How to Hack the nightly thoughts 😴
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You’re just drifting off to sleep, when suddenly the thought hits you and in a split second you’re wide awake, heart pounding and head spinning 🤯
Or you’re already asleep, but something wakes you up, and ping! Thoughts start landing at the speed of pigeons arriving at a breadcrumbs festival. No chance of going off to sleep again 🫣
You try to push the thoughts away (I DON’T need to think about that bill I didn’t charge, the client I need to call, if I prescribed the right amount of tablets or what Matthew REALLY meant when he said that), but it’s like trying to push a beach ball underwater; they just keep popping up. Result: 1 hour or little more of that precious sleep you so needed 🥱
Here’s why it doesn’t work to try to suppress the thoughts: Intellectually you understand that it’s no use thinking about these things in the middle of the night. Your primitive brain, however, does not know the difference between urgent and non-urgent stuff. Your brain is always looking out for danger, it’s its job, and if there’s nothing obvious (such as a lion, tsunami or starvation), it will keep looking 👀
And all those little tasks and worries you’ve been putting away all day and distracted yourself away from are suddenly exposed and pulled up for exam. If you try to push them away, your brain sees it as you not paying attention to the lion or the tsunami, and it will keep sending you stronger and stronger stress signals.
So in order to stop it, you want to show your brain you see what it’s showing you, and you’re dealing with it. Turn on the light. Have a notepad (or iPad or whatever) on your bedside table. Take 10 minutes to write down everything your brain thinks you need to deal with. Just get it out of your head and down on paper/screen. Even when you're super tired and don't feel like it.
I promise, doing this will help your sleep immensely!! 😴
In your corner,
P.S: If you’re really struggling with sleep due to nightly worries and overthinking, reach out for a free coaching session HERE where we’ll work through the one issue that’s most keeping you awake, so you can go back to morpheus arms again.
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