Insomnia Tip: Get Out of Bed

by Sarah (March 20, 2008)

Most of the methods for getting over insomnia involve changing your habits around preparing for bed, caffeine consumption or the environment in which you sleep. These are important in the long run, but none of them help when you are caught in the middle of that inability to sleep and you can feel your anxiety rising progressively as you desperately try to force your body to sleep.It should be obvious why pushing so hard to sleep is completely counterproductive, but when you’re there, it’s very compelling to think that if you just try hard enough, you can win the battle and to feel like a failure for having to give up on something as simple as sleeping. Realistically, however, if you have been trying unsuccessfully to sleep for more than 30 minutes, you’re only going to make it worse if you keep doing the same thing.

Give up temporarily. Get out of bed. Try to do some breathing meditation or relaxation exercises, if you’re familiar with them (I offered some starter meditation tips back here), or get some manual work done (something that doesn’t take too long, like cleaning the bathroom or scrubbing the kitchen floor). Don’t get lost in thinking, since that was likely part of the problem in the first place. Give yourself 15 minutes or half an hour out of bed and go back with the slate wiped clean as though you’re trying for the first time. If another 30 minutes pass without sleeping, try it again.

Even if it takes quite a bit of time to fall asleep, you’re reducing the amount of mental energy you’re burning by trying so hard, and you don’t feel quite so exhausted by your attempts to relax.

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