The worries usually take hold between two and four A.M. It’s a time in my sleep cycle when consciousness rouses me like a tangled bedsheet. Sometimes this quiet pre-morning arousal is beautiful. Sometimes it is a time of free-flowing clarity; awareness stripped of distractions and noise. Other times the peace and gauziness of half-sleep are replaced with the clicks and whirrs of thinking. The kind of thinking that is a mechanical loop of what is wrong and what has to be done. This conveyor belt of thoughts revs up my heart rate, tightens my chest and heats up my body. Sometimes I sweat it out and refuse to get out of bed. I tell myself –I can beat my thoughts with breathing exercises. If I go over the issues enough I will resolve them. Surely, exhaustion will out-will my brain. Other times I have the wherewithal to park the panic. I put a stop to it by naming it.
Spell It Out and Ask for Help
Getting out of bed at 3 A.M. to write down my worries is akin to waking up early to take a shower before everyone needs me. I want to stay in bed for a few more minutes of physical rest but my psyche needs its own version of a warm blanket and shut-eye. My soul needs rest and relief.
I can’t remember where I learned about writing down worries. I am sure it stems from the countless benefits of journaling I have seen, heard and experienced. Recently, I was given the idea of writing down my worries AND offering them up to a higher power.
I had the opportunity to try these strategies out a few weeks ago when at 2:57 A.M. my mind turned on and would not turn off. Like a camera with the shutter stuck open, troubles streamed in without any breaks. I decided to unload these thoughts before they became despair. I slipped into slippers, grabbed my bedside notebook and a novel. I headed to my night-time retreat,our walk-in closet. I leaned up against drawers full of t-shirts and underwear and wrote down everything that bothered me – 22 items, including the fact that I was not sleeping. That’s a lot of worries. I happily dumped them on the page. The incessant thoughts became a list in ink and letters. I quietly asked the universe for help.
Shift Focus and Be Open
After listing all my fears, I followed a piece of advice I learned from Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek. Tim discovered after a decade of reading strictly non-fiction, that fiction is the best way 
to relax before bedtime. Fiction stimulates the imagination and encourages staying in the present story. Non-fiction encourages future planning and pre-occupation.
So I opened Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and allowed myself to feel for the characters in the book. I felt a kinship with the introverted Lenin as he contentedly rode his horse over his vast acreage admiring the simplicity of the peasant workers’ lives and the beauty of the swaying wheat.
As I read, I had to return again and again to my notebook to write down ideas about how to minimize my worries. The ideas floated into my consciousness without effort. It was as if the space in my head created by putting my problems on paper was being filled with solutions. A hole in the sand flooding with tidewater. Perhaps this is how God or the Cosmos speaks to us peons – through breaks in our thinking, from the space between thoughts. I had created an opening for imagination and healing. Peace poured in. I had found a way to relax, find answers and give my spirit a rest.
I felt at ease enough to return to bed and fall into a nourishing sleep free of worries.
Have you ever felt relief by naming your troubles? Do you think putting your thoughts out into the universe helps with clarity? What keeps you awake at night? What are your insomnia solutions?
**My over-taxed mind reminds me of the conveyor belt in the chocolate factory episode on I Love Lucy. Enjoy! 😉 I Love Lucy the Candy Factory Job
If you like this please share.:)
If you enjoyed Park the Panic: Insomnia Solutions for Incessant Thinkers you may also like:
When Parenting Overwhelms (space2live)
Two Completely Opposite Ways to Cleanse Your Spirit (space2live)
The Power of Poetry: Helping Us Heal, Feel and Transition (space2live)
My adult daughters call it “festering brain” and all three of us suffer from it. I’d forgotten the power of writing down ones burdensome thoughts. And the idea of giving it over to a higher power? Priceless–and much more palatable than Ambien, if you ask me.
My trick for getting back to sleep is listening to a light podcast (can’t beat Garrison Keilor!). That way, I reap the benefits of fiction without having to turn the light on. An audiobook would also work.
Thanks for another helpful post. LOVE this blog!
Oooh I like the idea of listening to a podcast to fight “festering brain.” I listen to podcasts while I’m on the elliptical machine. I always get off the machine with ideas.:) I like writing down worries and I LOVE coming up with ways to dissolve them. If I can do that, I go back to sleep feeling productive and peaceful. Thanks for reading and responding Maureen.:)
I was told a long time not to stay in bed if I couldn’t sleep. Get up and do something for 15 minutes, and you’ll fall asleep faster than if you fight getting up and being awake. It’s true.
I do like your method though. It sounds like it dissipates worries that may be making you wake up, so they are less likely to do it in the future. I have used journaling as a way of writing my worries away. It also works. They leave me and enter the paper where they can be crumpled and tossed or burned.
Everything keeps me awake at the moment when I let it.
The time you stated struck me as interesting. That is the same time that I think I wake up in the middle of the night sweating profusely, and it’s not related to any medical issue. Before and after that time, I’m fine.
I think maybe 2-4A.M. are the witching hours.;) It’s always a struggle to make myself get out of bed and read or write but it is the best way for me to get back into a calm state. Thanks so much for reading and commenting Debbi.:)