When it comes to the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors associated with sleep, it can be really helpful to challenge everything - because many of our sleep-related thoughts and behaviors are inaccurate and/or unhelpful and end up actually perpetuating insomnia by disrupting sleep drive, weakening the body clock, and generating arousal.
A study published in July 2020 estimated that we have over 6,000 thoughts every single day. Now, if you’re living with chronic insomnia it’s likely that a good number of those thoughts are related to sleep. And, just as it might be reasonable to suggest that the 6,000 or so thoughts we have every single day aren’t 100% true, 100% of the time, it makes sense to consider that the sleep-related thoughts we have every day aren’t 100% true, 100% of the time, either.
Unfortunately, for those with chronic insomnia, sleep-related thoughts that randomly enter the mind can generate a lot of worry and anxiety regardless of how true they are. And, because it’s hard for the brain to critically evaluate every single thought that enters our mind throughout the day (and night), it’s easy to take these thoughts as facts. This, in turn, can heighten arousal, and arousal is something that perpetuates insomnia.
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So, with this in mind, it can be helpful to evaluate or challenge any thoughts you have that are related to sleep - especially if those thoughts tend to generate worry or anxiety.
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If we are able to recognize that our initial thought is not particularly accurate, we might then replace it with a more accurate thought instead.
The initial thought would likely generate quite a lot of worry, whereas the replacement (and more accurate) thought likely generates a bit less worry. Since worry is a form of arousal - and arousal perpetuates sleep disruption - we can see that the replacement thought is probably going to be less disruptive to sleep.
It can be helpful, too, to give ourselves the opportunity to challenge beliefs and the subsequent behaviors that tend to generate worry and anxiety.
In this case, it can be helpful to set yourself a little experiment. You might be surprised at just how capable you can be and how little effect sleep actually has on your daytime activities!
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Finally, it’s helpful to challenge all sleep-related behaviors. Sleep efforts do not work because they imply that sleep can be controlled and when we implement a sleep effort, our brains need to remain active to monitor for the outcome of the effort. This only makes sleep more difficult.
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Since sleep-related thoughts and behaviors perpetuate sleep disruption it can be really helpful to identify, evaluate, challenge, and modify these thoughts and behaviors to help reduce arousal, strengthen sleep drive, strengthen the body clock, and help set the stage for sleep.
Reference:
Tseng, J. (2020). Brain meta-state transitions demarcate thoughts across task contexts exposing the mental noise of trait neuroticism. Nature Communications. www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
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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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