Decent Sleep = Surviving Personhood
I don’t consider myself unhappy on the whole, but last night I fell asleep to a steady thrum of angst, a deep longing for something different, and some annoyingly profound ennui. I externalized my suffering meticulously–rearranging the deck chairs of my personal Titanic (if we are lucky enough to breathe, we will also one day die) with great reason and urgency. This morning, I woke up and wondered who that person was. I had been sober, but I had also been profoundly tired in every way a person can be. While I’ve never ingested LSD (because I’m fairly sure that “there be dragons” — at least on my personal map), I imagine moments like those that I experienced last night are not unlike a bad trip.
It never ceases to amaze me how I can go to bed with a feeling of wrongness haunting the center of my universe just to wake up with a wildly different perspective. This is not to say that the problem always miraculously disappears or that it has magically resolved itself overnight, but sometimes it seems like I fall asleep in a dirty box and wake up in an open field. This has been true my whole life, but I think I see it better now than I used to. And it’s not lost on me that I have access to this perspective now. It is, in fact, morning.
I understand the basic mechanics of how sleep works — that it “cleans” our fatigued, overstimulated brains and prunes the thicket of content we were exposed to the day prior so that we can navigate the next day without feeling overwhelmed by the brambles and thorns and detritus of the previous day’s experiences. Fun fact: modern humans are exposed to more information in a week than our ancestors of just several centuries ago experienced in a lifetime. Our brains are tired.
And yet, the experience of reality in the evening can be so wildly compelling and immersive — so, well, real.
To draw a parallel: my experiences of depression and anxiety — and those I’ve observed in others — are not unlike this. A kind of hell-scape you know you are in, but it is also the only reality you have access to at that time. You would gladly switch realities if that seemed possible, but the bitter trick of these mind-states is that they keep you from consistently believing they aren’t the only lens through which you can view the world. All other potential realities are painfully theoretical — infinite distances from this present moment. And, of course, the nature of depression is to have trouble accessing the present moment without harsh judgment, comparison, and varying degrees of dread. It’s not unlike being in a nightmare that you can’t figure out how to wake up from.
Depression always haunts the outer limits of my psyche. But when I’m well-rested and feel secure in my connections, I can see it there. A thing separate from me.
I suppose one of the most personally valuable lessons I’ve learned about myself and other humans in these forty-two trips around the sun is that good sleep changes everything. So does consistent exercise, connection with beloveds, and adequate nutrition.
I genuinely believe we should do everything we can to fight for all people’s ability to have these things.
But now that I’ve extolled sleep’s virtues, it feels irresponsible to leave it here. So here’s what I know about good sleep. For one, it helps to put away screens hours before bed. And to not drink too much. And to get enough physical exercise in the day to wear your ass out. And, if your issues are severe, have a sleep study done as you may have sleep apnea.
It can also be helpful for some people to do a body scan meditation before bed. I’m including a couple of my favorites — ones that I recommend to clients in my therapy practice — below. Sometimes the 20-minute meditation is enough. Sometimes, a 40-minute one–if you are really unsettled or especially physiologically aroused. I’m putting both of these here.
Also, if you are a parent and have the benefit of living with another parent, please give each other the gift of taking turns making deep, restorative sleep possible. So many people–and especially moms–are run down by sleep hunger. It changes everything. But don’t take my word for it. Ask the Macbeths.
20 Minute Body Scan with Dr. Stephanie Swann: https://insig.ht/LLzqHKMijob
40 Minute Body Scan with Dr. Stephanie Swann (based on the MBSR curriculum): https://insig.ht/NZY8jFRijob
(Image citation: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-0582-4_36)
