Does sleepiness mean you will sleep?
Hi friend,
Today I thought it’s good to talk about sleepiness and the state of calmness – as both seem to be strongly associated with the likelihood of sleep. We think: “the more I feel sleepy, the better chance I have tonight”. But was this always true? Let’s see!
Insomnia is all about the way we feel, think and act around sleep. As we try to fall asleep, we put a colossal pressure on ourselves, which understandably ends up with us sleeping less.
And as the result we decide to take an indirect road to sleep: instead of directly trying to sleep, we kind of “let go“ of this activity and we begin to focus on the precursors of sleep – sleepiness and calmness. But little do we know that it’s also a sleep effort!
When we try to get sleepy enough or calm enough for sleep to come, paradoxically that feeling of sleepiness does not arrive. Anxiety and sleepiness, just like sleep itself, are not really in our control. Just like we can’t fall asleep at will, we can’t stop anxiety or worrisome thoughts in a moment, nor can we increase sleepiness on command. So the more we are expecting and desiring that relaxed sleepy state, the more alert and vigilant we become.
Now the antidote to that is… understanding! Understanding that there is no strong connection between feeling sleepy/calm and sleep itself. Feeling of sleepiness fluctuates throughout the day and night. If you think about your experience before insomnia, perhaps you could remember when after feeling super sleepy, you get in bed and suddenly feel less sleepy. Yet, it didn’t seem to create more troubles with sleep at that time. Or feeling sleepy after lunch – doesn’t it always tell us that we are ready to sleep many hours? Unlikely. It’s a temporary feeling and not reflecting how you will actually sleep.
Once you disconnect the certain states from sleep, you will see:
👉 Feeling sleepy doesn’t mean that you will sleep like a baby
👉 Feeling more awake doesn’t mean that you will be up all night
👉 Feeling anxious may lead to a peaceful sleep
👉 Feeling calm might lead to the night of no sleep
The connection isn’t that strong, so why even chase those states?
Just something to think about 😉
P.S. If you like what I do and wish to support my Sleep Talks project (or buy me a virtual cup of coffee or something), consider joining me on Patreon! ;)
I thought that you should only go to bed when sleepy. If you do become awake when you get into bed its normally due to conditioned arousal?
I thought that you should only go t bed when sleepy? Seen aswell that if you feel awake as soon as you go to bed this coud be conditioned arousal