Is Working From Home Making It Harder To Sleep?

Remote work researcher and Insight Timer meditator Alexandra Samuel interviews Jennifer about how remote work has affected our sleep cycles. They discuss how Jennifer's approach to sleep goes beyond Yoga Nidra, how Yoga Nidra goes far beyond sleep, and what makes Yoga Nidra distinct from other relaxation practices. They also dive into ways of adapting and rethinking rest and activity cycles; mitigating the impact of 'screen time'; tuning into our ebbs and flows of energy; why waking up at night is not necessarily a problem; how we 'work' in our dreams; a useful way to scramble thoughts back into sleep; and why considering intentions and the deeper practice of Sankalpa is so powerful.

Transcript

There's a tendency to think of sleep as like sleep is time away from life or sleep is time away from work rather than a potential deepening into life and deepening into our work or whatever is most important to us that we may be working on,

Whether that's personal or professional.

I'm Alexandra Samuel,

The author of remote Inc,

How to thrive at work wherever you are,

And I'm thrilled to be joined today by Jennifer piercing a sleep educator who's based in Victoria BC.

Jennifer's insight timer recording yoga need refer to sleep has been my sleep secret for many,

Many years now.

And I'm speaking with her today about an issue that comes up over and over again when I speak with remote workers about the challenges they've experienced in the transition to remote work,

Which is sleep.

So many of us have trouble sleeping.

And obviously that's nothing new,

Jennifer,

But I'm really curious to hear what you've seen over the past year,

You know,

But because both anecdotally and in the research,

It does seem that people are having more trouble sleeping.

Have you seen that in in your work or in the way people are using your meditations.

Well,

First of all,

Thank you so much for having me Alex it's a pleasure to be here with you and it's a pleasure to accompany you each night into the transition into sleep.

And you know I would say sleep challenges were very commonly named at epidemic levels long before the pandemic but naturally you know the uncertainty and the upheaval in the past year has made this even more pronounced.

So all the things that you are tackling in your book things like lack of structure.

And then of course,

You know just lack of pleasure and enjoyment from the ways people are used to socializing or entertaining themselves or blowing off steam.

In addition to increased isolation and socio political and economic upheaval,

All the uncertainty,

Increased reliance upon external news sources,

And then good old fear of illness and death.

Yeah,

Definitely feeling enough security and trust to just fall asleep with ease can be more challenging for many people.

Also,

You know when the pandemic was first declared and lockdown first began I noticed there was kind of a strong undercurrent of pressure to do stuff.

I don't know if you noticed that Alex but yeah and you know I didn't necessarily hear like health recommendations to rest and sleep more,

It was more I mean certainly maybe not health officers were saying go get stuff done but there was kind of a cultural note being played of like I'm going to do all this stuff I don't normally get to do.

And then on the opposite side of that like total collapse like inability to do anything from the fear and anxiety or just like this huge wrench being thrown to our lives.

So for sure there's been an increase in what was already kind of an epidemic by itself.

And so more people are listening to my sleep meditations.

Alex you might.

I know you mentioned that you love data,

But I don't track data at all so I honestly couldn't tell you exactly.

But you know I imagine giving the above that that's a possibility people might have been listening more.

I know that I certainly have gone through phases in the past year where I would have fallen apart without you and you know listening to you enumerate all the sources of anxiety reminds me of how bad it was at first and I would,

You know I had to listen to your stories every night and the first couple of months because I would like close my eyes and then I would be like in a zombie apocalypse movie you know roaming the streets trying to find toilet paper and snacks and not super restful.

So I'm really curious,

You know to hear your thoughts on what it is about about your approach about yoga nitra in particular that helps during those moments and what makes it different from other kinds of you know progressive relaxation or or self hypnosis techniques all of which I have to say I've used all these things over the years.

And I have found your approach to be quite distinctive so I'm curious how you think about that difference.

Yeah,

Well,

I would say my approach to sleep challenges overall goes far beyond only using yoga nitra and yoga nitra itself goes far beyond only sleep.

But the first major difference focusing in on yoga nitra and these other approaches you name like self hypnosis or progressive relaxation or other sort of relaxation or sleep induction techniques.

The first major differences that yoga nitra is primarily a spiritual practice with tantric roots that originate in India,

And its original intent is actually less about stress reduction relaxation and sleep and more about self realization and the invitation to explore.

What is the nature of awareness,

And what does awareness feel like.

You know,

Mostly we tend to focus on objects and content that are within our awareness,

Rather than investigating awareness itself,

Which is kind of like the backdrop or the container in which all other possible waves of consciousness exist and awareness is unbreakable and present.

So yoga nitra is about recognizing and remembering the nature of that backdrop,

And not through intellectualizing it but through direct experience of it to really practice resting as the container of awareness,

Rather than the contents.

And the more we do this,

The more we are able to let the contents come and go without being held hostage by them or clinging to them or fusing with them.

And you know in some ways,

We could say all meditation practices are designed to facilitate that.

But in yoga nitra you're actually allowed to practice that while lying down resting and even sleeping.

In things like hypnosis there's typically an agenda to try to change aspects of the body mind,

Rather than recognizing this backdrop,

The peaceful nature of awareness that is behind it all.

And the same could be said for many techniques that focus on relaxation alone as a kind of a central goal.

Now it's probably important to name that modern approaches and adaptations of yoga nitra do often include inspiration from relaxation approaches,

But these are simply preparing you to recognize and remember that deeper truth of the practice,

Which is kind of beyond words,

To be fair,

And can only be directly experienced.

And then the other thing that makes yoga nitra distinct is the way it brings awareness to more than just the physical body.

In energetic yogic anatomy,

These are called koshas,

And they are multi dimensional layers of being so not just the physical body,

But also the energetic body,

The mental and emotional body,

The wisdom body and the bliss body.

And then,

Oh,

Sorry Alex,

Were you about to say something?

Yeah,

I was just,

I love hearing you talk about this because,

I mean,

Honestly at this point,

I have pretty much memorized your recording.

And sometimes in the middle of the night if I don't want to have my phone shine in my eyes by,

You know,

Turning the phone on and starting a recording I will like play it just to myself in my head.

So,

As you're talking about this,

I'm thinking about these moments that I love in the recording,

Like,

I love the thing where you talk about,

You know,

Relaxing your eyes away from the world of looking and seeing internal vision opening,

Right,

And that's what you're describing there of not just turning off the sensory world but actually turning on the internal world.

Yes,

Exactly.

Yeah,

And then another unique emphasis that's quite distinct to yoga nidra is the awareness and exploration of opposites,

Which has to do really with integrating our wholeness,

Helping us welcome and embody the full range of our nature.

And,

You know,

You've probably noticed in our culture we have a tendency to highly value one polarity while often disparaging or even figuring the other.

So,

Like we want pleasure over pain we want happiness over sadness,

We want lightness over heaviness or abundance over scarcity.

Sometimes we even want activity over rest.

So,

This effect is welcoming opposite sensations whether that's in the body or maybe it's other emotional sensations.

It activates neural connections in the brain,

Which help us develop our capacity and build stamina in our ability to be with,

Rather than react to various states and sensations that are coming and going.

In the process,

Simultaneously welcoming polarities can often assist in holding new perspectives and new possibilities.

That's so interesting you mentioned that because as you were talking about this,

The awareness dimension,

I was thinking about the moment,

It's funny I feel like this is like,

I should give a spoiler alert but I guess there's no such thing as a spoiler alert for relaxation meditation.

About that moment where you talk about,

You know,

You alternate between feeling a sense of lightness and feeling a sense of heaviness.

And then there's that moment where you have us hold them both at the same time.

And honestly,

I have no idea what happens after that.

I swear,

I think that's the moment where there's something about that,

That moment of unification.

There's just like an off switch for my brain and I just go.

So if after that you tell a series of jokes,

I've never heard them.

Yeah,

I mean,

It turns off the thinking mind.

You can't really think about that.

You have to just kind of feel your way.

Well,

And what's interesting to me in hearing you talk about that in the larger context of what that means as,

You know,

For all of us in integrating apparently contradictory experiences is,

You know,

I think of that at this particular moment when I hear so many people thinking in this really dualistic way about their working lives because offices are starting to reopen.

People have been working remotely for a year and it's this either or am I going to be an office person?

Am I going to be a remote person?

And what I realize in talking to you is that we have this opportunity,

Not just to think of this in a binary on off way where we perhaps shuffle our days between work and home,

But actually to sink into those experiences more and to feel what our energetic states are when we're at the office or when we're at home and look for ways of integrating those energies so that they aren't dependent on where you're literally sitting at any given moment.

Yeah,

And to also practice like,

You know,

Being actively restful and restfully active,

You know,

Like it doesn't have to be like all or nothing,

Either I'm on or I'm off.

So yeah,

It's very important what you're noticing.

And then,

You know,

Separately,

I would talk about sleep,

My approach to sleep in a slightly different way.

You know,

I love to kind of sum up my approach to sleep in a quote from one of my teachers,

Dr.

Reuben Nyman.

This comes from one of his articles called Falling for Sleep,

Where he says,

Like a wild thing,

Sleep has been lured from its home in nature,

And domesticated in service of industrial life.

And today,

Like a pet,

Sleep is fenced in,

Caged or corralled.

We constrict sleep,

Policed by a mechanistic alarm clock.

So my approach to sleep is very much inspired by that.

And it's always to try to help free sleep from those mechanistic constraints,

Which is very highlighted in the 10 day micro learning course I created on Insight Timer,

Which has 10 lessons that are less than 15 minutes a day,

That are really designed to explore how rest and sleep are not just this mechanical biomedical process that can only be measured by computers,

But actually a deep spiritual practice with deep spiritual teachings.

And I'm super interested in supporting the experience of a kind of re-enchantment with sleep,

Where we see sleep as so much more than just a knockout for eight hours,

Not unconsciousness,

But part of consciousness.

And I think this aligns even with your approach of not seeing the workday as this straight up work for eight hours kind of thing,

That we're actually much more like forces of nature rather than machines.

It's interesting you bring up the eight hour workday because that's exactly what popped into my head when you were reading that quote.

I mean,

One of the things we talk about in the book is that unfortunately in the overnight transition to remote work,

A lot of organizations did just kind of port the nine to five workday onto Zoom and everybody was supposed to pretend that our lives were going on the same schedule.

And yet,

I've seen time and again with people who have worked for a long time outside the office,

And this has certainly been my own experience,

That the power of remote work is not just in not having a million people stick their head into your office in the course of the day,

It's about being able to work with your natural rhythms.

And the very nature of the 40 hour work week is about putting the industrial schedule ahead of the physical,

Physiological,

Emotional schedule of other rhythms of our own bodies.

And I wonder,

I think a lot of people have experienced sleep disruption this year partly because they're so dependent on that external clock.

And I wonder what advice you would have on how do you go about reconnecting to your own natural rhythms,

Both from the point of view of tuning into your sleep rhythm,

And then also from the point of view of turning into the moments you're feeling called to concentrate,

The moments you're feeling called to dance down the street.

Yeah,

I mean,

I think in some ways this is very personal and it depends on one's constitution.

But the first thing is to be more connected to your body and to practice actually listening to your messengers of tired,

Because those messengers are gold.

And when you can actually follow a genuine messenger of tired into something different,

And it doesn't even it doesn't have to be a nap,

We'll probably talk a little bit about napping,

But there's so many ways we can apply the brakes and back off into a more restful state that are actually just really simple,

Like turning away from the screen for five minutes and closing our eyes or maybe it is,

You know,

A dance break or putting our bare feet on the ground.

But we really need to watch for those and notice when that is actually coming up for us.

You know,

For me,

For example,

It always tends to,

You know,

My best productivity as far as actually focusing well tends to happen in the morning and then afternoon,

I not so much,

You know,

I might like to if I am going to do work,

It might be work that doesn't require as many like,

You know,

Words to be formulated,

Or,

You know,

Work where I could daydream a little bit about it and still find that that's,

You know,

Contributing to a helpful outcome.

But you know,

Another thing is that I think human beings,

It's been proven that we can only actually focus well for something like 45 to 90 minutes at a time.

I'm not sure what your research has shown about this,

Alex,

In your book,

But my sleep teacher,

Dr.

Nyman talks about ultradian rhythms,

Which are these shorter rhythms that happen during the day,

Right?

And,

You know,

Maybe 45 to 90 minutes,

Depending on what your baseline of attention and energy already is,

Is kind of that's a good short work burst.

And then you're going to find that you actually are pretty distracted,

You might want to have a bite to eat or need to stretch or need to turn away.

And what a lot of people do is they just bulldoze over that.

And they assume that they need to just push and keep going.

And then when they do that,

Their,

You know,

Productivity or their end result is not as good as if they actually gave into the tiredness and let themselves do something else.

It's interesting that you are talking about the challenge we have kind of tuning into our natural energy states,

Because one of the things I hear from a lot of people who are working remotely is that,

You know,

Because so many of us are now working in our bedrooms during the day,

Because it's the only place to,

You know,

Close the door and do a Zoom call,

It almost teaches us to dissociate from that association of bedroom and fatigue.

And then I find it can make it harder to pay attention to those natural little cues.

And so I'm wondering what suggestions you have for those of us who,

You know,

Now have those crossed cross signals,

What do you recommend?

Yeah,

I so feel for this challenge.

I don't have a separate dedicated workspace in my current home either.

And I find myself floating between my kitchen table and sitting on my living room floor to do Zoom sessions.

So,

You know,

I think part of what can help is to get creative with delineating clear space,

Even within the constraints that you have.

So like if the bedroom is the only place where you can work,

Can you make a special sectioned off corner,

Like maybe even a little bit of fabric from the ceiling,

So that it creates the illusion of separation.

And,

You know,

For many people,

The sleep space is already not that dedicated to sleep.

You mentioned yourself,

Alex,

That you often have screens beeping at you all night in your bedroom.

So for lots of people,

There already are,

There isn't this delineation,

There's a lot of waking world tethers that are going on in rooms that should be devoted to sleep,

Whether that's a bedroom or a bedroom,

Whether that's,

You know,

Extra lights or even books with lots of information on your nightstand table.

So,

You know,

Maybe you could keep all the waking world sort of tools in your work corner,

Let's say using the bedroom as an example,

If that was the workspace that you're in,

And then also try to make the workspace appealing to you in some way.

Like if there's a window,

Set up your workspace by the natural light,

Put out some fresh flowers or light a candle,

Something that could signal,

Okay,

This space has a particular purpose that's separate from the rest of the room.

And then I think we need to get really good at clearing the space before and after the work is done,

Whether that's in the bedroom,

Or for me,

It's often at my kitchen table,

Which also doubles as my husband's kind of workspace as well.

So I make sure before I start work that I do a clearing on that table,

Like I have a homemade all purpose cleaner that's basically just vinegar,

Water,

And some essential oil scents that I find help with my focus,

Like rosemary.

And so I spray that,

I clean,

And then I,

For me,

Lighting a candle kind of,

You know,

Signals to me,

Okay,

We're starting.

And when that's done,

I make sure I blow it out.

And if I've made a total mess with papers and everything,

Again,

I try to deliberately clear so it doesn't always look like it's just this conglomeration of a million different purposes in this one space.

And then,

You know,

The other thing I would add is that in some ways,

The answer to what happens when you start working in your sleeping space depends on your attitude.

Like so many things in life,

Right?

Like what do you believe will happen?

We could reverse that question and also ask what happens when you start sleeping in your working space.

And I think,

You know,

Sometimes it might not be as bad as we presuppose.

And it kind of goes back to what we talked about before,

Where instead of thinking,

We either have to be on,

Like working full tilt or off in like this perfect sleep space and sleep mode.

How can we creatively let them dance together more,

Embodying actively restful,

Restfully active,

You know,

And still create a delineated space as much as possible?

That is such a helpful reframe.

Because you're making me realize that in previous slides,

I've gotten a lot of really quality sleep at work.

I used to have a job where I traveled a lot with my boss and I'm somebody who,

At least in my youth,

I could not stay awake in a passenger seat.

And I would like fully like sleep drool the whole nine yards like in the car with my boss.

And so you're making me realize,

Well,

Wait a minute,

If I was able to sleep at work,

Then presumably work does not stop me from sleeping just because they unfold in the same space.

So that's a really helpful insight,

Although I still recommend against drooling in front of your boss.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I'm the same where I can take amazing naps in my workspace.

And I'm super grateful for that opportunity.

And so I think,

You know,

It is still important to have a dedicated sleep space,

But it doesn't always have to be separate.

And I think if we'd make the effort to do some clearing,

It's definitely possible.

Well,

And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the screen part of that,

Because,

You know,

This seems like the number one most frequently doled out piece of advice on sleep hygiene is don't have any screens in your bedroom.

Well,

I mean,

I think there's literally seven screens in my bedroom on most nights.

That's probably an extreme case.

But you're actually you're my excuse for it,

Because whenever I feel called to purify by eliminating all the screens,

I think,

But then how am I going to listen to my inside timer recording from Jennifer?

And so that justifies you're the gateway drug,

I'm afraid.

So seriously,

Like,

If I mean,

I'm really serious,

I'm actually anxious now about going to sleep without my phone beside me,

Because if I wake up in the night,

I really like to be able to start your your yoga nidra recording and go back to sleep.

So if if you're not going to keep the screens out of your bedroom altogether,

What can you do to reduce their impact,

Especially since with remote work now,

Of course,

So many of us are spending hours and hours and hours a day on screen even more than we used to when we were working in offices?

Yeah,

I mean,

This is definitely a thing.

And it's something I've struggled with,

Actually,

Because I don't want people to be dependent on hearing my voice every night to have to fall asleep or to use a screen.

On the other hand,

I'm incredibly grateful that that opportunity is available and that it is something that that helps people.

So one thing I would really love to challenge you,

Alex,

Around like,

Are all seven screens really necessary in your bedroom at night?

For sure,

Maybe the sleep meditation screen that is coming from your phone,

I could see how that would be necessary.

But,

You know,

It might be just useful to question that a little bit.

And one way you can mitigate it is always,

Always,

Always make sure that your phone's screen is turned down to the very possible dimmest setting.

There's recent studies that show,

You know,

We used to think changing the color of light was a,

It is helpful to change the color of light,

So it's not blue or yellow,

You know,

Having it be more like orangey red,

Which you can do with different applications just to add to your application collection on your phone.

And so it makes your phone look more like a glowy sunset or like a candle flame rather than this incredibly bright and offensive blue or white light.

So that's one thing.

But in fact,

The studies seem to show that it's the dimmest of the light that is more impactful for melatonin production than it is the color of the light.

So for sure,

Always have your screens turned down to the dimmest setting,

Not just in your bedroom,

But all night,

Like as soon as the sun sets,

Like do not have them turned up as bright as they can be.

That's one way.

And then the other way is to turn it away from you.

Don't have the screen like turn it down so it's facing down or put it in a nightstand drawer so it's away,

Even though you've still got that,

You know,

The voice beaming at you through the ethers.

That's something I would say.

The thing is,

It's just there's no way around it that these screens are waking world tethers.

And screen time does not only affect our sleep,

It's affecting everything like so it's not just about the screens that we use at night,

But even,

You know,

With remote work,

The excessive amount of time that many people often have to spend in front of the screen,

That's narrowing your vision,

It's affecting your eyesight,

It's affecting your posture,

Your breathing,

Your lungs,

Your heart,

Your circulation,

Everything and certainly,

Of course,

Melatonin production.

So,

You know,

Kind of like maybe a bit of a broken record,

Because we've already talked about this a couple of times,

I think,

But we really do need to at least back off more frequently,

Got to work in shorter stretches of time in front of the computer.

You know,

45 minutes or however long for you feels like,

Okay,

I can focus well for this amount of time and then turn away,

Go do something else.

When you rest,

Even if all you do is just close your eyes and reduce the amount of information and stimulation coming at you through the visual field,

You are opening your vision,

You're going into that inner vision that we talked about before,

Which is far vaster than what your physical eyes can take in.

And it opens your imagination,

Which I can't think of any job where your imagination opening wouldn't be helpful in some way.

So we need these little brain breaks,

Like turn away with your eyes closed,

If you can go outside,

You know,

If we're going to live so much of our lives in front of screens,

We need to balance that with connection to nature.

And even if you don't have like a backyard or some amazing park nearby,

Like just look up at the stars,

Look at the sky.

You know,

It's so important to make sure that we're getting natural light.

I think that's actually one of the,

Probably the most powerful circadian resetter is just,

Are you getting some natural light before noon outside without sunglasses on?

So important for so many reasons,

Physically,

Mentally and emotionally.

And then,

You know,

We need to take movement breaks,

We need to like move your body in different directions.

Most of the time when we're looking at screens,

We're just seated and often hunched over or,

You know,

Chest is often collapsed.

So when you take like a little movement break,

One of the simplest things you can do is a lateral extension,

Which is basically a side stretch.

And what that does when you stretch from side to side,

Which can take like what less than two minutes,

It helps to restore the space in your spine and also helps to open up capacity for deeper breath.

So even small little things like that,

And then return to the screen can be super helpful.

That's more of a daytime focus,

What I just mentioned.

I do tend to be a bit more of a purist when it comes to nighttime,

Because,

You know,

Unless you're an actual night owl,

Someone whose chronotype really does make it so that working at night is your flow,

That's when you function best.

Like,

Why do we want a whole bunch of things tethering us to the waking world when we're trying to enter a totally different world?

One of the things that I find very interesting about sleep is I feel like I've really grown as a person over the years,

Because I used to be a night owl who had trouble falling asleep.

But now I have also become a middle of the night,

Wake her up her and a super early morning wake her up her.

So I have sleep issues,

You know,

At all moments.

And I have a rule now that if I wake up after,

If I wake up before five,

I have to put on insight timer and listen to your recording and actually try and fall back asleep.

If I make it all the way through the recording,

And I'm still awake,

Which I have to say has almost never happened.

But if it does,

Then I'm allowed to get up for the day.

If I wake up after five,

Then I just call it morning.

But what really sucks and happens,

You know,

More this year than it has in a long time because of pandemic anxiety,

I think,

Is that,

You know,

The 3am wake up or the 2.

30am wake up and then I'm awake for an hour.

And often what happens is I'm just a little like I'm too tired and lazy.

And I don't want to reach over and pick up the phone and put on the recording,

Put on my glasses,

So I can find the recording and put on the recording.

And so then I just lie there.

And so I'm kind of curious,

Like,

What is the,

What is,

First of all,

Like,

I'm curious about what the differences are between those,

Those different types of sleep dysfunction.

And secondly,

I'm curious what you,

You know,

What you recommend for those different types of problems.

Yeah,

I mean,

Waking up at night,

I don't see as sleep dysfunction.

It goes back to what we talked about before,

Where we assume often that we should sleep like a perfect robot for eight hours uninterrupted.

And just like we wouldn't,

Well,

Just like we're starting to realize that that's not realistic during,

You know,

A typical nine to five,

But even the nine to five workday alone is it's dying as it should be.

It's not realistic.

The same is true at night.

And waking up at night is totally natural.

It's the question is,

Do we get stuck there or not?

You may have heard many people have heard about pre-industrial times,

How there was something called two sleeps and it was very accepted and natural that people would wake up pretty much at the exact time that you named,

There would be a rise in energy and people would use that time either for just night consciousness,

Like literally just beingness,

Like being receptive to night itself,

Or they might use it for intimacy,

Or they might use it for spiritual practice or meditation or prayer,

You know,

They would just accept it as a rise in energy and then they would have another period of sleep.

But the truth is that sleep cycles are constantly rising and falling like waves.

So we actually wake up many times a night,

It's just often we're not conscious of it because we don't really get stuck there.

So there'll be a rise and then we just,

We,

We settle back down in.

So that's the first thing is not holding this posture toward middle of the night awakenings as some kind of failure or like,

Oh,

Now I'm screwed.

It's often the way that we talk to ourselves about it that then keeps us even,

Even more stuck there.

And then we,

Again,

We assume that there's something wrong when there really isn't.

So that's the first thing is just like,

Except,

Okay,

I'm awake.

I don't actually,

It's your,

I love that you're,

You're too tired to reach for your phone and listen to a sleep meditation.

I don't think that you,

I think it's fine if someone does decide to do that.

But I also think it's wonderful to just be with this rising,

See,

You know,

Is there something that night consciousness actually wants to give you?

When we are awake at night,

It's very different from being awake during the day.

There's a different kind of receptivity to night consciousness.

So it's just important to be open to that.

I also really want to make sure that I'm not glossing over how challenging this can be when you really are stuck awake,

You know,

In a waking period at night and you can't get back to sleep again.

A lot of that can come from some of what we've already talked about,

Which is when people are just go,

Go,

Going constantly during the day,

Or they're a same at night,

Maybe they,

You know,

Maybe the only time they spend alone or quiet with themselves is when they go to bed at night.

Well,

Often there's a lot of junk in the trunk that can come up because they haven't,

They haven't taken enough time in the rhythm of the workday to just like back off and process a little bit.

That's what these little breaks are so helpful for us.

It's not just physical replenishment,

But emotional and mental processing such that when we do then try to lie down later at night for a longer period of rest,

We don't have all this backlog of stuff that wants to be like,

Hey,

Pay attention to me or Hey,

What about this?

What about that?

So resting more during the day,

Even taking naps can actually help with not feeling stuck with waking at night.

There's also certain tools you can use,

Which we talk about in my sleep course,

And which we can,

We can go into a little bit right now,

Like when you feel stuck waking up at night for whatever reason.

And,

You know,

Even if you've worked on your attitude to not seeing that as a automatic,

You know,

It's going to damn the rest of my sleep.

There's cognitive approaches you can use and body centered approaches you can use to help you fall back asleep.

One of those I'll mention right now is called the cognitive shuffle.

And that is where you basically scramble your thoughts to sleep.

And this was discovered by Dr.

Luke Baudoin,

Who's a cognitive scientist at Simon Fraser University.

And what he discovered is that there's certain kinds of thinking that are actually more sedative than other kinds of thinking.

And the kind of thinking that makes us fall asleep is actually like whimsical nonsensical kind of thinking,

Which sort of mimics the hypnagogic state where you'll get these like random dreamy images that often don't make a lot of sense.

So you can,

You can induce that yourself with the cognitive shovel.

And you'd be happy to know,

Alex,

He actually does have an app.

So if you want to use an app,

You can,

It's called my sleep button.

But you can also do this to yourself,

You don't need to turn on your phone at all.

And all you do is you think of a random word,

Like say flow,

For example,

As a random word.

And then for each letter in that word,

You start thinking of random things that start with that letter.

And then you just keep trying to think of like,

Okay,

Things that start with F until you're like tired often from the effort.

Sometimes it doesn't take long before you fall back asleep,

Or you just move on to the next letter.

And same thing,

You just keep thinking of sort of random disparate things that start with that letter.

And I hear from people all the time that that just that alone is a game changer,

It's easy to use,

You know,

In different situations.

And that's like a way,

Especially if you're thinking is the thing that feels like it's hijacking you,

A way to kind of be the DJ and go in and scratch the record and change,

Change up,

You know,

The thoughts and signal to your mind,

Oh,

We don't need to make sense of stuff right now,

We're actually needing to go into the nonsensical dream world.

I love that.

That's such a useful tool,

I feel like that's going to change my life,

Because I often notice what as I'm falling asleep,

I'll notice that moment where I'm having a thought that's totally nonsensical,

As you say,

And then I always feel the sense of elation of like,

Oh,

Good,

My thinking's falling apart,

I must be about to fall asleep.

But it for some reason never occurred to me,

I could do that myself.

So yeah,

That's awesome.

And it reminds me of this line I loved on your website,

Where you just talk about how our thinking shifts as we transition into a state of sleep.

And you say,

You know,

The brain steadily dismantles the models and concepts we use to interpret the world leading to moments unconstrained by our usual mental filters.

And,

You know,

That was a real aha moment for me,

Because I am a bit of a weirdo in that I do a lot of work in my dreams.

You know,

Sometimes to an extreme,

I,

Last year,

I was doing a lot of data work,

And all my dreams started happening in the form of spreadsheets.

So like,

I'd have an argument with my husband,

And it would unfold as a spreadsheet.

And I would wake up sometimes in the morning,

And I would have like,

Figured out an Excel formula in my sleep.

And I know that for a lot of people,

That would probably be a bad sign for me,

It was very satisfying.

And so I'm kind of curious about what you think about that idea of using that altered state of consciousness as a resource for your working life.

Is that a recipe for sleep disruption?

Or is that actually an interesting way of unlocking creativity and productivity when you're working remotely?

I think it's just a natural fact.

It's part of the nature of sleep.

There's a tendency to think of sleep as like,

Sleep is time away from life,

Or sleep is time away from work,

Rather than a potential deepening into life and deepening into our work,

Or whatever is most important to us that we may be working on,

Whether that's personal or professional.

You know,

It's,

We could say the brain thinks even more in rest and sleep,

Because all kinds of intelligent processes are turning on and becoming much more alive in these states.

So when you enter sleep,

You have direct access to these invisible realms of intelligence.

And in fact,

There's a whole book devoted to the power of sleep thinking by a wonderful coach named Eric Maisel.

And he describes it as an ultimate problem solving tool that simultaneously relieves stress and helps cure insomnia.

And that also then can help us look forward to going to bed even more,

Because we know that waking intelligence is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to,

You know,

Working on things.

So when we're looking forward to sleep thinking,

We might not get stuck,

You know,

In terms of feeling like,

Oh,

I can't fall asleep,

I feel stuck in the waking world.

Well,

We don't get stuck there very easily if we're really looking forward to going into that state.

So the idea is that your sleep mind,

Which is kind of like that invisible 95% of the universe,

It wants to help you,

It's designed to work on things for you and creatively mastermind and make connections and all kinds of things that we can't actually take in when we're just focusing on things from a limited waking world perspective.

Like that's its jam.

That's its natural way of being.

So yes,

I think it's wonderful to hand over challenges,

Whether it's consciously,

Like you don't have to do this consciously,

Because as I'm sure you've probably noticed in some of your Excel spreadsheet dreams,

Like it just happens anyway.

But if you're but if you want to actually direct or,

You know,

Engage a little bit with this process,

You can definitely hand over a question or like say,

To your sleep mind,

Hey,

Can you like work on this for me?

Or can you bring me an insight or,

You know,

I'm not sure what to do about x,

Y or z.

It's really fun to play with posing questions or intentions to the sort of mysterious mind of sleep.

It's just very natural to be working all kinds of stuff out,

Whether that's,

You know,

Mentally,

Emotionally,

And beyond whether we're resting,

Sleeping or dreaming.

Well,

And that brings me to one of my favorite parts of your yoga Nidra recording,

Which is the idea of the setting a sankalpa,

A deep intention.

And,

You know,

I really actually miss when I when I go a couple weeks without listening to your recording,

I really miss that centering practice,

Because I feel like that when that when we get to that question,

I love that you don't leave a lot of time for stewing,

You kind of have to listen to what comes up right away as the as the deep intention you're being called to,

Or at least that's how it works for me.

And I'm,

I'm curious as to how that works.

It's magic,

Because it feels it does feel a little bit like magic.

I mean,

There's the magic of discovering that,

Even though I would have told you that what my deepest intention is right now is,

You know,

To launch my book.

When you asked me that question,

What comes up is,

You know,

Gosh,

I really hope my son settles down,

He's having a hard month,

You know,

And it's,

It's often not what I think my intention is.

And then the other thing that happens is I go to sleep with that intention.

And things open up.

And so I'm curious how that all how that works.

Yeah,

I mean,

I always like to think of myself as more of a representative for the mystery of the magic than trying to pin down definitive answers.

But we can definitely talk a little bit more about aspects of Sankalpa.

It's such a deep topic.

I think I said to you before,

You know,

We could spend this entire time just talking about Sankalpa.

One of the simplest ways is to sum it up is like where energy flows or sorry,

Where attention goes,

Energy flows.

And I really encourage all your readers and listeners to dive deeper and learn more by looking up the article How to Create a Sankalpa by Kelly McGonigal,

Or to read the intention section in Khamenei Desai's wonderful book Transformational Sleep.

So I'm going to say more,

But I just wanted to offer those two resources so that people can go deeper.

So bearing in mind,

I am not a Sanskrit expert.

And in the incredible language of Sanskrit,

Every syllable and every letter even can have multiple possible meanings and infinite depth.

But having said that one basic way of defining Sankalpa is that san means truth and kalpa and kalpa means vow.

So Sankalpa wants to honor the deeper meaning of our lives.

And it's a vow and a commitment that we make to support our highest truth,

Whatever that might be.

And then it becomes a statement we can call upon to remind us of that.

And our highest truth is not always just about getting work done in the traditional sense,

Right,

Or even just goal setting in the traditional sense.

Sankalpa ideally is describing who we are and how we move in the world when we are in greatest harmony and alignment.

Another way to think of it is in terms of direction.

It's really about directing energy where we want it to go,

Which is definitely relevant and useful when it comes to,

Say,

Being challenged with focus while working from home.

Focusing on a direction,

Though,

Does not mean you have to be perfect at it or that things have to go perfectly.

The Sankalpa is just the direction you intend to steer in,

Which is different from a goal,

Right?

It doesn't have the same attachment to a particular end result.

We can be headed in a direction and not always know exactly what it looks like,

But we still know the direction we're headed in.

And often when we just set a goal,

It can become a way to like beat ourselves up if we don't get there.

We might become obsessed with an end result rather than just enjoying the process or the journey or even the how we are approaching something rather than just the doing of it.

And it's also said that the quality of our mind while we declare or while we remember the Sankalpa is sometimes the most important factor.

It really matters and impacts its magic,

Its effect.

And the practice of the Sankalpa actually wants to be born from a trust that you already are who you need to be to fulfill your life's purpose and that you already have everything you need inside you.

So coming from a place of not lack and really recognizing wholeness,

That's kind of the magic quality of mind we want to cultivate while we are declaring the Sankalpa.

And that's also often why it's encouraged that we say it in the positive and in the present tense as though it's already happening right now.

And this is also why practices like meditation and rest and even just leisure and sleep are sometimes even more fertile ground for Sankalpa planting because these states often just remind us experientially of our wholeness and also that present moment awareness.

In a different way than when we're like,

Okay,

I need to do this thing or,

You know,

I must get this done.

And when we plant a Sankalpa in Yoga Nidra or even before going to sleep,

We are essentially planting that intention into the realm of timeless,

Formless spirit,

Or we could say formless potential rather than just the time-bound waking mind alone.

So that doesn't mean that intentions can't also be powerful from the waking state.

It just means that it's only the tip of the iceberg.

We're not always taking advantage of that subconscious and unconscious intelligence in the same way as when we plant an intention into sleep or into Yoga Nidra.

And those subtle levels of being tend to have a much stronger impact.

So,

You know,

Plant your Sankalpa related to your deepest purpose,

Whether that is,

You know,

For your family or your book being released,

Anything at all.

Do that before you fall asleep at night.

Do it in your Yoga Nidra practice and also do it just before you're about to embark upon,

You know,

Whatever is important to you.

It might be a conversation.

It might be actually sitting down in front of your computer.

But this will then kind of cover all levels of consciousness,

Waking,

Dreaming,

Deep sleep,

And the awareness that's behind it all.

I love the way you think and talk about this.

And I feel like it's exactly what so many folks really need to hear right now as we shift states from treating remote work as this kind of emergency bandaid situation with a time limit to thinking about how it can fit into our working lives in the long run.

Because,

You know,

I do think that sleep is one of the most important things that is one of the places where people experience a lot of discomfort around remote work and feel like this zero sum tension between the amount of time we spend on work and the amount of time we have to regenerate.

And,

You know,

You've really shifted my perspective in this conversation.

And I think if anyone asks me,

As they often do,

Actually,

What to do about the sleep challenge as a remote worker,

I will heed your words and point out,

You know,

It's not a zero sum game.

The time we spend asleep or in states of kind of semi consciousness or altered consciousness to and from sleep in the middle of the night is,

You know,

A hugely important part of our not just our personal lives,

But actually of our working lives.

And that far from apologizing,

If we make time for sleep,

We actually can and should see that as part of our whole lives.

It's not a waking life versus sleeping life.

Yeah.

And we don't need to constrain it as like it can only happen at night even,

You know,

There actually is a growing movement around sleeping in cycles.

And this does make more sense with remote work.

If we're not beholden to a nine to five,

You know,

Eight hour grind.

Well,

Let's say you had not as full of asleep as you would like last night.

Well,

If you know you can take like a 90 minute nap in the afternoon to supplement lost sleep at night,

You're going to be a lot less anxious when you when you don't think it all has to take place perfectly in one fell swoop only nocturnally.

You know,

If you can get I think it's recommended something like five or six sleep cycles in a 24 hour period.

Well,

Then that opens up possibilities for you.

I obviously,

I recognize that's not possible for everyone.

But it can certainly for remote workers,

If you have a little bit more autonomy over your schedule,

And especially if you get to know when is my focus actually best,

When do I do my best work?

And when am I more,

You know,

Amenable to resting,

Then we can tailor these things a little bit more instead of just being,

You know,

Products of the kind of an outdated industrial revolution mentality where it's like,

Work can only happen at this time and sleep can only happen at this time,

You know.

Well,

And I really want to thank you for making that way of being possible,

Not just for me,

But for my whole family.

We have a lot of different sleep struggles in our home.

And one of my kids is autistic and like a lot of autistic kids sometimes has real sleep disruption.

And,

You know,

Just last weekend,

He was up all night.

And he gets quite skeptical about his ability to fall back asleep.

And I put on your recording and he was snoring in three minutes.

So thank you.

Oh,

My goodness.

That means so much to me to know that it's helpful.

Honestly,

I'm so delighted to hear that.

Seriously helpful.

And I really think like part of what I love about your recording in my life and part of why I'm always really happy when my my kids listen to it as well is I feel like it's such an accessible way of integrating mindfulness into our days.

And,

You know,

We're not none of us are people with a really structured meditation practice.

And yet,

Because we all listen to your recordings,

It means that there are those opportunities to practice,

You know,

Awareness,

Mindfulness and integration in ways that affect us far beyond our sleeping lives.

So thank you,

Truly,

Like you've had a huge impact on our lives over the past many years.

And it's just been such a delight to be able to speak with you today.

That's my utter honor and pleasure.

And maybe it's helpful to end on a quote from the Dalai Lama who claims that sleep is the best meditation.

Sleep itself is a meditation practice is already built into our biology every night when we let go into sleep that letting go of being attached to,

You know,

Thinking or tasks or all the things that you know,

We tend to be hijacked by that that alone is deep,

Profound meditative practice.

So it's built into you don't need to even need a separate practice necessarily.

Reviews

I know who I’m going to re-listen to tonight. Thank you.

Wildly helpful even now. I'll have to listen again though as I fell asleep somewhere before the end. Many thanks for posting this interview!

Very interesting. Everything of Jennifer’s is a revelation. She was one of my first discoveries on IT and has been important to me ever since. She’s a gifted teacher.

I really appreciated both this discussion and the information/resources provided. Much of it holds true not only for those working remotely from home but also for those (like me) doing academic programs largely from the home as well. Thank you for sharing this wonderful session with us here. I see you and the light within you. Be well. 🤲🏻💖🤲🏻

such an insight to how working from home can affect sleep

Very helpful, love the tool “Cognitive Shuffle” the article she mentioned can be found on yoga international
https://yogainternational.com/article/view/how-to-create-a-sankalpa

Last half more informative- got 4 new tips thank you!💗

This was so helpful! Thank you!!!

Well done
Thanks

This session was nothing short of amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your insight on the wisdom and beauty of sleep. I use your yoga nidra tracks most evenings and this interview was like a behind the scenes tour with you as the guide. Thank you!

Extremely helpful, thank you!