Sleep is probably the only thing in life that doesn’t respond positively to effort. In fact, the more effort we put into sleep, the more difficult sleep becomes. Only two conditions are needed for sleep to happen. We need to be sleepy enough for sleep (in other words, we need to be awake for long enough) and we need to be in a state of low mental arousal (in other words, our mind needs to be calm and relaxed).
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Putting effort into sleep requires mental arousal - mental effort - and this immediately makes sleep more difficult, regardless of how long we’ve been awake.
Engaging in behavioral sleep efforts requires mental arousal, too - because the brain needs to stay active to monitor for the effects of the sleep effort.
So, if we want to improve sleep, we need to stop trying to sleep. Sleep doesn’t happen when we “try” to sleep. Sleep happens when conditions are right for sleep.
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One reason why we can be so tempted to put effort into sleep, to “try” to sleep, is because we fear the consequences of poor sleep - and so we implement safety behaviors such as calling in sick to work after a difficult night (or a string of difficult nights) because we are worried that we’ll make mistakes or not be productive.
We might cancel plans with friends because we think there’s no way we’ll be able to enjoy ourselves or that we might even embarrass ourselves.
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We might actively try not to think about sleep. We might reach for a sleeping pill if we don’t fall asleep shortly after getting into bed or if we wake and don’t fall right back to sleep.
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Unfortunately, by implementing safety behaviors we can train ourselves to believe that we cannot cope with sleep loss. We can train ourselves to believe that poor sleep always has a negative outcome.
We can also fail to give ourselves the opportunity to experience positive moments or good days after difficult nights. They can also make us actively avoid doing things that might make us happy and less worried about wakefulness.
The result is that, ultimately, safety behaviors make us feel worse over the long-term. We end up increasing mental arousal and perpetuating sleep disruption.
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If you can get to a point where you’re able to abandon all effort to sleep and you’re able to abandon all safety behaviors, you create the best conditions for sleep to happen - all by itself.
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My name is Martin Reed and I am the founder of Insomnia Coach®. I offer sleep coaching services that give people with insomnia all the skills and support they need to enjoy better sleep for the rest of their lives. I also offer a free two-week sleep training course for people with insomnia at insomniacoach.com/sleep-train...
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