Two
Mind Tricks
To nod off, you need a quiet, peaceful mind — one that’s not filled with worries about what happened during the day, what might happen tomorrow, or how long you’re going to be lying there tossing and turning.
Often, the only time we have complete peace and quiet is when our heads hit the pillow or if we wake in the middle of the night. But the trouble is, that quiet — with no distractions — is pretty much the perfect opportunity for our so-called monkey mind to chatter at us incessantly and be heard loud and clear, filling our thoughts with to-do and not-to-do lists, anxieties and apprehensions, worst-case scenarios and what-ifs, ruminations and deliberations. . . . Exhausting! And if your busy brain won’t switch off, you won’t nod off either.
Fighting against anxious thoughts will only make them loom larger, so try these tricks to help calm and distract your mind, or take it off to a better, stiller, and more serene and soothing place — perfect for drifting off to dreamland.
37 ✦ Think of five good things
Forget about counting sheep. Count yourself lucky. Every night, write down or say aloud five things that were good about your day. They can be as simple as getting a cup of tea made for you in the office or bagging a bargain in the supermarket. Expert psychological studies carried out by UK and Canadian universities have demonstrated that writing a gratitude journal, or just thinking about what’s good in your life at bedtime rather than what’s bad, can help you fall asleep faster and for longer.1 So go on — for a sounder sleep, try cultivating an attitude of gratitude.
38 ✦ Speak — don’t think
If your mind is a whirlwind of worry when you hit the sack, try speaking! Talking out loud engages parts of the brain different from those responsible for internal negative ruminations. It also helps slow things down — our thoughts can race much faster than we can physically speak. You could simply say something like “Slow down” every time worries enter your head, then speak positive thoughts or possible solutions to combat the concern you’re fretting over.
One study carried out by Bangor University gave participants a set of written instructions, and asked them to read them either silently or out loud.2 Concentration and performance were measured, and both were better in those who had read out the instructions. Hearing yourself seems to help you gain more control of a situation.
So, if you’re anxious about a large unexpected bill that’s come in, for example, try saying out loud: “I just need to look over the bank statement tomorrow and start writing out a budget for the month. It can easily be paid if we’re a little more careful for the next couple of weeks.”
This tactic works just as well if you whisper, by the way. Waking your partner at night by loudly declaiming will not be conducive to a restful sleep for either of you!
39 ✦ The elephant in the bedroom
If you were told not to think about a white elephant before going to bed, the chances are that a white elephant would keep popping up in your thoughts quite a lot. Likewise, trying to suppress a worrying thought at bedtime can often have the reverse effect — and stress you out in the process.
In one interesting study, researchers from the University of Oxford asked their volunteers to select a thought most likely to dominate their pre-sleep; it could be anything from a concern about finances to not being able to drop off. They were then split into two groups: the first group were told to try to suppress the particular thought, and the second to simply relax and let their thoughts come and go. Guess what? The first group took longer to fall asleep and their sleep was more disturbed than the second, free-thinking group’s.3
Actively, or aggressively, telling yourself to suppress a thought can not only make it loom larger, but it can also agitate your brain, putting it into busy task mode (“Don’t think about x or y!”) rather than “relax” mode (zzzzz). So try to let your thoughts come and go at bedtime without trying to get rid of them — but at the same time without dwelling on them.
Acknowledge a worrying thought and tell it, calmly, “Thank you for popping into my mind. I can’t do anything about you at the moment, so I’ll deal with you tomorrow.” Keeping a tranquil mind tells your brain you’re not on high alert about anything; it doesn’t need to do anything just now toward solving a problem — thus, you are far more likely to fall asleep.
40 ✦ Try to stay awake
Sounds crazy, but it might just work. Researchers asked one group of insomniacs to attempt to fall asleep as they normally would, and another group to lie in bed, keep their eyes open, and try to stay awake for as long as possible. Result? The second group fell asleep faster — and reported less anxiety about drifting off.4
It is because sleep is an automatic process, the researchers surmised, that trying to fall asleep can actually inhibit the process. Plus, going to bed without the pressure of having to fall asleep also seems to help.
41 ✦ Send your mind off to a happy place
A golden-sanded beach, a shady riverside walk, a crystal-clear waterfall, or a field of colorful wild flowers. . . . Researchers at the University of Oxford found that insomniacs who were told to visualize a “happy place” or a relaxing scene drifted off to sleep twenty minutes sooner than when instructed to think of nothing or to count sheep.5
It was surmised that counting sheep was simply too tedious to distract the insomniacs from any worries they were having, whereas using imagery to immerse themselves in a happy place was engrossing enough to distract them. Further research has shown that, compared to good sleepers, insomniacs tend to summon up fewer images but experience a higher percentage of unpleasant ones when they try to sleep.6
So conjuring up a pleasant view might just do it for you.
42 ✦ Use your five senses
When you are visualizing your happy place make it as vivid as possible by using your five senses. What do you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell?
As well as seeing the idyllic scenery in your mind’s eye, hear the distant noise of seagulls overhead, the gentle lapping of waves; feel the heat on your face, the soft sand between your toes; breathe in the smell of the salty air and imagine the taste of a cooling cocktail.
Using all five senses helps to keep you zoned away from any unwanted thoughts, really immersing you in and engaging with your “happy place.”
43 ✦ Pen and paper by the bed
Ever woken up and suddenly remembered a bill you haven’t paid, a note you’ve forgotten to send in to school, or someone’s birthday? Or maybe these thoughts pop into your head at bedtime? They’re not exactly world problems that you need to dwell on, but they’ll probably keep you awake because your brain is concerned that you might forget what you’ve just remembered by morning time. Keep pen and paper by the bed so you can jot down all these reminders. That way, you’re giving your brain permission to forget about them for the night — so you can nod off.
44 ✦ Play mind games
Give your brain a mental exercise to do when you hit the hay. A study from Southern Illinois University found that giving insomniacs moderately difficult mental arithmetic problems to do at bedtime made them fall asleep faster.7
Try counting backward from 100 — or even 1,000 — in groups of 5. If you want to make it more difficult and ensure your mind doesn’t wander, count back in groups of 4, 7, 12, or 18, for example. Concentrating on a mental task like this helps focus away from any worries. Also, just the rhythmic pattern of counting in blocks could help lull you to sleep.
If math just isn’t your thing, try other mind games: think of cities beginning with A, animals beginning with B, and so on.
One thing to note, though: the study found that people who didn’t have sleep problems took longer to get to sleep playing these games. So only use this trick on nights you’re having trouble!
45 ✦ Sing a lullaby . . . to yourself
You may feel silly — but singing yourself a childhood lullaby that holds positive associations with sleep can trigger the same relaxed and “safe” state of mind in you now.
Focusing on the act of singing will also help filter out other things going on in your mind. Plus, the movements our mouths make when we sing encourage the jaw to loosen — good for those of us who hold tension there when we’re stressed, which can stop us from unwinding enough to fall asleep.
The perfect pace of a lullaby? About 60 to 80 beats per minute, which replicates a resting heartbeat. One study by Case Western Reserve University found that people who listened to soothing music at this tempo slept better, and for longer, too.8
46 ✦ Chant a mantra
Do you find yourself lying in bed and berating yourself over something you did or didn’t do, should or shouldn’t have said, during the day?
When your mind won’t let you sleep because you’re beating yourself up over something, then try repeating a silent mantra. Research published in the Brain and Behavior journal found that repeating a word to yourself over and over can calm your mind by reducing activity in all areas of the brain, most notably the part called the “default mode network,” which is responsible for self-judgment and self-reflection.9
Choose a word with positive connotations — something like “good,” “happy,” or “fine.” Repeat the word over and over again in your mind, focusing on it as a mantra. If your mind wanders, bring it back to the mantra and the worrying thoughts should soon abate.
47 ✦ Shuffle images for better shut-eye
Cognitive shuffling, or serial diverse imagining, is a way of helping you fall asleep created by the cognitive scientist Dr. Luc P. Beaudoin. It’s designed to distract your mind from any analytical thinking and problem solving that might be going on in your brain at bedtime and keeping you awake. It does this by encouraging you to think of a “dreamy parade of sundry images” that have no connection to each other.
Sleep research has discovered that as we fall asleep we often conjure up a range of diverse, fleeting visual images and have “micro-dreams,” and that these images may actually help us drop off. And this method is intended to transport your brain to this hazy pre-sleep picture-seeing state.
Here’s how to do it:
If you find it too difficult, there’s an app, mySleepButton, that leads you through the process.
48 ✦ Get out of bed?
One way of preventing sleeplessness is to build a strong association between your bed and sleep. So if you toss and turn and struggle to fall asleep or to get back to sleep after waking, many experts suggest that after fifteen or twenty minutes, you should get out of bed. It sounds counterintuitive, but the theory is that getting up will help you stop associating your bed with being awake and frustrated.
I’d put in a caveat here, though. If after those fifteen or twenty minutes you’re lying in bed awake but feel relaxed and at ease, stay there. That’s perfectly fine. But if you’re restless, uncomfortable, and anxious, then get up. Go downstairs or sit in a chair or beanbag in your bedroom, and do something mundane such as listening to soothing music or reading a (nonthrilling) book in low light. As soon as you start to feel sleepy again, slowly get up and climb back into bed.
This all helps to reinforce in your mind that your bed is a place of sleepiness, not restlessness.
If getting out of bed feels like too big a leap, you can always try sitting up in bed, or getting out from under the covers and sitting on the side of the bed, and reading or listening to music. Then when you feel sleepy, lie down again. That way you’re still reinforcing the association of lying down in bed with sleepiness.
49 ✦ Label your emotions — put your feelings into words
When, under the covers, worries flood your mind and you start to feel completely caught up in them, your amygdala — the part of the brain that’s linked to your fight-or-flight response — can go into overdrive. But if you give those emotions you’re feeling a label or identity by saying “I’m angry,” “I’m stressed,” “I’m anxious,” or “I’m overwhelmed,” for example, you can effectively put a stop to that emotional response.
Research from the University of California, Los Angeles, published in the journal Psychological Science, found that by so doing, less activity in the amygdala was recorded and more in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that stops you overreacting.10 And in another study by the same university, participants who were scared of spiders and who were told to label their anxious emotions showed the least physiological signs of fear such as a racing heart.11
Try naming each anxious emotion as it comes into your head; you may well find it lessens the intensity of your feelings and helps your mind quiet down so you can nod off.
50 ✦ Try biofeedback
This is another therapy that aims to help you use your thoughts to control your stress responses, so it’s especially good for people who struggle to relax or feel anxious at bedtime. There are therapists who can carry out the technique. It involves placing electrodes on different parts of the body, which measure your stress responses such as muscle tension and heart rate. The therapist will then teach you how to try to relax and control that response.
There are different types of biofeedback — for instance, in neurofeedback sensors are placed on the head to measure brain activity. If you’re nervous and lots of concerns are flying around your mind, the sensors will pick up fast brain waves. The therapist will then help you to relax and calm your mind and the sensors will show slower, more relaxed brain waves.
In respiratory feedback, sensors are placed around the chest and abdomen to record your breathing pattern. The therapist will teach a stressed breather to breathe slowly through the abdomen. Ask your doctor or other health care professional for recommended biofeedback practitioners.
There are also home biofeedback devices, interactive computer programs, and apps you can try out for yourself.
51 ✦ Stop catastrophizing your sleeplessness
Fear and anxiety about how your sleeplessness might affect your health or your ability to cope can just make sleep issues worse. A typical scenario might go like this: You’re lying in bed unable to sleep. You start to panic because you have a busy day tomorrow and you’re worried you’re not going to be able to manage everything. If you can’t manage your workload, you’ll look stupid in front of your colleagues and your boss. There’s been talk of layoffs, so you may even lose your job. If you lose your job, you’ll lose your house or your apartment. . . . The cycle of worry and anxiety worsens so there’s now even less of a chance you’ll fall asleep.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-i) has been shown to be a really effective tool to help reduce the type of anxiety that many of us feel about not being able to fall asleep and stay asleep. Part of the therapy involves recognizing negative, exaggerated, and inaccurate thoughts about sleep, then breaking the cycle by challenging them as they arrive in your head and replacing them with other far more realistic ones.
So, for example, as the thought “If I don’t fall asleep within ten minutes, I’ll never make it through tomorrow” fills your head, try to see it for what it is: an untruth and an exaggeration. Then, try replacing it with a more realistic thought, such as “I’ve had sleepless nights before and I’ve always managed to get through the following day. I’m just going to stop worrying about falling asleep and enjoy the fact that I am lying down and relaxing; simply resting will do me good.”
Regularly practicing this technique can help you change the negative exaggerated thought patterns that hype you up at night and make it harder to fall asleep. For extra help on this, try our next tip, too (“Put your thoughts on trial”).
52 ✦ Put your thoughts on trial
It may be helpful to keep a thought record to help you work out whether many of your opinions about your sleeplessness are true or if they tend to magnify the negative and pounce on the worst-case scenario. Thought records push you to put your thoughts on trial as you look for the evidence for and against your thought.
You can make your own thought record in a notebook or download a template from the Internet (a simple search for “cognitive behavioral therapy thought record” will come up with results). Fill out the form every time you have a strong or upsetting thought about sleep, be it in the daytime or nighttime when you’re in bed.
Typically, the form will have headings such as the following. Below each heading I’ve included an example of a thought you may have about sleep and the sort of comments you may give:
The thought I'm having about sleep
I’m lying in bed unable to sleep. I need eight hours tonight. Why can’t I sleep?! There’s something wrong with me.
How the thought makes me feel
Anxious, panicky, tearful, hopeless.
Is there a more realistic, balanced version of your thought?
It would be nice to get a solid eight hours but not everyone needs that amount of sleep to function well — there’s plenty of evidence to support the belief that people can manage on much less than that. There’s nothing seriously wrong with me. It’s impossible to have an inability to fall asleep. I’m feeling stressed because I’ve taken on too much work and my mind is overactive at night. That could be interfering with my ability to relax and fall asleep. I need to cut back on work and give myself a little more me-time.
How I feel now
More optimistic, less negative, more in control.
After filling out thought records for a while, you should find it easier to recognize and challenge the unhelpful thoughts you get at bedtime, when it’s often far too easy to imagine the worst. You’ll come to realize that you don’t have to believe every catastrophic thought you have about sleeping.
Interestingly, many people who revisit their bedtime remarks in “the thought I’m having about sleep” section during the day are shocked by the disaster scenarios they’ve committed to paper. Their daytime rational mind sees those thoughts as unreasonable and exaggerated.
Carrying out this exercise regularly could help you put a rein on catastrophic thinking at nighttime, as you become more able to rationalize your thoughts — even in the dark of the night.
53 ✦ Tap into better sleep
Emotional freedom technique (EFT), or “tapping,” is a therapy thought to help release negative emotions like stress or anxiety. Sometimes called psychological acupuncture, it involves quickly tapping various energy pathways around the body to rewire neural pathways in the brain, helping you to see a situation in a more positive light. One Korean university study found it was a useful tool to combat insomnia in older people.12
You can learn the technique from a therapist or in a class, but a simple exercise you can use in bed if you’re feeling stressed is to tap with two or three fingers on the “karate chop point” of your hand — the fleshy spot just below the little finger. Focus on what you feel anxious about as you tap, and it could help you change your perspective on what’s worrying you and calm you to sleep.
54 ✦ Use positive bedtime affirmations
“I fall asleep so easily . . . there’s nothing to it!” Using positive statements (affirmations) like this could help you change any self-sabotaging thoughts you have about sleep.
Our minds are constantly influenced by what people say to us. For example, if someone says “You look tired,” you may begin to feel that way even if you felt wide awake until that moment. In the same way, we can influence our minds to approach sleep positively — to see it as something natural and attainable, and not something to worry about not getting enough of — by telling ourselves optimistic, encouraging things about it. Our brains form new neural connections all the time. By regularly repeating positive affirmations about sleep, we can create new pathways in the brain, reprogramming our minds to feel differently about it. It’s called neuroplasticity: the ability of the brain to change and adapt.
There are just a couple of rules about using affirmations: they need to be in the present tense and can’t contain negative words like “can’t” or “won’t.”
Try addressing statements to yourself like the ones below as you do your nighttime routine. Look at yourself in the mirror as you say them out loud, or just run them through your mind if you don’t want to look too loopy:
“I can easily fall asleep gently and peacefully.”
“I like going into my bedroom. It’s such a lovely place of calm and relaxation.”
“I drift off to sleep easily and stay peaceful throughout the night.”
Repeat the affirmations every night and several times through the day to keep convincing your mind what a superb sleeper you are.
55 ✦ In bed, be in the moment
Mindfulness meditation can be a great tool to help you sleep. It involves shifting your brain away from “doing” mode (worrying, contemplating, analyzing, problem solving . . . all things that can stop you from sleeping) to “being” mode — simply being in the present, usually by focusing on your breathing. The aim is not to make your worrying thoughts simply stop, but rather to observe those thoughts, acknowledge them, and then allow them to pass without acting or dwelling on them.
In a randomized control trial at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, adults with chronic insomnia who tried the practice for eight weeks slept better.13
Try it yourself, like this:
You can learn how to do mindfulness meditation via apps, or take a mindfulness class online or in your area.
56 ✦ See thoughts as passing clouds
It can also be helpful to imagine any anxious thoughts that come into your head as passing clouds, drifting across the sky. This helps you see those thoughts as any observer would see them, separate from you. Imagine you’re lying in a warm field, on a picnic blanket in the grass. You’re comfortable and sleepy and there’s a warm breeze gently fanning you, a scent of flowers, and the distant hum of bees. It’s a beautiful sunny day, with a few clouds in a blue sky.
As a thought enters your mind, give it a name — worry, sadness, anxiety, fear — and place it in a fluffy white cloud. As it passes across the sky you can choose to linger on it, or you can simply observe the thought, acknowledge it, and let it drift by and dissipate.
This practice helps you realize you can choose how to react to unhelpful thoughts: engage with them or let them pass.
57 ✦ Keep a calming note card by your bed
Therapists often advise people prone to anxiety or panic attacks to keep coping or calming note cards on them to pull out whenever they feel overwhelmed. Similarly, if you often wake at night feeling panic, or experience anxiety when you’re lying in bed trying to drop off, it can be handy to write out and keep a calming card on your bedside table. Use an index card or similar. Write on it reassuring, true information with the aim of replacing the anxious feelings you may be having with more relaxed and balanced thoughts.
If you’re prone to panic attacks, statements you may want to write on the cards could include “This is uncomfortable but I am safe and the feelings will pass,” “I have been through this before and I have survived,” “I can get through this.” If you’re prone to anxious thoughts, try using statements like “These are just thoughts, not realities,” and “Worrying doesn’t help.”
Keep the statements short so you can perhaps repeat them like a mantra when you reach for the card in the night. If possible, read them out loud (again, if there’s someone in bed with you this may not be practical!) and remember to breathe deeply and slowly.
58 ✦ Get an earful of Nature
Listening to familiar natural sounds, such as the wind in the trees or rainfall, can help alter connections in our brains and switch our minds and bodies from fight-or-flight mode to rest-and-digest mode, a sign of relaxation.
Researchers from Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK rounded up a group of volunteers and played them sounds recorded from either natural or artificial environments while measuring their brain and nervous-system activity. They found that when the volunteers listened to the natural sounds in a state of stress, their bodies relaxed and their brains veered away from inward-focused thinking, which is associated with stress, anxiety and depression.14
There are plenty of apps and downloads of nature sounds that could help your mind wander off and send you to sleep. You can choose to be serenaded by everything from frogs at nighttime to a rolling thunderstorm or calming tropical rain. Just search the Internet for “sounds from nature relaxing apps” or similar.
59 ✦ Touch your forehead to feel less stressed
You’ve probably used kinesiology’s emotional-stress-release technique without realizing it, when you’ve been worried, anxious or trying to solve a problem. It involves touching two points on your forehead, about halfway between your eyebrows and your hairline, where you may feel obvious bumps. It’s the classic “I’m thinking” pose. But it also has a calming effect.
Try it. Using the tips of your fingers to touch these points, let the palms of your hands rest lightly on your closed eyes and your cheeks. The touch is thought to help attract blood to the frontal lobe area of your brain, responsible for reasoning and problem solving. It’s also a part of the brain that’s activated during meditation.
As you touch the points on your forehead, think about the issue that’s causing you stress. Think of it in as much detail as you can, engaging all your senses if possible. What can you hear, see, taste, feel, and smell? Breathe deeply. After a while you may find your mind wandering and feel less agitated about the problem — and you may even have come up with a solution. Even if the problem is still there, though, you may perceive it differently and so it will cause you less stress.
60 ✦ Cool your brow
To get to sleep, our brains need to settle down and be calm.
Brain-imaging scans have shown that insomniacs often have a lot going on in the frontal cortex region of the brain — responsible for a racing mind, worry, and mental chatter, which makes it difficult to drop off and enjoy deep sleep. Remarkably, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that cooling this part of the brain can reduce metabolic activity there.15 They gave insomniacs a cooling cap to wear that made them fall asleep sooner than those in the study who had no sleep problems. They also slept for 89 percent of the time they were in bed — the same amount as the normal sleepers.
If you find it hard to shut off your mind, try using a cold flannel compress on your forehead to see if you can put your thoughts on ice — and sleep better as a result.
61 ✦ Time to sack your sleep tracker?
Tracking your sleep using a wearable device has become de rigueur for some, but a study published in 2017 has warned it could actually make your slumber suffer.16 The researchers discovered a new sleep disorder linked to sleep tracking that they’ve named “orthosomnia” — an obsession with getting correct sleep. And it’s causing even normally good sleepers to be so preoccupied with tracking their z’s and achieving the perfect eight hours that it causes them anxiety and — you’ve guessed it — sleepless nights.
A few things to bear in mind. If you’re already anxious about not getting to sleep and you feel that your tracker is exacerbating the angst, get rid of it. Plus, if you wake in the night and are obsessively checking the tracker, then worrying about the readings and subsequently lying awake, stressing . . . again, throw it away! Also worth noting is that the claims of some of these devices often outweigh the science to support them — so the readings aren’t always a completely accurate representation of how you’ve slept. If your tracker says you slept badly but you feel refreshed and energized, listen to your body rather than to the stats.
On a more positive note, trackers can be handy for those insomniacs who think they sleep far less than they do. And apparently there are lots of us. A study review published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy suggests that around a third of those who complained of insomnia didn’t have particularly poor sleep when it was measured by actigraph (a device used to monitor sleep and track wakefulness).17 Having insomnia identity, though, makes these people wake up fatigued, anxious, and depressed — as though they really do suffer terrible sleep. Another study found that showing insomniacs data from an actigraph, revealing that they had slept better than they thought, meant they felt less anxious and preoccupied with sleep the following night.18
Less anxiety means better sleep — so your tracker could be a sleep booster rather than a sleep stealer if it helps you in this way. You decide.
62 ✦ Accept your sleeplessness
Have you ever been ensnared by one of those tricky Chinese finger traps? The more you try to pull your fingers apart and wrestle your way out of it, the tighter the bamboo webbing constricts around your fingers. But what happens if you do the opposite to what your instincts tell you? That is, give up the fight with the trap by gently relaxing your fingers, bringing them together rather than trying to prise them apart — and it’s easier to break free.
It’s the same with insomnia. Battle against it, and you’ll experience not only the unpleasantness of being awake but yet nastier sensations like anger, frustration, or panic, which will make sleep extra elusive. Accept it, make peace with it, and stop struggling, however, and — paradoxically — you’re more likely to win the contest and consequently get better sleep. More and more sleep therapists are encouraging “insomnia acceptance” among patients as a way of overcoming their sleep problems. This involves relaxing into your sleeplessness, not railing against it, and replacing your negative reactions (the panic, worry, anger, and frustration) with positive ones.
Try remembering the following pointers if you can’t get to sleep:
Accept your sleeplessness, and you’ll come to realize that much of the unpleasantness you associate with not sleeping is generated by your frustration and anger as you rail against it. In other words, it’s not being awake that’s the biggest problem: it’s your emotional responses to being awake that exacerbate your insomnia.
As your negative emotions about not sleeping subside, your stress response should switch off and you may well find yourself nodding off, too.
63 ✦ Be guided by imagery
Guided imagery is a relaxation technique designed to create a calm environment in your mind. It does this by helping you summon up mental images that evoke a sense of tranquility, well-being, and relaxation along with instilling perceptions of comfort, perfect warmth, and being in a safe and peaceful place.
In one hospital study 80 percent of patients who listened to an audio recording of guided imagery focusing on pain reduction, easing anxiety, and promoting sleep said that it helped in some way.19 You can download recordings or apps of guided imagery that can help transport you to anything from a powder-white tropical beach to a peaceful English meadow, to watching stars appear in the night sky or even swimming with dolphins. Or you might want to imagine yourself lying in a canoe on a calm lake, looking up at a clear blue sky; or snuggled in a black velvet hammock in a completely dark room. Both are techniques that were reportedly used by the US military in World War II to help aviators fall asleep fast!
64 ✦ Cultivate a beginner’s mind—see every night as new
“Beginner’s mind,” or shoshin, is a way of thinking that comes from Zen Buddhism. It encourages you to look at things as if seeing and experiencing them for the first time, free from any preconceptions or baggage. It’s a way of thinking that’s not burdened by experience and one that’s ready to learn afresh. It’s the opposite of “expert mind,” which we adopt when we’ve done something often enough to believe that we don’t need to question how we do it. We do it automatically, believing that it’s the right — or only — way to do it.
Some psychologists say that many insomniacs have adopted an expert mind as regards their way of trying to sleep. They have come to believe that their body simply doesn’t know how to sleep well and that it’s something they are cursed with. They may believe the only thing that can help them is sleeping pills or other crutches such as alcohol, and that there’s no point in trying something new. Mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia often uses the concept of beginner’s mind to attempt to challenge poor sleepers’ assumptions about sleep and to get them to see they can start all over again and sleep well.
It works like this:
First, go to bed every night with a beginner’s mind — in other words, an open mind. See each night as completely new and unique, and disregard any thoughts about how it’s going to pan out compared to other nights. Try telling yourself, “This is a new night. It doesn’t matter what happened last night and there’s no point in worrying about what I need to do tomorrow. I will approach this night with a fresh mind as to what will happen, not with dread.”
Try to abandon your preconceived ideas about sleep — “My body can’t sleep well,” “I’m going to feel terrible tomorrow,” “The health consequences for me will be awful” — and to start afresh with a new approach: one that includes the fact that everyone can (and does) sleep and that your body has the ability to do it if you let it. Try telling yourself, “My body and mind can sleep well if I let them. I trust that they can do this naturally. It’s not helpful to worry and feel anxious. My body and mind want to help me. It doesn’t matter if I don’t get seven or eight hours. Rest is important to me so I will enjoy this relaxation. I will trust my own ability to let go and get to sleep.” Then it’s a case of opening your mind to the here and now: no past worries about not being able to sleep, and no future worries about being tired tomorrow. Lie in bed comfortably, mindful of the sensations you feel: your heartbeat and breathing, the air filling your nose, how each part of your body feels from head to toe.
You can cultivate a beginner’s mind in other ways, with some simple mindfulness exercises such as taking an everyday object and looking at it as if you’ve never seen it before. Many mindfulness teachers suggest choosing a raisin as an example — look, touch, smell, and taste it as if it’s completely new to you.
Try walking around your town and looking up from time to time — you’ll probably see some amazing architecture you’ve never noticed before. Or take up a new hobby or learn a new skill. Testing out new ways of using your beginner’s mind could lead you to look at your sleep in a new way.
65 ✦ Give your mind a pleasurable task
Various sleep studies have found that “cognitive distraction” — diverting your mind from worrying to pleasant thoughts — can help you get better sleep.20 One interesting way to do this is to give your mind an enjoyable but not too taxing task to do as you lie in bed. Maybe imagine how you’d decorate a room in your house, how you’d landscape your garden if you have one, or how you’d make the shed into a game room. Imagine the colors and tones of the paint you’d use, the feel and texture of the fabrics, the colors and scents of flowers and foliage.
The scene needs to be compelling enough to take your mind off worry, but not so exciting that it keeps you awake.
66 ✦ Talk about yourself
If worries are stopping you from nodding off, then talking about yourself, out loud or in your head, may be effective. But it has to be in the third person.
Researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan carried out studies showing individuals upsetting photographs and asking others to recall painful experiences.21
The participants’ brain activity was measured after this unpleasant exposure, and, in both cases, when they referred to themselves in the third person using their names rather than the first person “I,” emotional brain activity quickly decreased. The researchers surmised that talking about yourself as “he” or “she” helps you think about yourself more like you think about others, permitting you to gain a little psychological distance from what’s worrying or distressing you. And that can help you regulate your emotions and see things more clearly and calmly.
So, for example, I might say to myself, “Kim is really worried she’s going to botch the presentation at work tomorrow.” Or “Kim is feeling really fed up because she knows she won’t get to sleep for hours.” When I talk like this I’m more likely to be able to analyze my emotions better, and with less bias. I can see my worries from a different perspective — in a more measured way. All of which could contribute to calming me and making me see that I may be overreacting, overruminating and overworrying.
67 ✦ Hypnotize yourself to sleep
Look into my eyes. Now watch my swinging pocket watch. You are feeling sleepy . . .
Forget the mysterious, old-fashioned quackery impression of hypnotism you may have gleaned from watching too many old Hollywood films. It’s moved on since the dark old days. Now there are hypnotherapy apps and YouTube videos to watch that could help you set the stage for a great night’s slumber.
Sleep hypnosis encourages you to concentrate on someone speaking specific soothing verbal cues, and it can draw you away from any anxieties that may stop you from sleeping, relax your mind and body, and ease you into a trance-like state, or even into a deeper, slow-wave sleep (SWS) — the sort that’s really restorative — helping repair your immune system and consolidate memories.
In a study published in the scientific journal Sleep, researchers from two German universities asked women to listen to two thirteen-minute recordings on two occasions before going to sleep.22 One was a tape containing hypnotic suggestions to “sleep deeper,” using the metaphor of a fish swimming deeper and deeper into water. The other — control — tape was a documentary on mineral deposits.
Brain-wave activity was measured, and it was found that when the women listened to the hypnosis tape they enjoyed 81 percent more deep, slow-wave sleep and spent 67 percent less time awake than when they’d listened to the other, neutral, tape.