21: WAYS TO UNWIND

This is one of the recommendations from Step D1, Section 44 (Revised 9-3-17)

When trying to go to sleep, a person’s mind may refuse to turn off. He/she may be wound up or just not able to slow down, even though the thoughts themselves don’t appear to be troublesome.

In this case, it may be possible to engage in some kind of mental ritual that turns down the cognitive apparatus and lets the person drift away. Here are some possibilities. Others can be found in the Relaxation section.

When the problem seems to be more about upsetting thoughts, different approaches may be more helpful. For immediate relief, see Section 41. For long-term treatment, psychotherapy may be the better approach.

 

21a. Repetitive Actions

A commonly recommended technique is a counting procedure, such as counting sheep as you imagine them jumping over a fence, or counting backward from an arbitrary number such as 785, 784, 783, …etc.

Related exercises might involve remembering something: occasions in which the person went on a particular walk or ride, who was sitting around the room at a meeting, the full text of a politician’s speech, what he/she ate at every meal for the last week, etc.

In each case, the exercise is chosen to be pointless and exhausting. The rational brain gets tired or bored, and a pathway is cleared for sleep.

 

21b. Passive Observation

This approach is akin to some forms of yoga and meditation: a person can let his/her thoughts go and observe them pass by.

One basic approach is for the person to allow his/her awareness to wander and note where it goes. It is a split-awareness exercise, where the person doesn’t attempt to control thinking. It is akin to some forms of yoga and meditation: a person can let his/her thoughts go and observe them pass by (Espie and Ellis, 304).

McKenna suggests a couple of related exercises in some detail. In the first (p.137) a person allows his/her awareness to wander and notes where it goes. This seems similar to the Awareness Continuum from Gestalt therapy. In the second (p.140) the person imagines watching a stage from the perspective of the audience, and lets anything happen that may. Both of these are designed to give access to unconscious processes, to simulate dreaming, and to ease the way to sleep.

Other forms of passive engagement can include listening to soft “mood” music or to a confusing or boring book-on-tape.  Some people use television to fall asleep, especially if the plot disrupts their normal obsessive thinking. Having a television set in the bedroom can make it easy for them. Where it is placed can be adjusted to make it even easier to roll over and fall asleep in bed, and it can be put on a timer to avoid having to shut it off later.

For people who have to pay attention, having the television on without sound (and no closed-captioning) may make it meaningless enough to encourage sleep, as they strain to follow the action. The nature of the show can also encourage sleep. (For example, one man watches a jewelry channel with the sound off, because it is totally meaningless to him.) This is similar to the idea of paradoxical intention (part e below).

 

21c. Fantasies

One might consider creating a dream narrative. Here the idea is to make up a fantasy, something entirely outside the realm of possibility, and imagine that it is happening. It is then repeated every night to fall asleep. Even if the narrative is relatively stimulating the first night, it becomes more sleep-inducing on subsequent nights, especially when the person starts in at the same place each time.

A person might be able to write a script that is relaxing in itself – for example, a walk in some familiar area that he/she isn’t likely to visit and is not conflicted about – a beach, a forest, etc. It probably is best to prepare such scenarios in advance of bedtime and use them regularly to relax and fall asleep. They serve as regular substitutions for thoughts that are more stimulating (Espie and Ellis, p. 303).

Whatever it is, the mental action should be minimal and calming, and it should not relate to daily life. The idea is either to get bored, or to drift away to a fantasy place where common real-life problems don’t exist.

 

21d. Self-Hypnosis

If a person is able to self-hypnotize, Bryant and Mabbutt (204-205) have a script for encouraging better sleep. However, many standard induction suggestions might be helpful: “You are standing on an escalator that is going down to a subway platform, but you don’t know where the subway train is going. The escalator goes down and down, slowly passing one level after another, and with each stage you are getting more relaxed…”, and so on.

A number of self-hypnosis CD’s are offered on the Internet – search under “self-hypnosis insomnia”.

McKenna, (91-92) suggests a fantasy in which the person remembers a time when he/she felt very tired, and suggests that he/she remember those feelings. Then he suggests imagining that friends are also tired, nearby, and yawning, and then to join in the yawning and so relax into sleep.

21e. More Active Management Approaches

Espie and Ellis (p. 305) recommend a form of paradoxical intention: the person lies in bed with his/her eyes open and no distractions, and tries to stay awake as long as possible. In a way, this sets up a win-win situation, a challenge where losing the challenge gets the goal the person wants.