Tossing and turning in bed, wide awake, is a terrible feeling. On a sleepless night, every second passes painfully slowly, every problem seems three times bigger than it did during the day. This helps me when I can’t sleep.
I can fall asleep really well. I am an absolute day person and am usually tired so early in the evening that my eyes close after just a few pages when I read in bed. My problem is waking up at night. I always do that anyway, usually consciously at least three times, and more often on worse nights. To me it is an absurd idea that people sleep through the night. If I only consciously woke up twice, I would say it was a really good night. It only becomes difficult when I lie down again and realize: It won’t work anymore.
My brain is fully there as soon as I wake up. When people say that they wake up and then don’t know exactly where they are, I think: crazy. When I wake up, I could list in a tenth of a second what I ate the day before, what appointments I had the next day and what grade I got in my English Abitur. My brain just won’t switch off. Which unfortunately regularly means that I can’t go back to sleep once I’ve woken up.
Why do all problems seem so much bigger at night?
The problem, and this may even be familiar to people who usually sleep well, is that at night everything seems ten times worse than it actually is. If I ruminate about a difficult situation or challenge during the day, it stresses me out. But with a few breathing exercises and rational classification of negative thoughts, I can usually cope with it. But at night none of this helps. My years of yoga and meditation practice? My brain can only laugh tiredly at this when it gets bogged down in unrealistic scenarios at 3 a.m. or circles at breakneck speed about long-ago conflicts with people who haven’t been in my life for years.
And here comes my bad news: Unfortunately, I don’t have a solution for how to quickly fall asleep again once your brain is in rumination mode. But what helps me when I realize that today is one of those nights again is: acceptance. I now know that if I can’t fall asleep anymore, I can’t change it. As much as I want it, once my thoughts start wandering around, I won’t be able to sleep anymore. I simply have no influence on that.
A new perspective on the sleepless night
What I can certainly influence is how I deal with a sleepless night. In the past, I immediately went into the panic that arises at a moment like this: “I’ll definitely be completely exhausted tomorrow, I’ll definitely miss the important appointment. And then I have an appointment in the evening – how am I supposed to manage that?” Or like: “Too little sleep is so bad for your health, I’ll definitely get sick now because my immune system is weakened.”
I somehow felt that this wasn’t helping me and would generally only make the situation worse – but I still couldn’t manage to calm down these panicked thoughts. And even though it still happens very often today – especially in difficult times – that I lie awake at night, with a different perspective on the situation I at least manage to not make the whole thing worse. Baby Steps.
Anything but acceptance makes the situation worse
So instead of immediately letting the thought circles become even bigger and more dramatic, I usually get up relatively quickly when I notice that I’m really awake. I try to say to myself: “It’s stupid that I can’t sleep anymore, but it’s not the end of the world. I’ll get through tomorrow even if I’m tired, and otherwise I’ll postpone what’s possible.”
I then go over to the living room and make myself comfortable on the sofa with a hot water bottle. Depending on my mood, I’ll read a bit (cheers to e-readers with backlighting!) or watch something really cozy on TV, like a nice YouTube travel video or an episode of “Gilmore Girls” that I can already recite by heart. But my current favorite is “The Dream Ship”. The way the crew and guests sail across the ocean, look at beautiful corners of the world and play out absolutely unrealistic and absurd plots has an incredibly calming effect on me.
Instead of driving myself crazy about how bad it is that I’m not getting enough sleep, I try to be happy about the time I’ve gained. This means I can lie comfortably on the sofa for a few more hours and watch or read something that relaxes, interests or makes me happy. Sure: sleeping would be better, but if that’s not an option, I can at least make the best of it. Because the more I get annoyed about not being able to sleep, the worse I make the situation – and it definitely won’t help me get back to sleep.
And sometimes, when I follow the little dramas of the “dream ship” crew on a paradise island, I can even doze off for half an hour. But if not, that’s okay too.