Sleep

𝗛𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂?

You’re struggling to fall asleep.

Your mind is still going a hundred miles a minute and won’t shut off.

As each minute ticks by, you feel the possibility of sleep slipping through your hands like sand through an hourglass.

Thoughts flood your head of how early you need to get up the next day and how many things you need to get done – you’re going to be so tired tomorrow.

The fear of sleeplessness takes over. Now you can’t sleep simply because you’re afraid you won’t be able to.

𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵𝘆 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝘂𝗽 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗹𝘆?

Catherine Sanders, Bower Place director, has suggested a couple of different ways of looking at a good night’s sleep.

In the Middle Ages, people commonly practised two-phase sleep, where they would wake up in the middle of the night for a few hours to get some chores done or socialise before going back to sleep until morning.

There’s also a strategy taken from Ordeal Therapy: you get out of bed if you can’t fall asleep after 15 minutes and do a simple chore before trying again.

The idea behind both of these options is to interrupt the self-perpetuating anxiety about lack of sleep.

Perhaps conceptualising things differently helps to ease distress about a problem and keeps it from becoming an even bigger issue than the problem itself.

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