This Practice Has Helped Me Get Sleep During This Crisis

Yet another friend recently told me she had trouble sleeping or relaxing. It has become a frequent refrain when speaking with friends and co-workers over the last few weeks.

This isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon. Ada Calhoun wrote a book just a few months before the U.S. moved to shelter-in-place regulations, Why We Can’t Sleep, about the angst Generation X feel in their midlife. In some ways, many career-driven women I know already weren’t able to rest, but this crisis feels different. I’ve heard stories about women who fall asleep fine, but then are awake for hours in the middle of the night or concerns about this uneasy feeling during their daily activities that they just can’t shake. Often they can’t identify what is making them feel upset or keeping them awake.

I know these experiences personally from earlier in my life and career—the worries, the low-grade dread, the middle of the night waking. I get it—truly—and so, if they ask for advice, I share the one thing that has helped me overcome sleeplessness time and again: journaling.

When I was a kid, I got a diary with a pretty cover and a tiny lock on the side. I loved writing notes about my day and the fun things I did with friends. After a while, I either lost track of the book somewhere or outgrew it. It wasn’t until much later in my career that I almost reluctantly picked up a journal again. This time it was a plain black notebook.

I had found myself only focusing on the negative things and needed to regain my energy and spark at work and home. In this instance, I chose to focus on gratitude, journaling three things from the day that had brought me joy.

As I got more settled into my practice, I expanded what I wrote in the journal. Sometimes I wrote letters of encouragement to myself in the journal for something great I had done or how I had handled a difficult situation. I also wrote about my worries, no judgment about why or what, just an effort to get them out onto paper. I had found that if I didn’t acknowledge them this way, they had a habit of resurfacing in the middle of the night.

In other words, there’s no trick to what to write, or requirement to spin negative emotions into positive ones. I’ve always found that when I write what I’m feeling—good or bad—I can go back to sleep.

It’s important to see the journal as a safe space for your thoughts, to not judge yourself for what you are feeling or what you write down. After all, this is an extremely unusual time and you may find yourself worrying about things that might not otherwise have bothered you. The goal is to get out things on your mind, including the ones you might not even be willing to admit out loud. For example, I currently have a fear of not being able to get enough eggs at the grocery store, which has always been our daily family breakfast. It is, for sure, in my journal.

Life can feel uncertain right now; but in reality, it always has been. When you channel your energy into understanding what worries you and releasing it, you can more easily find ways to focus on what brings you joy. You don’t only have to experience trouble sleeping to benefit from this exercise, nor do you have to find a “right” way to do it. I’m sharing this because it’s worked for me, and I hope it helps you too.  

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