When You Just Can’t Sleep…Go with It.

Sometimes you just can’t sleep. Genuinely, honest to goodness, flat out cannot sleep. All the hints, tips, tricks and special techniques are useless in these moments. It’s simply no good.

You’ve stopped eating at 7:00 pm, turned the TV and devices off early, adjusted the thermostat a degree or two cooler, taken a relaxing bath or shower, sprayed lavender scent on your pillows, started a soothing nature audio on your sound machine, put on your comfy cotton jammies and your sleeping mask and climbed into bed…

…and still you lie there awake for unending minutes, hours, days, weeks, years.

Okay, maybe all that was a bit of an exaggeration. That sure is how it feels when you can’t drop off to sleep though, isn’t it?

If you’ve spent any time on the Sleep Satisfaction website or reading this blog, you know we don’t give up on sleep easily. We are all about:

• Sussing out the reasons why you’re having trouble sleeping
• Tweaking your routines or habits to encourage good sleep
• Finding effective aids to sleep, including Rx and OTC medicines, calming and relaxation techniques and enhancing your bedtime comfort level

It’s not working!
Unfortunately, there are those times when nothing works and you find yourself lying awake, nowhere near falling asleep. It can feel excruciating.

I must admit I have been experiencing this recently. Normally, I’m pretty good at fine-tuning things when I find I’m not falling asleep easily. I can usually turn on a fan, or read a few minutes, or even listen to or watch something on my phone (gasp…I know, I know). It doesn’t take long, and I’m out.

I’ve been going through something tough in recent weeks, and it’s been consuming my thoughts, even through the night. No, it’s not the pandemic, or the uncertain economy, or the social unrest sweeping across the world in the wake of a man’s horrible death in Minneapolis. No, it isn’t about any of that, although all those things layering on top of each other certainly don’t help.

What I’ve found when my stress consumes me when I should be asleep is that lying in bed, trying to fall asleep doesn’t work. Worse than that, it aggravates my problem.

As I lie there, stewing over my situation – mind spinning, muscles tightening, gut cramping – my problem doesn’t get solved. I’m not able to come up with any constructive solutions when I’m in that tense, overtired state.

“Go with it?” What do you mean?
When I say, “go with it” I’m talking about not fighting it. I mean accepting that I’m not going to fall asleep right away, and instead of just lying there waiting, I get out of bed and go do something. Just the act of getting up and moving my body seems to alleviate some of the physical stress, and that’s a start.

In the middle of the night, it can be tough to convince yourself to “give up” and get out of bed. I often do lie there in hopes that I’ll finally get tired enough and fall asleep. Sometimes that works. Sometimes not. When it doesn’t, getting up helps me feel less helpless and frustrated.

One of the frustrations I’ve been having with my own recent situation is that in dealing with my stressful circumstances – providing assistance to someone else in need – I don’t have time to complete my own work and personal responsibilities. Twenty-four hours simply isn’t enough time.

So when I truly can’t sleep, getting up and working on some of the things that have necessarily been pushed aside or fallen to the bottom of the priority list has helped me keep from falling even further behind, and even catching up on some things. Now, I certainly wouldn’t recommend staying up just to do things that don’t absolutely have to be done right then, but if I’m up anyway…I’ve found that it helps relieve some pressure to “go with it” and get some of it worked on.

In those middle-of-the-night hours I’ve done laundry, made grocery lists and put together online orders, and done some light cleaning. I’ve caught up on email, both work and personal, plugged away at work projects, and researched additional solutions and resources for my person in need.

Every little thing I can cross off my to-do list is that much less stress I feel. And every little bit of stress I can eliminate, the more likely I’ll feel myself getting sleepy again and consider climbing back into bed to try again.

Another Tool in Your Toolbelt
Getting out of bed and doing something productive may best be considered a last resort. It isn’t that you regularly stay up all night trying to catch up. It isn’t forcing yourself to stay awake to knock things off your list of must-dos.

It’s making the most of time you have only because you’re not already asleep. It’s relieving yourself of the increasing stress of lying awake, watching the time until your alarm goes off dwindling. It’s staying up and getting things done only until you start feeling like you could conceivably, possibly, maybe fall asleep.

Then you get your exhausted patootie back into bed and give it another try.

What have you got to lose?

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Tips to Remember:

Choose something boring to do; something that won’t stimulate or stress you out.

Watching TV or listening to music is great but do it only until you’re feeling sleepy. If you let yourself fall asleep in your chair or sitting up on the couch, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

If you do get up for awhile, try not to make up for it with a long daytime nap. Little power naps may be okay, but you don’t want to set up the cycle of ruining your next night’s sleep with too much napping.

Don’t make this a habit! This is just for those nights when you happen to have trouble sleeping.