Hi there!
This is the response I’ve written recently and I wanted to share it with you too.
Usually, people ask something in a way: How should I work with my fight or flight response? Do I need to keep showing the brain that I’m okay being awake?
Well, the general way of approaching the whole insomnia and sleep anxiety situation is indeed to change the way we perceive wakefulness. But it’s not just that. To work with fight or flight, we also need to change our perception of fight or flight itself.
When we approach our fight or flight response with the intent to get rid of it, we might be creating a cycle where the brain keeps being afraid of the fear itself. Like a feedback loop.
But say, you walk on the street and some big angry dog starts running at you – your first instinct is fight or flight. And because that reaction is so expected and appropriate in that moment, we don't really suffer from that reaction itself - the reaction comes and then it subsides on its own. We don't think about why we have it and how to stop it.
During insomnia, it might not be so obvious that the brain is reacting to wakefulness pretty much in the same way as it would to that dog. So our fight or flight feels out of context. It feels misunderstood. And because of that, we think that fight or flight itself is a problem. But it's not. It is a perfectly normal response to something that our brain perceives as a problem or a threat. It can be a dog, heights or wakefulness.
Of course, unlike the situation with an angry dog, fight or flight isn't super helpful when it comes to insomnia – because we are already safe even if we experience wakefulness, but the brain doesn't know that yet, and so it keeps alarming us.
So the first step in working with the fight or flight mode is understanding our reactions and seeing them for what they are. Remember, feelings/emotions are never the problem, the problem arises when we think that they are the problem.
When we begin to look at anxiety and fear as a way the brain is looking out for us, our perception of that feeling can change. It doesn't mean it stops immediately or that we start enjoying it (we don’t have to enjoy anxiety to accept it), but we can come to see that we can coexist with that feeling.
We might even greet fight or flight as our old (and sometimes confused) friend; we can acknowledge it and even thank the brain for taking care of us: "I hear you brain, thanks for looking out for me, I'm good".
And again, all this is not to escape fight of flight but to change our relationship with it. It is totally okay if it goes on for a while as we allow it – it always takes time for our body to stabilize. And in the meantime, we can look into ways to make it more comfortable for ourselves to experience this emotion.
See you in the next letter!
❤️
Alina
I recently self-published a book to Amazon called "The Sleep Solution", where I research and explore some of the more recent sleep wellness trends, providing an unbiased view backed by science and studies to see how effective each of them are. Hopefully it helps others get a better sleep.