Is your Bedroom a battlefield?

By Cecilia Okoth He snores like a pig while she kicks like a horse. She’s always feeling cold, while he complains of being excessively hot.

 

Every night, bedrooms turn into battlefields, half of our sleep troubles in an average night are due to our partner. “Can you imagine sometimes I have to relocate to the couch in the living room because he just can’t stop tossing and turning. He changes sleeping positions like 30 times a night only to climax in the morning with his feet almost entering my mouth,” says irritated Liz.

 

Sleep is a precious commodity, with deprivation linked to a host of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and depression. Often times, partners do not realize how inconveniencing they can be to their partners when sleeping. Most of these sleep related disorders are characterized by undesirable physical or verbal behaviours or experiences. Let us look at some of these incidents

The hours that partners spend fighting for the cover is enough to disrupt a whole night’s sleep. Although this in most cases is caused by women complaining about being too cold, they could have a point. Unlike men, who on rare occasions perceive temperature, women always feel warmer, which is why they will not get any rest until they are properly tucked in. 

 

Try to endeavor that your bedroom temperature is always fair for the both of you.

Most of my married friends say men move around twice as much in the night. And if the man is, say, twice as heavy as his partner, then whenever he turns he causes the mattress to spring up on her side, and she can actually be pushed quite far.

 

“If you perceive your partner’s tossing and turning as an inconvenience, either move away from him/her or wake him up and rudely confront him. But if you see it as a problem and you can’t wake them up, then get a mat and sleep on the floor because you do not want to be running to the children’s bedroom every night for rescue,” an anonymous source says.

And you have to go to sleep taking with you all of that day’s sweat and dirt in your skin or not being able to touch your partner’s greasy hair that is full of oil and dirt. Yes most of us go to bed without taking a bath under the pretext of being too tired or others simply fear cold water.

 

“For the last year or two, most times when I go to bed, I wake up covered in sweat, my bed sheets and pillow.

I sweat a lot while I am sleeping, mostly from my head and neck. Two cold baths before stressful situations, works well for me,” says John.

 

Your partner wants the light off before you, or you want to open the curtains earlier than they do? Our body clocks are coordinated by a complex interaction of hormones, nerve pathways, and various genes can influence this.

 

Most of us suffer from this for the first 10 minutes after getting up, but in some people it takes up to two hours.

 

If your partner is not a morning person, then just accept that you will not get any sense out of them until they have had two strong coffees

 

Most people are affected by this particular problem which maybe as a result of a weak bladder or bowel.

 

If the bladder does not regularly hold a large amount of liquid, then the muscular walls will begin to shrink.

The organ then holds less liquid, causing women to regularly need the loo during the day and at night. Doing a bit of pelvic floor exercises can help as can cutting caffeine intake.

 

Teeth grinding is amazingly disruptive to the partner, due to the dreadful sound it makes and nearly a third of us snore, and this is consistently one of the biggest disruptions to couples’ sleep. If you grind your teeth, your dentist can provide you with a dental shield to wear at night that will protect the teeth from damage. 

 

Also consider cutting down your consumption of alcohol as alcohol increases snoring because it relaxes the airways.

“I used to receive hot slaps from my spouse almost every night only to realize that he was sleep talking. He would quarrel a lot in his sleep and I think it was as a result of the several arguments that we had during the day,” recalls Tina.

 

Although a sleep-walker will have no memory of it the next morning, experts say it can prove that you have a stressed-out partner. Others may suffer an intense nightmare characterized by a sudden feeling of intense dread or fear.

 

Tina says she eventually learnt to protect her face from her spouse’s daily slaps under her pillow. Just like that?

Well I guess I can confidently walk into a ‘karate’ class just in case this happens to me.