Sleep Is An Accident

No matter how hard we try, sleep never comes around as a direct result of effort. In fact, the harder we try to sleep, the less likely it is to happen. Sleep itself comes about purely by accident. What we *can* do is make ourselves accident-prone.

Transcript

No matter how hard we try,

Sleep never comes around as a direct result of effort.

In fact,

The harder we try to sleep,

The less likely it is to happen.

Sleep itself comes about purely by accident.

But what we can do is make ourselves accident prone.

The number one factor that makes for good sleep is a calm state of being.

And the number one cause of a calm state of being is mindfulness practice.

So,

If you don't have a practice,

Start one.

If you do have a practice,

And you're still struggling to sleep,

Perhaps something about your practice needs tweaking.

Or perhaps you just need to practice more.

Before I go into more detail about how mindfulness practice can help with sleep,

Let's discuss some other things we can do to make ourselves vulnerable to the sleep fairy's sneak attack.

First of all,

If there's anything you can do to reduce noise or light in your bedroom,

This can help tremendously.

Be creative.

You might be able to hang a throw across your window for extra light reduction.

Curtains are expensive.

You might experiment with different types of earplugs until you find something comfortable.

Secondly,

Flight mode is your friend.

In fact,

I recommend turning off all notifications from any sources for the entirety of your evening.

Even the most seemingly harmless interaction with the outside world can send the mind spinning off down some rabbit hole.

We've all been there.

What am I going to get Mum for her birthday?

I mustn't forget my toothpaste tomorrow.

I really don't want it to rain at the weekend.

Yes,

These thoughts are harmless,

And I'm sure we can all think of some more hostile ones that have kept us up at night.

But what's important is that thinking keeps the mind active.

This is not what we want at bedtime.

You'll find something for Mum.

Toothpaste is a common item.

And you've survived the rain before.

In fact,

Your capacity for dealing with all of life's challenges is greatly improved when you shut them out at night and get good rest.

It's OK to be unavailable.

But you'll find that people will wait.

Third,

It's helpful to take care of preparations for your following day.

If you have to set an alarm,

Get one that you can trust,

Or maybe even set two.

If you have lots of things to arrange before you get out the door in the morning,

Consider doing some of them the evening before.

For example,

Pack your lunch,

Take a shower,

Put things you need to remember by the front door.

I don't make these recommendations for purposes of efficiency,

Although they certainly can help with that.

I make these recommendations because each of them eliminates some object of thinking that can be ruminated upon in bed.

Now,

How can mindfulness practice be used to make you more vulnerable to sleep?

One way is to simply practice more throughout the day.

This might take the form of longer or more sits.

It might take the form of increased frequency of off-cushion mindfulness practice.

Another thing you can do is tweak the balance of your practice further toward what's called calm abiding or samatha practice.

It's a good old breath meditation,

In other words.

It's also a great idea to just take your practice to bed with you.

Just do what you do in your sits,

But lying down.

You may not have the most insightful practice,

But that's the whole point.

Eventually you'll fall asleep and be doing no practice at all.

Another strategy is to use sitting practice to break up a pattern of restlessness or anxiety around getting to sleep.

Instead of tossing and turning,

Flick the light on,

Seat yourself up and establish mindfulness.

Get a good look at those sensations of restlessness,

No matter how uncomfortable they are.

When you witness them,

It becomes clear that they're not you.

These sensations are just objects now.

Objects that change.

Objects that come and go.

The final recommendation I have is to take up the attitude that being awake is perfectly okay.

I suspect that since you clicked on this talk,

You have some issue around sleep.

And so it's likely that you feel it would be better to sleep at night than to lie awake.

And this is objectively true.

Sleep is good for us.

But the animal part of the brain that deals with sleep just wants to be told that everything's okay.

Getting anxious or frustrated about lack of sleep is basically telling that part of the brain that it's screwing up over and over and over again.

The way to break this feedback loop is similar to how we might treat a child who's adamant on eating too much chocolate.

We know the child is going to get a stomachache.

We've probably told the child there's going to be a stomachache.

But in the end,

Sometimes we just have to let go and say,

Okay,

You go ahead and guzzle that whole bar down if you like.

I'll be over here enjoying my day.

Our business as practitioners of mindfulness is to be satisfied in the present moment.

The animal brain's business is sleep.

If it's misbehaving right now,

Let it.

You'll survive tomorrow.

Sleep or no sleep.

You've survived worse,

I imagine.

Smile at restlessness.

Smile at anxiety.

Smile at discomfort.

Make yourself prone to the accident of sleep.

Then surrender.

Reviews

Delightfully makes sense! Damn we are so much our own obstacle in all we do. How simply you lay it out for us to realise mindfulness once again, comes to the rescue!!
Thank you.

My son (13) and I, both with ADHD, just listened to this as he's having trouble sleeping (as am I) and we are mindblown (and childishly amused by me telling him to go to bed and have an accident - I'm sorry, but I'm a firm believer in the medicine of laughter!)

He listened to the idea of mindfulness, which he doesn't usually from myself (because let's face it, I'm Mum!) and he loved the idea of not "trying" because it gets us nowhere.

You've also helped me to remember to actually use/do my practice and not just talk about it.

He's snuggled upstairs now gently stroking his softest new bear he bought with his birthday money and I'm much more prepared for going to bed myself. Thank you.

Wonderful pov💔💔

very interesting. I did not know this about sleep or the inability to sleep. My very best sleeping pill has been to put in my earplugs and turn on one of the children stories an insight timer. I never seem to get more than a few minutes into the story before I am sound asleep. Why? the downside (very frustrating) is I have never been able to listen to the end of any of Bill Larson's telling of the wonderful wizard of Oz. Insight Timer doesn't enable you to advance listening to the spot where you might have left off the night before so one always has to start at the beginning over and over and over again.. 😭