experience in business operations, strategic alliances, and turnaround management, with prior leadership roles at Mediconnect Global, Klever Marketing, and WO Investing, Inc. A graduate of Brigham Young University in Economics and History, Danny has a proven track record of delivering results across diverse industries. His most transformative role, however, was as a trail walker and counselor for troubled teens at the Anasazi Foundation, where he directly impacted young lives, a personal commitment to transformation that now drives his leadership at Chateau.

Austin Pederson, Executive Director

Austin Pederson, Executive Director of Chateau Health and Wellness

Brings over eight years of experience revolutionizing mental health and substance abuse treatment through compassionate care and innovative business strategies. Inspired by his own recovery journey, Austin has developed impactful programs tailored to individuals facing trauma and stress while fostering comprehensive support systems that prioritize holistic wellness. His empathetic leadership extends to educating and assisting families, ensuring lasting recovery for clients and their loved ones.