Ask Out of the Rain: I can’t sleep!

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Dear Out of the Rain,

I’ve been having trouble sleeping since the pandemic hit. Do you have any suggestions?

-Sleepless in Coos County

Dear Sleepless,

Thank you for writing in! Trouble with sleep can come from a wide range of sources. Your question doesn’t leave me many details to work with, but what I can do is offer some more generalized advice. Feel free to write in again if this doesn’t do the trick or you’d like to give more detail so I can answer more specifically to your circumstances.

I’m going to skip over some of the more common tips such as avoiding caffeine/alcohol (especially a few hours before bed) or setting a consistent bed/wakeup time (although you all know how much I love scheduling!).

Here are a few changes you can make to help your life be a little more conducive to a good night’s rest.

Create a “zone of sleep”

Reserve your bed for sleep (and intimate activities) only. If you find yourself regularly working or scrolling TikTok in bed, you create a subconscious association between work or other mentally stimulating activities and what should be a space for deep relaxation. This can result in your mind wandering to those activities as you’re trying to drift off to dreamland.

Tailor the environment to comfort and relaxation. Make sure your sheets and pillow are comfortable and freshly laundered. Buy some smart lightbulbs that can be dimmed and adjusted to relaxing colors. If finances support it, invest in a decent mattress. After buying a nice mattress and adjustable bed frame a few years ago, I wondered how I went my entire life without one!

Creating an environment suited to deep relaxation and developing a strong association between your nest and sleep-time goes a long way towards preparing your mind and body for sleep at the end of the day.

Set an indoors “sundown”

Our bodies are tuned to the natural rhythm of the sun to help inform us of when it’s time to wind up and wind down for the day. Especially in the winter, with sunset occurring before most of us are even off work, the evening hours can start to blur together.

Set a second indoors sundown at least an hour before you intend to be in bed (but experiment with what time works best for you). At this time, start turning off or dimming lights in the house to help with the transition between activity and sleep. Reduce the amount of time you’re spending on electronics during this transition as well. Not only do they tend to provide a lot of stimulation to our brains, but the light they shed can fool our brains into thinking it’s still daytime; while we’re trying to fool it into trusting it’s night!

The amount of time it takes to drift off to sleep can differ person-to-person and depend on circumstances, but it’s rare for someone to fall asleep the second their head hits the pillow. Make sure you are giving yourself enough time to get comfortable and relaxed so that you can be asleep by your designated time.

Journal

Journaling can be a valuable activity in general for mental health. Setting a time to journal every night before bed can be a great way to get distracting thoughts out of your head and onto paper. Just the act of writing them down can help us ground thoughts and feelings that otherwise would be more abstractly swimming around in our heads and keeping us from sleep.

Taking just a few minutes to do this every evening can be an effective way to wrap up our day and make it easier to put those thoughts and feelings on hold until the next day.

Meditation/Mindfulness/Grounding

Meditation can be great to help transition our brain from business to relaxation. This topic is really one that deserves it’s own post, but for now try this simple activity:

Close your eyes and lay down in your bed, getting comfortable. Focus all your attention on your breath. Don’t try to control it for now, just observe what it’s doing. Is it fast? Is it slow? Deep? Shallow?

After observing your breath for a few moments, start to slow it down and breathe a little deeper, little by little. Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth.

After you are breathing deeply and steadily, start to turn your attention to the room around you. Keep your eyes closed, but take note of anything you notice with your other senses. How does your body feel against the bed? Is there a low hum of a heater or fan in the room? Is there still the light taste of mint from your mouth wash?

This is a simple activity that can help ground us to the environment around us and turn our focus away from what happened that day or our plans for tomorrow and towards this relaxing moment.

Sometimes when we’re trying to sleep—just as when we’re doing meditation or mindfulness activities—we want to rush the process and try to force ourselves not to think. However, trying to “clamp down” on our thoughts can lead to more anxiety which can trigger more thoughts and lead to a kind of vicious cycle.

So be okay with your mind wandering. If a thought comes in that’s distressing, observe it, and then let it go. The key isn’t to keep the thoughts away, it’s to make sure they aren’t staying in our heads where they can be disruptive.

Don’t be afraid to get up

Often we get stuck in the mindset that “this is time to sleep, I’m going to sleep dangit!” Just as with our thoughts in the last tip, trying to clamp down on what we should be doing can be unproductive and contribute to further distress that can disrupt sleep.

If you are just absolutely not getting drowsy and know you’re not heading to sleep, don’t be afraid to mix it up! Get out of bed for a while and do something conducive to relaxation.

Here are a few things that can be helpful to try: 

• Work on a jigsaw puzzle or wordsearch

• Read a chapter of a cheesy mystery novel

• Knit a few rows on that scarf

• Take a few minutes to strum along on your ukulele (as long as it’s not disrupting your housemates)

• Listen to relaxing music

Again, the key with these activities is to put ourselves into a relaxed state. Be careful about doing something that’s going to really engage you in thinking about a project or doing a lot of physical activity. As we discussed above, we also want to avoid electronics during this time. Don’t have a mindless activity you can do? Maybe it’s time to pick up a new hobby!

Once you start feeling drowsy, go back to bed and try sleeping again!

Think about seeking help

In certain circumstances your lack of being able to sleep may be something you need assistance with. Maybe you just need an outside source to help you address your habits around sleep that are causing problems. Maybe your inability to sleep is a symptom of another health condition that a professional can help you address. Whatever the case is, there’s always value in talking with your regular doctor or counselor about things that are impacting your health to that degree.

Hopefully something in this article can help you in your journey to dreamland. Like I said at the start, if you’d like to follow-up with some more details about your situation, I would be happy to give some more advice specific to your circumstances.

-Kylyn

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