One of the most helpful things you can do if you are living with chronic insomnia is
to go about your days as normally as possible and to pursue daytime activities that are
important to you — activities that bring meaning, enrichment, and joy to your life.
This can definitely feel harder after difficult nights of sleep, but canceling such activities
usually leads only to more worry about sleep, more sedentary behavior, heightened fatigue,
and a more difficult day.
Withdrawing from our usual daytime life can also disrupt the body clock, weaken sleep
drive, and make sleep more difficult.
One concern that is often raised by clients is that even when they pursue daytime activities
they would normally enjoy, after difficult nights they find that these activities are
just less enjoyable — that they feel as though they are going through the motions
and just forcing themselves to do these things.
That they still feel a lot of brain fog and fatigue even when doing things they used to
really enjoy.
If this sounds like you, stay tuned because this is what I am going to be talking about
in today’s video!
Hi, I'm Martin Reed.
If you have insomnia, I offer sleep coaching programs that will give you all the skills
and support you need to enjoy better sleep for the rest of your life.
You can learn more at insomniacoach.com
How we approach each day can have way more influence on our sleep that how we approach
each night — and what we do during the day (and what happens to us during the day) has
far more of an effect on how we feel during the day than how we slept on previous nights.
We can create significantly better conditions for sleep by getting out of bed and starting
our days at a consistent time in the morning.
We can strengthen our internal body clock by maintaining a daytime routine and being
active during the day.
We can sustain sleep drive by avoiding daytime naps and going to bed only when we feel truly
sleepy enough for sleep at night.
Here’s the real challenge though — often the brain screams at us to conserve energy
after difficult nights!
It tells us to cancel plans.
It tells us that we are incapable of doing things.
Most of us have learned to trust our brains — but if we listen to these thoughts, we
can perpetuate insomnia because we guarantee that a difficult night leads to a less pleasant
day.
We are less likely to do things that add pleasure and enrichment to our lives, and we can weaken
the body’s biological sleep systems.
Recognizing that thoughts are simply thoughts (they are not facts, they are not predictions,
they are not a reflection of who we are or what we are capable of — they are just thoughts)
and going about our day as normally as possible can be so helpful.
Often, if we give ourselves the opportunity to improve the quality of our days by doing
things we enjoy, we can be surprised by just how much control we have over the quality
of our days, independently of sleep.
We might also be surprised by just how capable we can be, even after difficult nights.
If we are able to recognize that how we sleep doesn’t completely dictate the quality of
our day, how we live our life, or what we are able to do, we might put less pressure
on ourselves to sleep at night — and this helps create better conditions for sleep.
For many people, doing things they enjoy — even after difficult nights — leads to some improvement
in the quality of the day and daytime mood.
It is possible, though, to find that our experience of activities — activities that once brought
us a lot of joy and enrichment — changes after difficult nights.
These activities might feel more difficult or less enjoyable.
Often, that’s down to our wandering mind.
Our brains are hard-wired to wander and to multitask but the problem is, the brain is
not very good at focusing on more than one thing at a time!
When our brain wanders, we can find it hard to concentrate on anything!
When we try to focus on just one thing, the mind constantly drifts — and when we have
insomnia it usually drifts to sleep-related thoughts and worries and ongoing monitoring
for the effects of a difficult night or a run of difficult nights.
It’s this drifting and our natural tendency to fight or suppress that drifting and those
sleep-related thoughts that can make it harder for us to focus on enjoyable activities — and
this can make them feel less enriching and enjoyable and it can create and maintain a
sense of brain fog and fatigue.
The good news, though, is that we can "rewire" the brain to focus on what we are doing at
the present moment by repeatedly recognizing when it has drifted, and bringing it back
to the present moment without judgement.
The aim here is not to feel great all the time (that’s impossible!).
It’s not to fight sleep-related thoughts or to avoid them.
And it is certainly not to stop the mind from wandering!
Instead, the goal is simply to notice when the mind wanders, to recognize that it has
wandered (which is OK!), and to gently guide it back to what you are doing at the present
moment.
At first, you might find yourself doing this dozens of times a minute!
With practice, though, it gets a lot easier to notice the mind drifting, to bring it back,
and to remain more focused on doing whatever activity is important to you.
Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind, though, is that even if doing activities
that once brought you more joy doesn’t feel quite as good after difficult nights of sleep,
that’s OK!
It’s OK because it’s impossible to feel good all the time — and it’s OK because
you are still pursuing activities that align with your values and you are still doing things
that are important to you and that add meaning, enrichment, and value to your life.
So I hope you found this short video helpful.
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I do try to share a new sleep snippet video every week.
If you have any questions, comments, feedback, or suggestions for a future video, please
leave a comment below or you can email me directly.
My email address is hello@insomniacoach.com.
Thanks for watching, and — as always — I'd like to leave you with this important reminder.
You can sleep!