Shift your focus from falling asleep to supporting your nervous system.
This post is Part 1 of a series.
Ah—the treasured sleep. We know it’s good for us. In a 2026 study, sleep was found to be the number one factor to buffer against the health costs of work stress. In reviewing 10 years of data from the Canadian National Population Health Survey, researchers found that sleep quality was the biggest buffer to protect health in the context of prolonged work stress, above nutrition, alcohol consumption, smoking, and exercise.
The importance of sleep is something that has been studied extensively, and the effects of lack of sleep on our physical and mental health have been well documented.
While we know sleep is important, what do we do about it when we struggle to get good sleep? (I’ve been there myself, as so many of us have from time to time.)
Some of the common suggestions for improving sleep include having a consistent bedtime and wake-up time, keeping the temperature of the room cool, avoiding screens and blue light before bed, and having a three-hour window between eating and bedtime.
While all of these can be helpful, I believe there is something more fundamental that is less talked about that can change the way we think about getting a good night’s sleep.
Changing the way we think about sleep
Physiologically, it starts with helping our nervous system feel safe enough to shift out of “threat/stress” mode and find its way to a state of rest and recovery. And psychologically, rather than focusing on trying to fall asleep (which for some of us can feel like pressure and one more thing we need to accomplish—and can increase stress and hypervigilance), we focus instead on offering our nervous system “cues of safety.” When we shift from a sympathetic (hyperaroused) to parasympathetic (more relaxed) state, we create the conditions for sleep to emerge naturally.
In a comprehensive article exploring the mechanisms by which contemplative practices (such as meditation, yoga, and visualization) enhance our well-being and promote “deep rest,” the authors discuss how the majority of adults in the United States live in a state of moderate threat arousal much of the time. Our sympathetic nervous systems are in a high state of arousal, dealing with all the modern-day challenges we face daily. No wonder it is hard to shut things off at night.
The authors go on to describe that to get into a state of “deep rest” (different from sleep, as they were not exploring sleep), our autonomic nervous system needs to pick up signals of safety from our environment. (As I might translate through the voice of my nervous system: “Ah, no lions chasing me? OK, I don’t need to allocate resources to fight or flee; instead, it’s safe to rest and digest.”) In a reciprocal fashion, contemplative practices such as meditation and visualization can help quiet the mind of stress-inducing thoughts, allowing for a shift into rest, restoration, and recovery on a cellular level.
I find it helpful to think about Mathew Walker’s description of falling asleep likened to a plane coming in for a long landing. It is not so much an on/off switch but a much slower, gradual descent. In our modern lives, we often are going, going, going and then hop into bed and expect to shut it all down. Yet without anything else to focus on, our minds are masters at ruminating, thinking, planning, and worrying, keeping our threat response going and our bodies mobilized. From this state, sleep is difficult.
So, if our sympathetic nervous systems are on high alert much of the day, and if sleep is aided by a slow, gradual descent, it stands to reason that anything we can do to help shift our nervous systems into a more parasympathetic (restful) state can help us come in for that smoother landing.
When our nervous system feels enough safety and regulation, we can let go into sleep. We don’t need to focus so much on making sleep happen (as that is something that can’t be forced), but we can focus on helping our mind-body system feel safe enough to get into a deep, restorative state. From there, we set up the conditions for sleep to happen on its own.
And if for some reason it doesn’t, at least we’re still doing something good for our bodies! Getting into a state of “deep rest” has been shown to have restorative functions at a cellular level, including altering gene expression at the level of the mitochondria (the powerhouses of our cells, which play an important role in our energy production).
So here are a few steps to set up the conditions for sleep:
- Shift your mindset. Instead of focusing on trying to fall asleep, focus on doing things to soothe your nervous system (stay tuned in for my next blog post with specific strategies).
- Consider how you might create a more gradual descent into sleep by practicing ways of resetting your nervous system and stress levels in short moments, many times throughout the day (so stress doesn’t accumulate). Consider wind-down routines in the evening that bring your body into a more parasympathetic state well before you climb into bed.
- Experiment with contemplative practices that help your body find its way to “deep rest.” There is no one size fits all, so see what is most supportive for you. This might include yoga, breath work, visualization, mindful practices, or something else. Create a toolkit for yourself so that when it comes time to wind down, your nervous system has a familiar road map.
Originally published on Psychology Today.