Not being able to sleep is irritating. Immensely so.
And when we’re in manic phases or dealing with anxiety in our lives, drifting peacefully off to sleep is about as easy as climbing a mountain with a sackful of kumara strapped to your back. Sacking that’s made of that really annoying sacky material, that burrows into your skin like gangs of greedy children trying to claw their way into a piñata.
The paragraph above is a prime example of what happens when you can’t sleep. Your mind drifts.
I like to listen to podcasts to help me sleep. I find concentrating on the voice and letting the words sink into my conscious mind quite soothing, but when the conscious mind is jumping up and down and telling you it wants to go and ride Space Mountain, my usual tried and true method fails.
I told my therapist Lyndon about this recently, and he came up with a four-point plan for getting to sleep when the brain won’t let you.
But before I leap into that, a brief sidebar on why it’s important that you get a good sleep every night. I know I might be sounding like your mum at this point, and if that’s the case, just imagine me in an apron and an ill-fitting wig.
Sleep deprivation is the number one weapon in the arsenal of modern-day torturers, after slicing off thumbs and doing unspeakable things to your genitals. Why? Because these bastards know that if you’re kept away from sleep long enough, you essentially become brainwashed.
In Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
“In a series of studies, Gilbert has found evidence supporting the hypothesis that upon hearing someone make a statement, the listener immediately accepts it as true, regardless of whether it’s actually true…when people are tired, they’re more likely to be in a heightened state of gullibility because of the diminished cognitive energy and motivation associated with exhaustion.”
Translated into layman’s terms: “Yeah, whatever, I don’t give a shit. You want to build an oxidation pond in my backyard? Sure, just keep the noise down, I’m trying to sleep.”
There’s more at stake here than just feeling crappy, umotivated, and wading through the day as if it’s made of golden syrup. Your interactions with others can be affected, and you are putting yourself in a vulnerable state.
So, here’s the four-point plan – give these a try and see if they work for you:
1. The brain dump
There’s stuff in your head. You’re distracted. Get it out of there. Take yourself out of the bedroom, flick on the computer or pick up a notepad and just write. All those cyclical thoughts that are going on. Write them, write them, write them. You can find more encouragement on how to do this in an earlier post of mine, “Writing As A Lifesaver”.
This is not a form of exorcism – you may very well have genuine worries on your mind (see “It May Be True, But Is It Helpful?”) as opposed to facts masquerading as thoughts.
If that’s the case, Lyndon says to tell yourself that the writing process is about putting those thoughts into another space to come back to later, and in doing so giving yourself permission not to think about it.
If they are emotions masquerading as facts, seeing the evidence in front of you in ink or pixels should help to put things in perspective.
In fact, while you’re doing that, you could…
2. Make a cup of tea
Oh god, he’s turned into Nana now. Make a cup of tea? Should I get out a packet of wheat digestives as well? How about some napkins? That way I could just bash the thoughts out the side of my head and mop them up off the table.
No, really – tea. But not just any tea.
When talking about coffee and energy drinks a while back, I mentioned that I’d switched to green tea as a way of curbing my caffeine addiction. What I didn’t realize at the time was that green tea still has caffeine in it, albeit much less.
Lyndon suggested chamomile.
As I approached the herbal teas in the aisle at Pak’n’Save, I felt myself edging down the slippery slope. I’m going to turn all new age. I’m one step away from incense and petals in the bath. Because chamomile is A FLOWER! You’re asking me to drink a FLOWER.
Listen to this, from the side of the box:
“The chamomile daisy is renowned not only for the delicate, gentle flavor it imparts to a cup of tea, but for its ability to calm you down after a day of overexertion. And once you’re feeling a little more relaxed, the cold tea bags make an excellent balm for irritated eyes.”
Or for slapping the stupid face of the person who wrote that copy.
Anyway, I bought the bloody tea. And actually, it’s really nice. I drank it while writing the above, and I really had to force out that anger. I feel so relaxed I can almost breathe.
3. Guided breathing
I’ve heard a lot about this breathing malarkey, and to be quite frank, it should really take care of itself. I don’t want to sit in a room for an hour concentrating on breathing in and out. I might as well be in a coma – at least then I’d be asleep.
But seriously, I have in the last couple of weeks had a few nights when I’ve been very wired before going to bed. Even after taking my nightly dose of clonazepam, it’s taken longer than usual to kick in and make me sleepy. Maybe I should give this breathing thing a go, I thought.
Me being me, I decided to see if there was an app for it. If this is supposed to be about letting go, then all the better if a machine is telling me what to do.
I found an app called Pranayama in the App Store – there’s a free and a paid version, with the paid version letting you do all sorts of amazing things like breathe in space (I have no idea what the paid version does actually).
The free version takes you through a very simple 7-minute programme of inhaling and exhaling. On the screen, there’s a figure demonstrating how you should be sitting and taking in the air (filling your stomach first, then chest). There’s also a little pie graph, and some soothing synth noises to indicate when to breathe in, and when to breathe out. The pie is split up into one-third inhaling, and two-thirds exhaling.
I found this difficult to do at first, but with the headphones on and the sounds going, I was locked into a programme so unless I physically got up and switched it off, it’d be hard to get off track for too long.
Afterwards, I had a slight head rush from the infusion of oxygen, but in a good way. And I felt one hell of a lot more relaxed. When I climbed into bed, I already could feel the clouds of sleep drifting my way.
4. Reading
Of course, if you’re still not ready to sleep, then reading is another good old standby. Reading is preferable to watching television, I find, because it tires your brain out quicker.
Television is more of a stimulus, with its bright flashing lights and sudden noises, particularly when you crash into an ad break and the woman from Big Save Furntirue starts screaming about the dining suite apocalypse.
Concentrating on the words, comprehending them, and getting lost in the world of the book can work very quickly to tire you out.
A word of warning – be careful what reading material you choose, because if it’s too exciting, you may find yourself staying up till the wee hours to finish it (thanks Patricia Cornwell).
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What other methods do you use when you can’t sleep? Please share your thoughts below.
Chris, I totally agree with the comment about staying off the computer and the laptop at bed time. I need a laptopectomy (as I said to a friend at 0030 this morning)! It’s not only bad for me from a sleeping point of view (and it’s great to know about the melatonin) but it’s amazing JUST how many people are on the internet looking for casual hook ups at that time of the night – EVERY night! Of course, this could open another whole can of worms about the “apparent” validation of casual sexual encounters and what THAT’S really about – but we won’t go there (or you might start charging me $80 per hour!) But having a routine that excludes stimulation (I’m not referring to the MA15+, cos I naievely don’t know what that means???) – but I have always refused to have a TV and a computer (did someone say a laptop IS a computer????) in my bedroom because I’ve always known that it’s a bad habit to get into.
Guess who’s going to the supermarket for some chamomile tea tonight?
James
The casual hookup culture is ripe for exploration, but it’s a tricky one – organisations like the NZ AIDS Foundation have always been loath to get into some of the issues you describe (in its prevention campaigns anyway, there is wonderful free support available through their counselling centres) because it wants to remain sex-positive.
This is fair enough, gay men get enough messages telling us our sex lives are just plain wrong, so if you’re the org tasked with getting gay men to use condoms, you can’t be perceived as the sex police.
There’s nothing wrong with casual sex as a recreational outlet, where I think it becomes a problem is when guys start behaving in a self-destructive manner because they’re depressed – eg. not bothering with condoms because they no longer care about their personal welfare. It can and does happen.
Great blog Chris. Getting a good sleep, as opposed to a restless, dream filled, frequent waking sleep, is a real challenge for me. I really agree with the write stuff down advice. I also find it helps that if I am angsting about work it pays to simply acknowledge that, get up, turn on the computer and do it (last night three hours between 2am and 5am!) But having got the work shit off my chest I was finally able to relax and sleep, knowing I now had spare time in the day. Can;t recommend this approach every time, but sometimes you just have to deal with the source of your anxiety rather than lying there fretting and wishing it would go away.
That can be a problem though – I think you and I are both workaholics, and we need to learn to draw a line at (for example) 6pm. There should be work time and home time (as my husband always tells me). I think it sometimes helps to ask yourself the extreme question, will anyone die if this task is not completed by morning? If the answer is no, then it can wait.
I agree, like I said I can’t recommend it all the time because I think you run the risk of establishing a “work at night” pattern which is hard to break. I also find the wank solution quite effective! Listening to relaxation music works for me too and, oddly enough, because I angst about disturbing my partner, just getting up and going to another room is sometimes all I need to drift off into a good sleep.
Yes, we have had to make liberal use of the spare room during my more disturbed periods. There’s a nice comfortable bed in there, but we’ll take turns using it, as it’s nice to be in your own room.
I got a free white noise generator for my iPod, and that worked wonders for getting to sleep. It calmed me down loads- and because my sleep issues were anxiety/paranoia/sudden loud noises outside every few minutes I was getting a lot more sleep than before. Now I just use the generator whenever I’m particularly anxious haha.
I have a friend who swears by the white noise generator. I’ve found it useful as well.
Cool article… I’d like to add a couple of things:
1) Tess Gerritson > Patricia Cornwall (these days at least)
2) Stay away from anything with a display (computer, phone, tv). These all emit light towards the blue end of the spectrum. Blue light regulates melatonin (sleep hormone) and exposure to it reduces the amount produced. http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-light-affects-our-sleep/
So don’t watch tv etc immediately before bedtime, and don’t use if you can’t sleep.
Thanks for your posts Chris… It’s always nice to see a “oh-my-god-that’s-me” article
Rich
Thanks Rich – I’ve learnt this too, sitting up with the laptop in bed is not conducive to making you tired. I didn’t realise that the flickering lights affected melatonin, explains a lot.
My sleeping used to be atrocious. Anxiety and hyper-alertness kept me awake or woke me repeatedly in the night with nightmares. Some nights I physically couldn’t sleep until 3-4am in the morning–and then I’d have to get up early for Uni or work the next day. Over the years, I generated a sequence of different night time rituals to help manage it.
An hour or so before bed I turn every electrical thing off, including lights and sit with only candle light. I’m a novellist, and so in the first phase of my night time ritual I’ll pace in the dark and focus on a combat sequence or a character development point in the story I’m writing at the time (I’m always writing). Once my brain is focused only in one direction (instead of everywhere), and I get too tired to pace, I’ll get into bed and continue to plan or develop some aspect of the story until I’m too tired to think. Then I’ll focus on imagining something nice and soothing or I’ll listen to music on my mp3 player. Usually, this method would work eventually.
Five or six years ago I discovered that taking Melatonin helped with sleep, and if I take it about an hour before bed and then go through the above ritual I can usually get to sleep and stay asleep (unless I’m under a lot of stress or in a high anxiety state). Also, therapy for anxiety management and doing regular exercise has decreased the effective dose of melatonin by half. But without the melatonin I still can’t sleep regularly, in fact the last time I ran out of melatonin and couldn’t get a new script in time, I didn’t sleep more than four hours per night until I got it back.
Well I’ve found reading works quiet well, the only other thing that helps knock me out is something a little more MA15+…. But hey I’m a bit of an insomniac at times but my brain still loves sleep (go figure….). I’m up quite a bit but when I do hit the hay my body just wants to stay in sleep mode for hours on end…. As they say ‘A lazy boy and a warm bed are a hard thing to part’. =)
Well, I know what you’re referring to with the MA15+ reference lol… so I am just going to put this out there – when I was younger, I found that I couldn’t get to sleep unless I’d had a wank before bedtime. I don’t know whether that was the chemicals that get released after an orgasm, or whether it eventually became something that my brain told me I ‘had’ to do. It certainly is a good tension reliever.
I think we are very much creatures of habit. Especially when it comes to sleep. I remember when I was younger I had a noisy fan that I always has going as I fell asleep and even though I thought it actually impeeded my sleep the day I replaced it with a new quiet fan it basically took me a month or two to fall asleep in less than two hours…. So in terms of signaling your brain after a certain act I’d say is something of an interesting point to bring up. =]