We are simultaneously overstimulated and exhausted, too amped up to rest while too fatigued to be well. To protect our mental and physical health, we must learn to both encourage restfulness and discourage wakefulness. Follow the pointers below to get started.

Are you sick and t’wired –both tired and wired? Many of us are, with insomnia affecting anywhere from 10-60% of the population worldwide.[1] We want nothing more than to sleep, but are also so stimulated we can’t rest. Perhaps the solution lies in shifting the way we think about being both awake and asleep.

The Importance of Sleep

Lack of sleep is related to a host of physical ailments, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity, to name just a few.[2] Research has shown sleep allows the brain to clear waste at an increased rate, underscoring the restorative nature of sleep.[3] Sleeping makes us feel good.

On the other hand, when we don’t sleep, we feel terrible. We all know loss of sleep makes us cranky. What you may not know is that sleep disturbances are also associated with depression and anxiety.[4] The relationship is bidirectional, meaning sleep affects mental health and mental health affects sleep.

Andrew Weil defines sleep as one of the core areas of health. Similarly, I’ve discussed rest as foundational to my ability to establish a calmer life. In fact, one of the top lessons I learned as part of my Commitment to Calm was that it was impossible for me to learn to manage my stress without first learning to rest.

For more lessons learned from a year of calm, read this!

Wakefulness vs. Sleepiness

As part of my Integrative Wellness certification, I recently completed coursework on sleep and read this article by Dr. Rubin Naiman. A psychologist and assistant professor at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, his article, “When wakefulness is seen as the main event, no wonder so many have trouble sleeping. Can we rekindle the joy of slumber?” offers a philosophical discussion of sleep. It turned the way I think about sleep on its head.

Dr. Naiman argues it’s important for us to both learn to value rest AND devalue arousal. In our culture of artificial light, cell phone scrolling, and coffee guzzling, we are hyper-aroused. We are obsessed with being awake.

At the same time, sleep medicine has come a long way. Researchers know more than ever about what happens during sleep, how important sleep is to health, and how to treat sleeplessness. Our society has become obsessed with getting enough sleep.

These opposing forces are at work all the time. We battle sleepiness by day and wakefulness by night.

Medicalizing sleep isn’t necessarily bad, but an incomplete way to look at it. Let’s face it. For a lot of us, this knowledge hasn’t resulted in better sleep. We talk about sleep more, but get less of it. This negatively impacts our physical and mental well-being.

If we want to sleep better, feel better, and increase our wellness, we might benefit from a more comprehensive perspective. Instead of thinking about sleep as simply losing consciousness, we can think of sleep as abandoning hyperarousal.

In other words, restfulness isn’t only about valuing sleep, but also breaking up with wakefulness. Before you dismiss this as too woo-woo, hear me out on this! A calmer mind and body can come from this two-pronged approach.

In our society, we value wakefulness, but not the opposite. Hyperarousal, which Dr. Naiman defines as “a turbocharged pace of life that is not modulated by adequate rest,” wreaks havoc on our brainwaves, breathing, heartrate, and temperature, all important moderators of sleep. We are so stimulated, we can’t sleep.

When our wakefulness becomes unbearable, some of us try to knock ourselves out with things like sleeping pills, alcohol, melatonin, or CBD. These tactics “do not heal insomnia; they suppress its symptoms.” In other words, we’re not sleeping, we’re simply losing consciousness. We’re decreasing our wakefulness but not encouraging our sleepiness.

Instead, we can view rest as something to be valued and hyperarousal as something to be avoided. In this sense, sleep can become a serene, spiritual way to care for ourselves. The challenge lies in getting over our addiction to wakefulness, which doesn’t necessarily come easy.

Dr. Naiman draws the analogy of a turbulent plane landing. “The body might vibrate, bounce and shake as the mind experiences updrafts of anxieties, of unresolved emotions and thoughts. Our challenge is to avoid reflexively re-ascending to escape this experience. Humility is about trusting that the safety of sleep resides just beyond the turbulence.”

We can make this process easier by establishing practices that simultaneously decrease our wakefulness and increase our sleepiness. Calming down must be an intentional and gentle practice.

To do this requires a mind shift: both valuing sleep or rest and devaluing hyperarousal. It also requires a behavior shift: doing things both to encourage sleepiness and discourage wakefulness. Like all worthwhile habit changes, this takes some effort.

So how do we get started? We need a two-pronged approach. Here are a few pointers to get started:

Encourage Sleepiness

Approach sleep as a way to care for yourself rather than a medical process.

  • Focus on the basics first: eat well and exercise.
  • Prioritize sleep with a consistent (or close to it) wake/rest time every day.
  • Learn to manage your stress so you can surrender to sleep more easily.
  • Foster your sleep environment with things like a cooled room, weighted blanket, and/or dark space (no artificial light).
  • Try meditation, prayer, yoga nidra, or a ritual that signals it’s time to rest.

Discourage Wakefulness

Break the obsession with hyper-arousal and stimulation.

  • Learn to value doing nothing. View rest as a superpower that takes practice!
  • Increase your body’s natural melatonin production with natural light exposure (go outside) upon rising and at sunset.
  • Avoid cell phones and electronic screens. (Get more helpful tips from the book Digital Minimalism here!)
  • Avoid caffeine six hours prior to sleep (at least).

What I like about this approach is that it’s both practical and personal, something Dr. Naiman advocates for. Remember, no habits change overnight. Expect there to be some “turbulence” as you find what works for you.

Need help cultivating a calm, content life? Consider signing up for Take Five, my newsletter focused on simple, science-based strategies for well-being.

[1] Bhaskar, S., Hemavathy, D., & Prasad, S. (2016). Prevalence of chronic insomnia in adult patients and its correlation with medical comorbidities. Journal of family medicine and primary care, 5(4), 780–784. https://doi.org/10.4103/2249-4863.201153

[2] Colten, H. R., Altevogt, B. M., & Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research (Eds.). (2006). Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem. National Academies Press (US).

[3] Xie, L., Kang, H., Xu, Q., Chen, M. J., Liao, Y., Thiyagarajan, M., … & Nedergaard, M. (2013). Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain. science, 342(6156), 373-377.

[4] Pasquale K. Alvaro, B Psych (Honors), Rachel M. Roberts, BA (Hons), MPsych (Clinical), PhD, Jodie K. Harris, BPsych (Hons), PhD (Clin Psych), A Systematic Review Assessing Bidirectionality between Sleep Disturbances, Anxiety, and Depression, Sleep, Volume 36, Issue 7, 1 July 2013, Pages 1059–1068, https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.2810