Do you struggle to go to sleep at night? Too much on your mind to settle down and relax into sleep? Or maybe you’re like me, you usually get to sleep fine, but you wake during the night and find it hard to go back to sleep. Either way, you are not getting enough sleep, which is something of an epidemic. Or maybe you just see sleep as inconvenient, something that keeps you from doing all you want to get done. An author of many self-help books had a full time job and family so he wrote in the wee hours of the night. It worked for him, but I don’t know what long term fatigue or health problems he had as a result.
Getting to sleep or back to sleep if you wake during the night is a struggle for lots of folks. Inadequate sleep is too common. Here are some tips.
This is a prayer for the sleep struggler: Lord, when I am awake, reveal to me all that I truly need to do. While it is time to sleep, I release all these worries and great ideas for you to hold. Whatever lasts into the daytime I ask you help me know which deserve my action and which are beyond my responsibility.
Now, if we could pray this prayer and have no more struggles, that would be fabulous. But that is unlikely, no matter how powerful the God we pray to may be, or how strong our faith. It is so hard because your brain and mine like to play, and to solve problems. So, if there is any threat or challenge your mind has decided is worthy of your attention, it will work on that.
There are seasonal problems. Things need to be cleaned up and brought in during the fall before winter hits, like swings, landscaping, lawn issues. In the spring things need to be cut back before the summer growth happens. Automobiles need periodic maintenance to prevent crisis repairs. Projects at work have deadlines and bosses who will scold (or worse) if they are not done. Children need different clothes as they grow and different help as they learn. Partners want things from us. We can even try to solve local, national and world wide problems in our minds. Who hasn’t had a discussion with friends that you might call “solving the problems of the universe.”
Problems grab us as long as they feel unresolved. Your mind turns the problem and possible solutions over and over until it finds one it likes. Then if no urgent problems remain the mind will find an earworm, a song that gets stuck in your head. Or if not a song, just some creative idea. A household project, a possible promotion, or job change, a loved one’s stories all can engage us in thought streams that seem so important at the time. But all of this while lying in bed is just a roadblock to sleep because these fascinating issues can’t be solved in the bed. Even when you come up with what seems like the perfect solution or idea, it often pales to unremarkable in the light of day. While in bed it feels like a fabulous insight, just the thing, a revelation that fell from the sky. Once awake, that great idea’s edges have come off, you can’t remember the details and even if you do, it bangs up against reality and feels weak and maybe unworkable.
So, my belief is that when we are engaged in thoughts during what should be sleeping hours, we need some tools to shut it down, to change the subject. Recall the prayer from earlier: Lord, when I am awake, reveal to me all that I truly need to do. While it is time to sleep, I release all these worries and great ideas for you to hold. Whatever lasts into the daytime I ask you help me know which deserve my action and which are beyond my responsibility.
Letting go of the thoughts is a helpful step, knowing that some of them do need attention during the day, but right now, lying here in the bed, they are mostly just silly. Being present in the moment is how you move from getting carried away into unawareness and seductive thought streams.
Here is my simple exercise to get back to sleep:
Count as you breathe, “one” on inhale, “two” on exhale. When jitters, trails of thoughts, urges, go back to counting, “one” on inhale, “two” on exhale. This requires a faith that whatever interesting or scary thought you are having at the moment is temporary, it is passing. You can let it go. It may seem that you must cling onto it and wrangle with it, but you don’t. It is a lie that every thought or every fear that comes along must be invited in to sit at your dinner table. They may be loud and attention seeking but you can choose what to do with them. Each one is an uninvited visitor.
Surely you have had someone come to your door that you didn’t invite in. They may be interesting with their sales pitch for a new internet access, a yard treatment program, candy bars for a kids’ sports program, or ideas they are offering about God and religion. We can have respectful conversations with the thoughts and feelings that come along. You can acknowledge their presence, while still not buying what they are selling. This is not just ignoring and hoping they will go away, because these visitors, the seemingly urgent worries or projects often keep knocking, they are not easily discouraged.
And if you invite them in, they will take up your time and focus. My mom let in a vacuum sweeper salesman once and the result was her purchasing a $1600.00 vacuum and attachments. When she already had a perfectly good vacuum.
The mind needs a focus and though we indulge in distractions at times (like television, phones, etc.), we can choose to change our focus. And at other times fears and distractions come uninvited, but we can choose to change our focus. We can choose a focus that leads to sleep and peace. When you decide you will not let the thoughts or urges take over you must interrupt them. Don’t be nice, be rude. Interrupt and take back your mind and sleep.
So, again the basic method is this: Count as you breathe, “one” on inhale, “two” on exhale. When jitters, trails of thoughts, urges come, go back to counting, “one” on inhale, “two” on exhale. Old patterns will fight back! But when thoughts, itches or pains come again, go back to counting. It works!
