We insomniacs are bombarded with many different approaches to getting a good nights sleep when we’re online. One approach that I’ve tried unsuccessfully is listening to sleep meditation, sleep hypnosis, or binaural beat recordings. I have never had any success with any of these methods, and for a long time was never quite sure why. These concepts sounded good in theory and I did feel somewhat more relaxed while listening to these recordings, but I usually ended up with less sleep than I would if I hadn’t listened to anything before bed.
After reading “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl (an absolute classic that I would recommend to anyone), I now have a theory as to why listening to sleep focused recordings never worked for me. While there is so much more to this book, Frankl discusses the method of psychotherapy he developed called logotherapy. There are two main components to this method: helping patients see the meaning in their life and the struggles they face so that they’re more resilient to adversity; and, taking focus away from the thoughts that result in a vicious circle of neurosis in many people.
These neuroses he speaks of include examples like sexual disfunction, obsessive compulsive disorder, and sleep. If you have ever had sexual arousal issues that were not of the physical variety, you likely were thinking too much and trying to force the issue, rather than simply being in the moment and allowing arousal to happen. In a similar way, many of us try to force the issue when it comes to sleep and paradoxically, it winds up making it harder for us to fall asleep.
In Frankl’s methodology, the root of this difficulty is caused by anticipatory anxiety. He mentions that one characteristic of this fear is that it actually makes what a person fears much more likely to occur. The example he uses is someone who has a fear of blushing when they walk into a room full of people. That fear causes them to be much more likely to blush when that situation presents itself. In the same way, a forced intention makes what one wants impossible to obtain - he refers to this forced intention as “hyper intention”. The harder we try to sleep, the harder it will be to actually do so. Frankl’s solution to this is what he refers to as “paradoxical intent”. This involves flipping around your hyper intention. In the case of sleep, where we’ve developed a fear of not falling asleep and thus a hyper intention to sleep, we try the opposite - to stay awake as long as possible.
In a way, this paradoxical intention is at work in modern cognitive behavioral therapy focused on insomnia. Many times, the cognitive behavioral therapist will recommend that a patient put themselves on a sleep restriction schedule. This generally begins with limiting the patient to a very short number of hours of sleep each night while gradually increasing that window, this may begin with as little as 4 hours per night. This will usually prevent someone from experiencing an inability to fall asleep because they are simply so tired that they get very efficient sleep. This has the effect of breaking that fear of not falling asleep.
In tying this back to why listening to recordings may not be working for you, consider the fact that these may actually be causing you to think too much about falling asleep, and triggering your fear of a sleepless night. To really get a great night of sleep, I think a few key things are important:
- Living a life of great physical and mental expenditure - we need to empty our tank in order to sleep well. If you’re experiencing insomnia, are you sure that you’re living in such a way that you’re challenged in the right ways that really uses all of your energy?
- Routine - we are creatures of habit, it is always good to have a set schedule of when we go to sleep, wake, and to have a tried and true method of winding down at the end of the day. zzzMilk can be a great part of an evening wind-down routine that can help you get into the right place to fall asleep. Just try to get through a chapter of your book after drinking a serving of zzzMilk!
- Limiting substances that can impact our sleep, namely alcohol, caffeine, THC, prescription sleep aids, and even melatonin. All of these substances will eventually disrupt your natural rhythms of sleep and make your problem worse in the long run.
In closing, if you’re ever having issues lying awake at night unable to sleep, stop trying so hard! Try to do something else, you may have a night or two where you don’t get as much sleep as you’d like, but you’re avoiding fostering that fear of not sleeping and you will sleep great after a few nights. Just wake up at the same time regardless.
Sweet Dreams,
Dan