Telling my brain it’s time to sleep. Part 3

A big thing that has robbed me of hours of sleep is anxiety. I know I’m not alone in this.

What you’ll find here is certainly not definitive solutions to anxiety. I don’t have big answers, I’m just a normal lay person. The ideas I’m sharing are strictly what has been helping me personally to ‘short-circuit’ the anxiety loop, and prevent it from becoming a full-blown ever-deepening black spiral. To get myself out of the vicious cycle, before it starts to have a big grip on me, I take three steps: talk, act, distract. First I’m going to unpack each of them a little bit, and at the end, as usual, I’ll make a summary of how I’ve been applying them (with great success!) in order to go to sleep.

1. TALK.
When I talk to my friends about the things that are giving me emotional trouble – making me feel apprehensive, or unsure, or resentful, or angry, or sad – I get a double benefit.

First of all (because my friends are lovely, loving human beings) I receive validation that my experience is normal human experience. Their acceptance of me helps me accept my reality.

Secondly, by talking about what I’m going through, I gain a little bit of space: as I’m trying to explain them to my friends, I’m taking a bit of distance from my feelings. Hearing my anxieties being expressed out loud allows me to see the situation a little more objectively. Sometimes I realize that they are maybe less well-founded, less reasonable than I had previously thought. I often find, after these conversations, that I can either let go of the anxieties altogether, or that my new perspective on them allows me to start acting on making things better, rather than just continuing to feel overwhelmed and stuck.

2. ACT.

So, can I make things better in any way? Is there any action I can take that will give me more security, and reduce the overwhelm?

There is always at least one: pray. When I was first thinking through my outline for this article, I had placed prayer under the first point, together with ‘talk’. But I soon realized that its proper place was under ‘act’.

Talking about what is making us anxious, describing the situation and our feelings, is of course something we can also do in prayer, especially if the only one who is around and available to listen to us in the moment is God.

But praying is more than that. It is actually the action the Bible commands us to take in response to anxiety! “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). 

Presenting my requests to God, and giving Him my thanks for who He is and what He is doing, is my first line of action in obeying God’s command to let go of my worries. A wonderful promise follows this instruction: that the unfathomable peace of God will then guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. 

That peace is a state that God grants – but it is important to remember at this point that troubled feelings often do not evaporate instantly. The fact that I’m safe and my feeling safe are two different things. Staying anchored in the reality that I am safe in God’s hands is what eventually leads to feeling safe too. But it’s important to pray in order to worship, ask, intercede, give thanks – and not in order to chase certain feelings. I cannot judge the success of my prayer by how it makes me feel, but by the knowledge that God is good and sovereign, and that He keeps His promise to work in all things for the good of those who love Him. I petition God with my requests, and then I make the choice to trust Him for grace to go through whatever situation presents itself. I might not necessarily ‘feel better’ immediately – because my body and my emotions are not always so quick in catching up and matching my feelings to my choices. I need to be patient. 

For more than 15 years, anxiety has created physical symptoms in my body – often totally bypassing my mind. Most times, my mind was not consciously worrying, but my body was going haywire. I have learned to recognize these symptoms, accept them, do my best to treat them (antihistamines have helped), and get on with whatever it was that was my responsibility to do in the moment. This is how I am trusting in God: I acknowledge Him as the sovereign God and Lord, I come to Him with my requests and thanks, and then I do my best to focus on what I need to be doing, knowing that my physical symptoms and my emotions will be needing some more time, and will calm down eventually.

Speaking of what I need to be doing, that’s the next thing under ‘act’. After I pray, is there anything else I can and need to do, in order to help things go well?

Our environment has a huge influence on how we feel. I have realized that making changes to my environment can help a lot with feeling calm and at peace. So much anxiety has evaporated from my life as I have been working on decluttering the house. Having fewer objects around me has lifted up an enormous load of stress: the more stuff has been leaving the house over the last few years, the less my psychosomatic symptoms have been bothering me. Being in nature is also famous for its ability to reduce stress. This summer, during the lockdown, I was all the more thankful for our garden and for the trees, flowers, animals, birds and sky I can see from our windows.

Besides changing my environment, sometimes all that’s needed for my anxiety to subside is for me to simply start working on the project or task that I’ve been dreading and postponing.

But say what is causing me anxiety is something that I’ll be required to do in the future, like showing up for an appointment, a meeting, an event, or travelling (though not so much these days). I ask myself: is there anything I can do right now in order to be more prepared? Or say I’m worried about something that is not fully under my control. I ask: is there anything I can do about it? If yes, then, time to act! But many times, the answer to those questions is ‘no’, and then it’s again all about the conscious choice to rest in the assurance that I’ve already done all that I could do and allow my feelings the time they need to catch up.

Which leads me to the next point:

3. DISTRACT.

Sometimes, after I have talked about whatever is causing me anxiety at the time, gained a better perspective on it, brought it to the Lord, and done my due diligence as well as I was able, I am still not free from feelings of anxiety, physical symptoms, and/or intrusive thoughts. I know I am on track with my responsibilities, I choose to trust the Lord for present and future... and my mind is still swirling and not letting me go to sleep at night.

Again, the first step is to accept this reality. It is normal to have these feelings, it’s normal to be bothered by intrusive thoughts. Especially for someone with generalized anxiety, or for someone who is grieving, or has PTSD, or depression, or any such normal things, that so many people experience and live with. It is not sinful or wrong to be bothered by this type of experiences – it is a real part of what it means to live in our present bodies in this fallen world, which is groaning for renewal and for the revealing of the sons of God.

As long as I choose to hope and trust in God, through everything I am experiencing, and to hold fast to Him, I am in His will.

Again, I’m keeping in mind that the fact of trusting and hoping in God and feeling full of faith and hope are two different things. I’m not going to get caught up in trying to manufacture feelings. Feelings come and go, and are not under my immediate control. My trust in Christ is a choice I am free to make at any given moment, and my hope in Him is the anchor of my soul, which keeps me tethered to the unchanging reality of His character, of His goodness and love.

How then to deal with the pesky fluttery feelings, with the intrusive thoughts? Distraction is a great help.

We are, maybe, used to think of distractions mostly in negative terms. But, as anyone who has raised a toddler knows, distraction can be an amazing force for good. Let’s not hesitate to employ it in our own aid.

Of course, when I’m seeking to distract myself from negative feelings and intrusive thoughts, it matters what I choose as my distraction.

The commandment of God is to ‘overcome evil with good’ (Romans 12:21). It is therefore important to put some thought into this, and choose my distractions carefully.

I used to numb my anxiety with the likes of Candy Crush – maybe you have, too. And maybe you have learned, like I have, that this is not the best distraction out there. It can help some of our problems in some measure, but it creates new problems.

What is there that can capture my interest enough to drive all anxiety-causing thoughts from my mind, but is wholesome and good in its own right?

For me, more and more lately, the answer has been: listening to good, non-shallow, proper Bible teaching; listening to good podcasts made by Christians, and to audiobooks; making art; taking online art classes.

All right: now how do I apply all this to get myself to go to sleep at night? 

Of course, the talking (to my friends and to God) happens throughout the day. I also pray a few times through the day. Also during the day, I do what I can to stay on top of things: the less I procrastinate on my responsibilities, the less anxiety I am experiencing. I nourish myself body and soul and keep myself topped up on wisdom and beauty. When it’s time to go to bed, I pray again. 

Putting on essential oils, as I mentioned before, is another action I can take at bedtime that helps reduce anxiety. Lavender, bergamot and frankincense is my favourite blend. A quick search on the internet will reveal others that are known to help give a sense of calm and soothe emotions.

Another action I can take: relax. ‘Relaxation’ may seem to be the opposite of ‘action’, but what I mean is consciously relaxing my muscles: I was shocked to realize how often I lay down, with my head on the pillow, but my neck, back and upper arm muscles were all tense, and my jaw was clenched, tongue pushing against the palate! Goodness gracious. Try and go to sleep in that state. So I started doing an exercise I read about: go from the top of my head to the tip of my toes and consciously relax all muscles on the way. Wow, what a difference.

I’ll also tell you about an action I never do, because it doesn’t help me – ever, and at all. Focus on my breathing. Nope. It’s actually a recipe for giving myself anxiety! The moment I start to focus on my breathing, I start breathing in a totally unnatural way, and I quickly feel like I’m suffocating. Thanks, but no, thanks.

I don’t find it to be an effective technique for keeping wakeful thoughts at bay either. The reason: it’s simply too boring, and I don’t go for ‘emptying my mind’ type of things. Same goes for music or white noise – though not necessarily because it’s boring, but it’s too easy for me to half-listen to the sounds and keep up a train of thoughts at the same time. The thoughts are often not even ‘worry’ type thoughts, usually they are about things I need to do the next day or in the future, or creative ideas, but none of those are very sleep-inducing!

Because I think with words, as well as pictures, the ‘word processing’ and ‘picture forming’ part of my brain needs to be otherwise engaged, and so, what helps me get to sleep most quickly is to listen to good interesting and complicated things, which have nothing to do with the obligations and activities of my everyday life. Fiction, mysteries, intricate theological, scientific and literary discussions with no immediate bearing on anything I have to do. I’m so thankful for all the podcasts and audiobooks out there that have this sort of content. It works like a charm. As soon as I’m realizing I’m finding it difficult to follow the sentences I’m listening to (usually in less than 15 minutes), I take off my earphones and replace them with earplugs, and very shortly I’m away to sleep. Yaaay, mission accomplished.

What are your ways of dealing with anxiety? How are you short-circuiting the worry loop? Please share your ideas and any questions you might have – looking forward to hearing from you.

Next week, I’d like to share something I wrote a while ago, titled ‘How I got acquainted with my identity in Christ’. For us, who are seeking to live a life rooted in that identity, rather than letting ourselves be driven around by expectations, the closer we get to know Christ and who we are in Him, the better. 💗