Sleep & Anxiety- Or How To Bring Back Your Sleep Naturally

It is a well- known fact that the lack of sleep causes increase in anxiety and depression. But did you know that we’re making it worse by thinking we NEED to sleep, and if we don’t, we can’t function? These thoughts alone make anxiety about lack of sleep much worse than it really needs be.

When clients say to me: ‘I can’t sleep, no matter how hard I try’, I say: ‘So don’t sleep; find something else to do at night. Something that makes you happy, something you may not have time for in your busy schedule.’

Whether it’s reading a book or listening to a music, doing something pleasurable makes all the difference to how you feel about a lack of sleep, or sleep in general.

If you relax this idea that ‘you absolutely have to sleep in order to function’, the sleep will come back naturally for you.

People try different methods of bringing back their sleep: alcohol, drugs, pills. But these do not bring your sleep back in its optimum state; you will not feel as refreshed as when you get your natural sleep.

Change your relationship with sleeping. Trust your body to navigate sleep as it needs to. Sleep is NOT an absolute must. Many people function on a couple of hours a night, others need at least 8 hours of sleep to function- we are all different.

Each one of us will go through stages of insomnia at some point in our lives. Don’t stress about it; relax about it and enjoy other activities until you fall back into your usual sleep routine. Because it will come back if you’re relaxed about it.

So think of your sleep as a pleasurable activity during which your brain ‘sorts out information and experience you have gained that day’. And this ‘cleaning up’ while we sleep feels nice.

If you think of the sleep as a pleasure rather than a must, your sleep will return to you.