How to stop fixating on sleep (self-monitoring)
Hi there,
I’ve had several discussions lately on self-monitoring during insomnia and I thought to share my thoughts on this with you too.
The connection between attention to sleep and sleep itself is very powerful. The best analogy to explain that is pointing a flashlight at the darkness.
If we think of sleep as darkness and the light as our attention and focus, then when we monitor or focus on “fixing” sleep, it’s like we try to catch the darkness by pointing a flashlight on it. It’s simply not there when we look at it!
This is why letting go of monitoring our sleep is so helpful. But I know this isn’t easy at all.
It’s not voluntary
If we think of anyone without insomnia, we might notice that they don’t monitor their sleep at all or at least not in the way we usually do when we start fearing not sleeping.
I’ve gone through the experience where I couldn’t take my eyes off sleep. And you know, I believe that the tendency to monitor sleep is largely an automatic action – we don’t consciously choose to fixate on it. It is not an innocent and playful interest, it is a heavy gravitational pull towards the source of what we perceive as a “threat”. It’s hard to resist not looking at it!
Monitoring is a part of our survival mechanism when the brain begins to narrow down its focus, scanning the surroundings for a threat and warning us about anything it finds “suspicious”. So if you find yourself unable to wilfully stop doing that – don’t be hard on yourself, it is like that for most of people who struggle with insomnia.
“How can I not monitor it, if can’t sleep??”
The reason why our brain comes back to monitoring sleep over and over is because it perceives the situation as dangerous (even if in reality we are safe). To the brain, the threat seems and feels real and it acts exactly as we were in a real immediate danger. But what the brain doesn’t fully get is that the mere monitoring and fixation on sleep can delay the sleep onset. We are in a vicious cycle now.
So when we deliberately choose to focus on anything other than trying to fix it, two things can happen: a) our attention might keep getting back to sleep despite the effort to not do that, and b) the brain may even respond with increased hyperarousal, as if we are in more danger. That is an expected behaviour from the brain – we literally do the opposite of what the safety seeking brain wants us to do! No wonder it feels more scared when we stop self-monitoring.
Note, that letting go of self-monitoring isn’t the same as neglecting any actual external or apparent sleep disruptors where trouble sleeping is one of the by-products of it. For example, if a person has prominent sleep apnea or an injury which makes it harder to sleep, then it needs to be addressed in a calm and rational manner.
No need to declare war on monitoring
The logical conclusion might be to try to not monitor and distract ourselves with other things. But this route doesn’t have to be helpful either. Because instead of seeing through and understanding our fears, we try to pretend like they don’t exist. And since things persist when we resist them, actively fighting with monitoring can lead to more fixation.
Since monitoring is the automatic part of our survival mechanism, the good news is that monitoring automatically subsides when we don’t view the situation as a threat anymore.
Understanding the source and nature of our monitoring tendencies can help us gain clarity and so much needed peace. We begin to recognize monitoring as any other sign of hyperarousal (anxious thoughts, emotions or sensations) and nothing more. Self-monitoring gets the stickiest when we forbid our brain from doing what it’s designed to do to keep us safe. But when we acknowledge this natural “feature” of the mind and see it for what it really is, things slowly begin to shift. With no resistance to monitoring, the monitoring starts to fade too.
Take care ❤️
Ali