Hope everyone out there is doing OK. We are all still healthy (aside from heightened stress about the election and other related nightmares, which I do not want to discuss here, thank you very much!).
Some of you might remember that I have always battled insomnia. Well, a few months ago I started a new nighttime routine. It consists of one breathing exercise and three thought exercises. Here's what I do as soon as I get into bed:
1. Do my 4-7-8 breathing. This is not new to me, but I had not been doing it faithfully at bedtime. I learned this technique from Dr. Andrew Weil (remember I edited his book a few years back?). It's basically inhale for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 7, and exhale for a count of 8, but you can learn the proper way to do it in this short video. I do it 4 times, and once in a while I really do fall asleep right away! I also sometimes do it in the middle of the night if I've woken up and can't get back to sleep because my brain is racing, and it's the most remarkable thing! I can sense all those intrusive thoughts just popping like soap bubbles. Dr. Weil recommends it any time you're feeling anxious, too. I think it's a bit of a miracle, frankly, and hope you will give it a try.
After that, I do three little thought exercises about my day—if I haven't already fallen asleep, that is! I don't always get to them all, but that's OK. It's all supposed to be comforting, so I don't fret if I don't do them.
2. Think of something good that happened to me today. Sometimes this is easy-peasy, like I got a really cool work assignment that I'm excited about, or I heard from an old friend. But sometimes I can't think of anything at all, and then I start wondering if I'm being a little too picky about my wording. Does it have to be something that "happened" to me, or can it be something that I actually made happen? Like, does it count if I tried a new recipe that turned out great? I say yes. I also wonder if I can include something good that didn't happen specifically to me, but happened to someone in my family or to the world. Again, I have ruled that yes, I can. (You can see that it's not easy being inside my brain! Very rulesy-rulesy in there.)
3. Think of a good deed that I did today. Again, there are days when this is easy (I donated to Jaime Harrison's campaign! I recommended a colleague to one of my clients and they got hired!) and other days when I can't think of a darn thing. This is especially true during this pandemic, because I am not doing my usual volunteer gigs at various food pantries and other activities like that. So sometimes it feels like the best thing I can say is that I did a favor for a friend or family member, even though that doesn't really feel like it warrants the "good deed" status. But I keep trying, and I think it makes me look out for good deeds I can do during the day just so I'll have something for this category that night!
4. Think of three things I'm grateful for today. Now, this doesn't have to be "my health, my family, and my home" every night. Sometimes it is, if I'm particularly feeling it, but often it's more like "bacon, my cats, and 'Smoke in Their Lights' by the Avett Brothers." Whatever occurs to me first, that's what it is. And sometimes it is indeed a big deal, like "I'm grateful Andy's cataract surgery went well" (more on this below*), but plenty of times it's just mundane stuff that is worth expressing gratitude for.
Anyhow, I have been sleeping mostly pretty well, although once in a while I have a terrible night and have no idea why (other times I'm obviously worrying or stewing over something in particular). I go to bed between 9 and 10pm and wake up between 6 and 7am. I rarely sleep straight through the night, but most nights I can fall back to sleep eventually. That used to be my trouble spot—tossing and turning for hours in the middle of the night—but that hasn't been happening as much lately, which is another thing I can add to my grateful list!
When I do wake up, I try the 4-7-8 breathing and then, if I'm still up, I start alphabetizing things. I have been doing it for too long, though, even with adding numbers to my categories, and it's more like a recitation, but sometimes it's boring enough to knock me out.
*As you might recall, when Andy's retina detached (all the way back on Christmas Eve, if you can believe it!), we were told that the surgery to repair it would cause a cataract to grow really fast. And it did. In fact, it grew so fast that by the time his retina had healed, the cataract was already pretty thick, so he never really got a chance to determine whether he could see again! (We had also been told that his vision would never be as good as it was before the retina detached.) He really has been seeing only lights and colors and vague shapes out of that eye for all these months. So he had the cataract surgery last week, and it went well. He is still waiting to see if he will regain more of his vision—he hopes so, because he said if this is as good as it's going to get, he'll be really discouraged. He can see a little more than he could before the cataract surgery, but it's still pretty bad.
Thanks for the helpful strategies. They could come in handy on the occasional sleepless night, or more likely the many times I feel anxious during the day. (I'm usually out like a light after reading for just a few minutes at bedtime.) I hope Andy gets some further improvement in that eye. He has certainly been toughing this out for a long time.
Posted by: Elena | October 14, 2020 at 11:24 PM
Please do watch the 4-7-8 video and then give it a try! He recommends it specifically for anxiety.
Posted by: Karen | October 15, 2020 at 07:43 AM