Image: BBB by Manoloa Gamboa Naon, May 2018
Lately I’ve been getting more serious about sleeping. I find that sleep is a major determinant of the quality of my day, particularly my emotions. My reservoir of emotional capacity to deal with whatever is happening is massively deepened by a full nights sleep. Sometimes I feel depressed, bitter and hopeless, and then I realize that I’m just tired. If I’m sleep deprived, small setbacks and disruptions can shred my mental state. I become more reactive and much less thoughtful or skillful in dealing with whatever is going on. So I’ve gotten more serious about sleep, and make sure that I get eight hours every night, if not slightly more. It’s a struggle because as someone who works 9 to 5 or more at my salaried job, the night times after the kids go to bed are my small slice of unstructured, unspoken-for time. Giving that up to sleep feels hard, but I realize that sleep has a multiplicative effect for me. If I don’t do it I am facing the next 16 hours of trashed brain and crappy emotions, whereas if I skip the extra hour of whatever night time activity, I’ll be in a much better place.
A few things I like that help me sleep.
1) Going to bed before my bed time. My current bed time is 10:45 PM so I can get up at 6:45 and get the kids to school. If I go to bed at 10:45 and I’m not perfectly tired, I get anxious about any time spent lying awake and thinking, which cuts into my sleep time. This in itself is a self fulfilling prophecy and can spiral out of control. By going to bed a little extra early I can lie comfortably in bed and enjoy this ‘extra’ slightly luxurious time in bed. Importantly, I don’t try to particularly control my thoughts or ‘try’ to go to sleep. I actually relax and just enjoy lying down. This puts me in a super cozy mood and usually I drop off quickly. Easier said than done, but it’s a good one when it works.
2) Reading Fiction. Reading fiction helps me to think about imaginary problems instead of my own, which is great. Instead of mulling over whatever I’m currently working on, obsessing over, or trying to solve, I can think about someone else’s made up problems, which are usually clear cut and solvable. Having a long list of solvable problems, by the way, is I think why people like video games. I once had a student of mine tell me that he liked filling in various name and address fields on forms because he knew he could do it right and definitely give all the correct answers. I find reading non-fiction is less helpful because it might get me too much into thinking about ‘real’ things. My problem is maintaining a supply of good fiction books that I like (which is a dumb problem in this world, but there you go).
3) A Cold Room. I don’t do this all the time but sometimes in winter I like to open the windows and get the room really cold once I’m under the covers. I think there’s some metabolic good to this but I just find it cozy and pleasant. I don’t do it all the time but it’s kind of nice.
4) A hot bath. Again, I don’t do it all the time but when I have time and the patience, it’s great. Super hot, not too long, then into bed. It’s super relaxing.
I meditate pretty regularly in the mornings, when I’m taking care of myself properly and I’ve heard some folks suggest meditating at night as well. Maybe I’ll try that and report back.
