Let’s Stop Worrying About Sleep
It ends up having an adverse effect on our ability to do so soundly
Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
I squint to see the clock as its brightness hurts my just-awakened eyes. It’s 3:23 a.m. I immediately feel a wave of disappointment as I was hoping to sleep until 7:00 am. I had just gone to bed three hours earlier. That’s not enough sleep, I tell myself, as the self-talk begins to percolate in my mind.
Deciding not to give in to the obsession of sleep, I play some word games on my phone. I scroll through Instagram. I read some emails. Now, it’s 4:47 am. Soon after I fall back to sleep, I know one of my dogs will likely wake me. The panic is starting to set in as I pull the covers to my chin, roll on my back and take a deep breath. Time for a meditation.
In the Dark of the Night
We’ve all been there … struggling to fall back to sleep as we tell ourselves how important it is to do so. But, with dark surrounding us, we can only feel as if the rest of the world is sleeping while we suffer alone with our sleeplessness. We know all of the benefits of sleep. After all, the experts consistently proclaim it as the super activity for our health. It’s all over podcasts, in books and on the news.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe every word the sleep experts say. I know it impacts our health, our weight, our mood and our ability to focus in school or at work. The benefits seem to be endless. What a great way to stay healthy — just climb in bed, close your eyes and head to dreamland.
But, when sleep is elusive, many of us start to panic. Ironically, the act of worrying about sleep will make it even more challenging to get those desired z’s. Problems always seem worse in the dark of the night. So, of course, the problem of not sleeping is exacerbated in the night.
“It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” — John Steinbeck
Remind yourself of Steinbeck’s words. The committee of sleep can lighten our problems while the lack thereof can add unnecessary weight. It is obvious we should not worry about our sleep while we are in the process of grasping for it. Instead, wait until the morning to consider problem solving. It is when the sun is beside us that we can tackle our concerns with a clear head.
Don’t Let Your Thoughts Run Wild
Like most, I value sleep and take steps to optimize my own. For the past several months, I have been listening to Dr. Andrew Huberman’s podcast, The Huberman Lab, which discusses neuroscience, our brains, our behaviors and our overall health. This professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford breaks down information in a way that we non-Ivy-League graduates can understand.
I hang on to his every word and have changed many behaviors in an effort to sleep better. This past December, when Andrew Huberman tweeted about sleep, like a free get-out-of-jail card that I stored in my pajamas’ pocket.
“To be clear, calm and focused: 1) Sleep well and enough (for you). 2) If you didn’t sleep well, don’t externalize your thoughts any more than absolutely necessary until after you do.”
There are two components to his tweet I find interesting. The first is a reminder that each individual requires a different amount of sleep. Some of us function really well on six hours while others feel like zombies without a full eight hours. Know your body, and don’t get too hooked on the statistics.
The second part about not externalizing your thoughts can be construed in various ways. Some take it to mean that you should not engage on social media or in conversations when you are crabby and sleep deprived. Others take it to mean that our own stories we tell ourselves about our poor nights of sleep are not necessary.
One particular reply to Huberman’s post stood out for me. It was from a hypnotherapist and relationship strategies coach who suggested we “interrupt negative self-talk with “delete, delete, delete” right away. Stop them from taking root before the subconscious has time to act it out.”
This is valuable advice as it appears we need to stop our anxious, sleep-obsessed thoughts before the gate even opens a crack to let them escape. Having some mantra such as “delete, delete, delete,” is a good way to wrangle those thoughts and not give them any further fuel.
So, just as you may close your eyes and envision sheep jumping above your head, try closing your eyes and picturing a big eraser deleting those worried thoughts you have when sleep is avoiding you.
If all else fails and the panic is setting in, repeat the wise words of Warren Zevon:
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”