Getting decent rest and working with sleep difficulties
Improved sleep is a key goal for almost everyone on our pain and fatigue rehabilitation programmes - many of our clients have disrupted sleep due to chronic pain or other issues associated with fatigue. Our clinicians assess and collaborate with our clients to find out what’s happening in relation to their sleep patterns. Anxiety and an over-adrenalised ‘wired but tired’ state are very common, especially in our increasingly blue-lit world of technology and perpetual doing-ness. As someone who has Chronic Fatigue and who can struggle with insomnia, below are my tried and tested tips!
Be aware that we are not our thoughts.
It’s common to build a narrative around our difficulty with sleeping, such as ‘I am going to be exhausted tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep’ and so on. ACT encourages us instead to reframe this as ‘I am having the thought that I will be exhausted tomorrow if I don’t get some sleep’. What this does, if you try it, is give some perspective and distance between what your mind is telling you and whether you actually treat it as fact.
Be realistic.
If we do live with pain or other difficulties, it is important at first to acknowledge how this manifests and limits us, for example finding it hard to get comfortable or to switch off for long enough to be able to get to sleep. There may be things that we can control, such as having the right supports in place to enable us to be comfortable, or moderating how much caffeine we drink after midday, or how much stimulating TV we might watch before bed. Then there are those things that we can’t control, and these need our patience and kind attention. Getting frustrated with them or resisting them in other ways won’t improve the situation, however tempting it may be.
Be mindful of what you are taking in during the day, e.g. through social media or browsing the internet for news updates.
Take a look at our tips in this blog on dealing with overwhelm and over-stimulating our nervous systems into flight or fight survival mode. The world is a volatile and uncertain place which is being acutely felt by us collectively and we can only absorb so much ‘news’ in this way. This includes of course, trawling through the internet or social media, which can be very addictive and can expose us to a constant trickle of fear-inducing information, which saps our energy.
Keep to a regular routine.
This is crucial, especially if you have insomnia. Our clinical experience tells us that a regular routine that stabilises the circadian rhythm, especially in the darker months, is essential. See our blog about getting the most of natural daylight as a support to sleeping better.
Keep the bedroom for sleeping in!
Try to resist the temptation to do work from your laptop in bed. The blue light can play havoc with our natural rhythms. If you do have a gadget on, perhaps have it playing a mindful body scan or some natural soothing, restorative delta waves or natural sounds. Insight Timer is great for this. Just type ‘sleep’ into the search bar for hundreds of soundtracks to support switching the nervous system into a parasympathetic mode - crucial to be able to sleep.
Some tips to switch off a racing mind:
Take a long breath for a count of 4, hold for 1 second, breathe out of the mouth for a count of 5
Bring your attention into your feet. i.e. the furthest point from your racing mind! How are they? Hot, cold, tingly, numb? Perhaps visualise breathing in and out of the feet or legs in rotation
To help the nervous system to feel safe, notice 5 sounds you can hear, 5 sights you can see and 5 things you can feel (the clothing on your body, the air in your nose etc). As you do this, you could say to yourself ‘right now, I am safe’
Trick your mind with a counting sheep type activity. Think of as many things and visualise them simultaneously (without repetition) beginning with random letters of the alphabet. For example, I think of as many words beginning with B. I find my racing mind gets bored and gives up spinning
Use hot water bottles to help support a sense of relaxation of softening muscles. I use one between my shoulder blades and another one on my chest and this creates a soothing, holding effect
Elevate your legs above your heart for a bit before bed
Imagine the body getting heavier and bring attention to the back body especially and bring images to mind like sinking into wet sand for example, or other heavy things like trees or rocks
Other resources
Written from personal experience of Katherine Sewell, Business Support Manager with clinical input from Denise Martin, Specialist Occupational Therapist