You’ve just checked the alarm clock and seen that you have 3hrs 23mins until you have to get up. So now you’re worrying that you only have 3hrs 23mins left. The difference between you and a ‘normal’ sleeper is that they will look at the alarm clock and realise that they still have 3hrs left, and promptly fall back asleep. So let’s reframe your thoughts – even if you are awake the whole time until the alarm goes off, be thankful that you have 3hrs all to yourself, where you get to lie in a warm bed, in a quiet house, with no-one demanding or needing anything from you. There are no chores, no expectations, do deadlines.
You will survive tomorrow, even if you are bone tired.
You will make it through, you always have, and you will do it again.
As we saw in my first post [insomnia link], anything you do to try and fix, or control the insomnia is going to make it worse. The key to great sleep is to stop struggling and do nothing. (I know, I know! Please don’t shoot the messenger.). What we need to do is to get you to be able to accept your wakefulness and understand that it’s a totally normal part of sleep. We’ll then remove that jolt of anxiety and adrenaline and let sleep naturally, gently come back to you. In fact, the brilliant thing is this…
There may be a completely natural reason that you’re awake at 3am.
The evidence comes from two different sources: one is historical and the other is based on research done in the 90s.
Falling back asleep after a middle-of-the-night awakening may not be natural for humans. It could be that, left to our natural inclinations in a 24-hour day, we would have a period of wakefulness, an afternoon siesta, another period of wakefulness, a period of sleep, a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night, and another period of sleep. Ekirch (2001, 2006, 2016), has done important work in documenting different sleep patterns in the preindustrial world. The historical evidence indicates that people in the Middle Ages were up for an hour or more in the middle of the night and thought of sleep as occurring in two segments: first sleep and second sleep. This makes sense because being awake during the night has certain advantages. At that time, one could stoke the fire, check the defenses, have sex, and tell tall tales. We don’t think much about it now, but before gas and electric lighting, the night could be a frightening time. Think about the dangers that might await you if you ventured out in the night without a good source of illumination. Getting up and making sure your residence was warm and safe made a lot of sense.
Likewise, the mid-afternoon siesta has some roots in our evolutionary history. It may be that it served to conserve energy resources and help our ancestors lay low during the hot mid-day sun on the savannas of Africa where weak, slow, formerly tree-inhabiting humans were very vulnerable. At night, they would have been extremely vulnerable in deep sleep, so a period of wakefulness during which they could make sure they were safe made sense.
During the industrial revolution and the need for regular work shifts, people had to get their sleep when they could—usually at night. So, by staying up (and working a physically demanding day), sleep drive became sufficient to get deep enough into sleep that people stayed asleep throughout the night. This obviously is no longer the cas, with most of us leading very sedentary lives and blue light affecting our circadian rhythm.
So far, so compelling, even though the evidence may be hypothetical.
For those of you more swayed by the rigours of science, Wehr (1991, 1992) conducted experiments that showed that humans could take on a biphasic sleep pattern. This occurred when participants were exposed to “winter” conditions with a forced schedule of 10 hours of light and 14 hours of total dark. When this schedule was imposed, participants began to naturally adopt a sleep schedule in which they slept for four hours, awakened for one to three hours, and then slept for another four. It seems that, under the right environmental conditions, this is a natural sleep pattern for humans.
So we need to think about other patterns of sleep and not confine ourselves to assuming that the regimented, factory-shift-driven model we’ve all come to know is what we should to strive for.
With this happy thought firmly in your mind (it’s not me! I’m just channelling my inner 1420s peasant!) let’s start a gentle mindfulness exercise. Slowly bring your awareness to your senses, such as what you can hear, feel, smell, or what you can see right now in your environment. Simply list everything that you notice in your head ‘I can hear a bird’ or ‘I can feel the duvet against my legs’. If your mind wanders off onto a thought, which it probably will, thank it for the distraction and return your awareness back to noticing your senses.
Remember that this mindfulness exercise does not have a goal
It is not about relaxing you or getting you off to sleep, it’s not a sleep trick. It’s simply something you can do to increase your willingness to experience the discomfort associated with not sleeping. When you accept what shows up in the middle of the night, you are less likely to react emotionally and more likely to sleep in the long run.
Summary, being awake now is OK! It’s normal, you’ll survive (and even possibly thrive) tomorrow.