Some nights I find myself tossing and turning and just can’t turn off my brain. Some nights an anxious chest fluttering will helpfully pop out of nowhere jussssst before bed. Other nights I fall into a deep sleep just fine before waking up perky and refreshed at 2:27am.
I fell asleep when I was tired. I woke up when I wasn’t. I kept moving. Honestly, what’s the big deal? I agreed with the philosophy of Wait But Why author Tim Urban who said on 3 Books: “Sleep is boring. Being awake is fun.”
My point is on top of lack of sleep we’re carrying around anxiety about lack of sleep.
The other day I looked back in my journals and realized that I have gone through bouts of low sleep for pretty much forever. It’s the reason I posted 1000 blog posts at 12:01am for 1000 weekdays in a row. In the years after my divorce this practice was originally a sleep aid, too.
And it did help.
But what about now?
Well, after looking back in my journals I also realized I have devised a series of tiny sleep tools, practices, and habits that help me get to sleep during periods of low sleep. (Note I don’t want to call it “poor sleep” or “bad sleep” and be judgmental about it. I think only you know how much sleep you really need and what works for you.)
But whenever I’m in a period of low sleep relative to what I want to be getting I try one of these.
Here are seven ways to calm your mind and sleep better:
7. Read something written over 1000 years ago. Our entire lives are shorter than a flash of lightning on a December night in the long year of eternity. I find it helps me get out of my own head to connect with a voice speaking to me from long, long ago. There is a helpful perspective in recognizing that your present reality isn’t the be all or end all ... of anything. Others have wrestled and processed similar issues many, many times before. Some may find comfort in the Bible, Quran, or Vedas. For me my go-to bedside table books are On The Shortness of Life by Seneca, Letters from a Stoic also by Seneca, and The Art of Living by Epictetus. Lately I’ve also been enjoying The Essential Rumi which is a measly 700 years old but we can say it still counts.
6. Clean up your Bedside Window. What’s your Bedside Window? Everything you can see from your bed that’s messy. For me that's my bedside table and dresser. What happens? Well, without regular pruning, my bedside table can quickly look like a library threw up. Tipsy piles of books, homemade bookmarks from my kids, pens and cue cards everywhere. And my dresser somehow becomes an empty chest of drawers underneath a sloppy pile of clothes. My sleep is a lot better when I take five minutes to straighten, tidy, and clean up my Bedside Window.
5. Perform an intense 1 minute workout. Does your body shift into a sort of low-grade state of slow-moving, stomach-bubbling lethargy before bed? That happens to me. The energy dial goes from a 10 during the day to a 7 at dinner to a 5 when I’m putting my kids to bed to a 3 when I’m brushing my teeth. So what’s the problem? It gets stuck at 3. It never gets to a 0. How do I twist the knob all the way down? An intense one-minute workout. Even the name makes it sound doable. It’s just one minute! Imagine you’re a car with a few tiny fumes of gas left in the tank. Want to go to bed on a slow cruise full of big turns and quiet idling? No, you need to run out of gas to come to a full and complete stop. How? By hitting the gas. Here are three 1-minute workouts to hit the gas and putter out before bed:
i) jumping jacks x 10, pushups x 10, jumping jacks x 10, pushups x 10
ii) squats x 10, lunges x 10, squats x 10, lunges x 10
iii), triceps x 10 (hang off a chair by your elbows and lift ), crunches x 10, triceps x 10, crunches x 10
(PS. For bonus points, roll a few stressed out muscles on a lacrosse ball when you’re done.)
4. Hang a perspective-setting image near your bed. Have you heard the story of Jerry Seinfeld hanging a Hubble telescope photo of distant galaxies up on the writing room wall during Seinfeld. Why? Because it helped destress the place. Who can stay fritzed out wording a black and white cookie joke when you know what? In the grandest scheme of things: You don’t matter. When discussing the famous image of the pale blue dot Carl Sagan said “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.” (longer quote here) A big image that grounds and centers you can help you zoom out of today and focus on something bigger. Right now Leslie and I have an image of our hands holding to remind us we always have each other. Is it a photo of a grandparent who believed deeply in you and gives you strength in yourself? A picture of your favorite place to watch the sunset? Or one of your child laughing to remind you of what matters?
3. Pick bedtime novels based on pacing: Years ago my friend Shiv told me she read one David Sedaris essay before bed every night. I remember thinking that was strange. But then I tried it. His words really do have the perfect pacing to lull me to sleep. We don’t talk about pacing in books enough but I think it’s the most important factor in a before bed book. A slow-paced book calms down a fast-paced life. Here are ten books I’ve found to be perfectly paced before bed:
2. Buy a really expensive pillow that fills with water or braided horse hair or something. I’m kidding. Don’t do this. Everyone says you should and I’ve fallen into this trap a few times. At first I’m excited. “My sleep savior has arrived!” or “I have finally found the ultimate sleep hack!” But two nights later I’m tossing and turning. Same with fancy eye masks, creams, or anything that promises quick results. If you want it dark, sure, go ahead, buy a cheap mask from a dollar store. But don’t pour money into fancy pillows, masks, or other hacky tricks that don’t work on the underlying issue of calming down or relaxing your mind. That’s what we’re really aiming for here. I need to repeat #2 so this one doesn’t count.
2. Make a Brain Billboard. Be honest with yourself and ask what deep seeded fear is taking hold in your brain stem and rattling you awake whenever you are mildly conscious. I mean the really deep thing. Are you paranoid about money? Love? Connection? We all have fears. They aren’t necessarily rational or logical or even real when we wake up the next day. But they can grab you at night when you’re in your weaker, lower resilience moments and claw at your mind. What’s the solution? Make a little Brain Billboard that addresses the fear directly. Write it like a loving note from your wiser self. Take a cue card, fold it in half, write down the ‘billboard’ to address your fear, and place it on your bedside table. That way it’s the last thing you see before bed and the first thing you see in the morning. So, for example, if you have a fear of money make something like that:
1. Do Two-Minute Mornings or AhhLife. I normally start my day by filling out the three simple prompts in Two-Minute Mornings: “I will let go of…”, “I am grateful for…”, and “I will focus on…” But my wife Leslie has always done it at night. Why? Well, in two minutes before bed she extricates a fear, focuses her mind on positives, and write a focus for tomorrow. Does it need to be Two-Minute Mornings specifically? Of course not. In this video I share how I surround myself with journaling opportunities to pick away at the mental plaque that builds over the day. One of the best is the free email journaling service Ahhlife.com. You get to set the date and frequency you want your email journaling prompt to arrive so I set mine for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights at 9pm. Why? Well, because if I’m awake when I get the email it doubles as a go-to-bed reminder. And, if I’m awake and overthinking something I just reply to the email and journal out the plaque. What anger am I feeling? What frustration feels overwhelming? What happened that set me off? It doesn’t need to make sense. It doesn’t need to be rational or any kind of fine prose because it will never be displayed in the Library of Letters erected in your honor after you die. Nobody will read it! It’s just a place to put the thing that may be keeping you up so that it isn’t simmering inside you when you hit the pillow.
