Sleep effort dilemma 🤔
Hi there!
This post is for those who are closely familiar with the concept of sleep efforts. If you are not, I encourage you to read this post and watch this video first. It will be helpful.
So we know that sleep efforts keep insomnia alive. We know that having no efforts allows sleep to naturally come. But the tricky part is that anything can become a sleep effort. Literally. anything.
So how can we understand what is a sleep effort and what isn’t and what the hell are we supposed to do?!
First, let me show you the thought process of figuring out sleep efforts:
🤔 “Shoot, I woke up. Should I get up? I don’t really want to.”
🤔 “I should because staying in bed is a sleep effort, I shouldn’t have any sleep efforts.”
🤔 “Wait! But what if trying to get rid of all efforts is an effort too?”
🤔 “Then maybe I should stay… but no, it does seem like an effort. Then I must get up.”
As you can see, I can keep that internal dialogue going on forever – and it won’t make us feel any better.
This is what coach Daniel Erichsen calls “counter effort”.
Staying in bed (or any other decision) can be and might not be a sleep effort at the same time. And since the logic of figuring out sleep efforts is endless… then the right decision can’t be achieved in this manner. This process is an infinite loop.
Love this extract from Futurama with the infinite loop 😁
So the truth is – sleep effort or not – it doesn’t matter because nothing can produce sleep. And in cases when there is no way to spot a sleep effort, we can just observe this thought process:
😏 “Whether it is a sleep effort or not – it doesn’t matter. I can choose to do whatever I want. I can’t fall asleep at will anyway.”
Sleep efforts are powerful when we are not aware of them. But when we are aware of them, they get neutralized – and whatever you decide to do in the end wouldn’t even matter, because there is nothing we can and need to do for sleep, it will happen on its own terms.
What’s new 👀
My Sleep Talks YT channel got 2 new videos!
In the first video I imagined insomnia’s personality to help you understand how to approach it. I also received different personalities tips that can describe insomnia: an annoying sibling, a scared child, a screaming toddler, a rabbit in the hole 🙂. All work too! Depending what gives you a better understanding of your experience.
The next video touches a topic of gratitude and its role on recovery journey. I’m sharing my best insights that can help gratitude work for you. A must-watch I would say 🙂
By the way the topic of the video was suggested by my Patreon supporter Sarah and if you want to take part in shaping the Sleep Talks content too, consider joining me on Patreon!
Have a lovely day ❤️
A.