A surprising exercise to cure sleep anxiety

Sleep dread or anxiety is a real thing and many of my clients have it. Which makes sense because they’ve been struggling with sleep for years or even decades. Insomnia makes your relationship with sleep rocky to say the least.

What sleep anxiety looks like is getting nervous about bedtime as the day goes on. You’re exhausted but you’re worried you won’t be able to sleep because you couldn’t sleep last night or the night before...In fact, you can’t even remember the last time you slept well and woke up feeling like a gazillion bucks.

So as bedtime approaches, you get more and more anxious that you won’t be able to sleep. Now I’m sure you’re aware that anxiety and restful sleep do not go hand in hand. So how do you make that anxiety go away so you finally relax and fall asleep peacefully?

Here’s a sleep-changing exercise you can do to improve your toxic relationship with slumber.

I learned about this exercise from my mentor Christine Hansen and it’s such a fun idea that I want to share it with you.

Step 1: Write a hate letter to sleep.

Yes, you heard me right. A hate letter. You know, the kind you want to write after the love of your life dumps you. You’re angry, you’re pissed, it’s all his (or her) fault. You know the letter I’m talking about.

So write one to sleep. Talk about your past relationship with it. Then move on to your current feelings. Something like:

“I want you so bad but you’re never here when I truly need you. You run away from me when I want you the most. I hate going to bed at night because I think you’ll be there but you aren’t. You’re such a tease. I hate you but I want you.”

Get the gist?

Phew!

But you’re not off the hook yet! Because unlike your lying, scumbag ex, you actually want sleep in your life. You need to have a loving connection so that sleep wants to be with you each and all the nights.

So what’s next? You guessed it!

Step 2: Now it’s time to write a love letter to sleep.

Tell it how much you love it, how much you need it, how you can’t wait for it to take over your consciousness every evening until dawn. How you’ll feel the next morning after it has blessed you with its tranquil presence.

Nothing is too sexy or too corny here. No one is going to read it but you.

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I’d love to know if you try this exercise and how it helps you. Message me and tell me all about it (I won’t ask to read your letters, I pinky swear).

If you’re sleeping worse during this pandemic, now is the perfect time to fix your sleep once and forever. Unlike sleep, who comes and goes as she/he desires, I’m here if you ever want to chat. Get in touch any time! (But if it’s 3am, I’ll get back to you after I wake up!)

As always, wishing you a good night’s sleep. Especially in these uncertain, crazy times.