Practical strategies for helping your nervous system ease you into sleep
Sleep is something that is so foundational for all of us, yet for many, it can be quite elusive. In part one of this blog, I explored an important fundamental shift in the way we think about sleep. While many articles on sleep focus on environmental and behavioral strategies for improving sleep (such as avoiding screens and blue light, not eating too late at night, etc.), I offered a look through the lens of the autonomic nervous system.
Foundational to sleep is helping our nervous system shift out of protection mode (e.g., fight-or-flight) and into rest-and-digest mode (controlled by the ventral vagus branch of our parasympathetic nervous system). Instead of trying to fall asleep, as if we have to achieve something (which can create more tension and striving), we can focus on creating the conditions for our nervous system to feel safe. From here, sleep can happen naturally.
Part two of this blog explores some practical strategies to do this.
Strategies for helping the nervous system feel safe enough to fall asleep
Here are some of my favorite strategies:
1. Take opportunities during the day to reset. Rather than waiting for bedtime, take a few minutes throughout the day to hit the reset button and remind your nervous system that you are safe in this moment. Spend a few minutes in nature or looking out the window at greenery; try the Quick Coherence technique (focusing on a positive or renewing emotion like appreciation or care while imagining breathing in and out through your heart area); write down some moments of gratitude or try some of the strategies below, building them into the course of your day.
These mini shifts to downregulate your nervous system can help counter the accumulation of stress. Even taking just a few minutes out of your day can shift physiologically what is happening in your body. Small moments matter.
2. Send cues of safety from the body up to the brain. This can be helpful at any time, and certainly while lying in bed. Try taking regular (gentle) inhalations through the nose and long, slow exhalations through the mouth, through pursed lips as if blowing through a straw (up to twice as long as your inhalation). This breathing pattern can calm the sympathetic nervous system and activate ventral vagal pathways of your parasympathetic nervous system.
Try a progressive muscle relaxation, gently squeezing and then relaxing muscle groups, starting at the feet, then lower legs, upper legs, and working all the way up to the facial muscles.
Do a body scan: Slowly scan through the body from head to toe. As you notice any areas of tightness or tension, you might gently suggest to yourself “soften and ease” as you let your body sink into the comfort of your bed.
EFT tapping can be a powerful way to dial down the stress response and help improve sleep. (It involves tapping with your fingertips on different acupressure points on the face and upper body while verbally acknowledging difficult emotions, thoughts, and sensations present and offering positive, supportive statements).
3. Send cues of safety from the brain to the body.
Reframe your goal. Focus on “deep rest” (not forcing sleep). Let yourself know that taking time to help your body rest and restore is doing good things for your body (whether you sleep or not).
Guided imagery for relaxation: Use the mind’s powerful imagination to think about a safe, calm place that you can visit in your mind. Make it as vivid as you can, engaging all your senses. (I find listening to a guided practice via an app can be helpful.)
Self-compassion for anxious parts. See if you might meet and greet any anxious parts of yourself with kindness and compassion. Rather than trying to get rid of unpleasant feelings, treat them like a small child who needs comfort and care. Talk to these “parts” of yourself as if you would talk to a good friend or distressed child (e.g., “I see you, anxiety. It’s OK; I’m here with you.”).
Use a mantra: Choose words or a phrase that you can repeat to yourself that, when you say these words, they bring a sense of calm, safety, or soothing in your body. I find the words “trust and surrender” helpful. Experiment and see what your body responds to.
The container: Imagine putting all your to-dos and problems to be solved into a container. Imagine putting a lid on the container and setting it aside for the morning. Remind yourself that you can open it back up in the morning, but you don’t need to look at the contents now.
Bonus: Before you go to bed, write out the things you want to put into your container and any action steps you might take the following day to help problem-solve if you’re worried about something. For example, if you’re worried about an argument you had with a coworker, you might write out what you’d like to say to them tomorrow to help repair things.
If worries continue to wake you up, schedule a 10-minute “worry and problem-solving time” for yourself daily, well before bed, where you can write out your worries and any small action steps you might take that give yourself a sense of agency.
4. Access spirituality. There is some budding evidence to suggest that spirituality may help support sleep. While for some, spirituality might involve religious beliefs or a connection with spiritual figures, for others it might focus on connecting with something greater than oneself, such as feeling interconnection and being held in the natural world or a universal consciousness.
This kind of connection with something greater than oneself can provide a sense of safety and comfort for some people, which may be a helpful resource to assist the nervous system in finding more ease. You might imagine yourself surrounded by a circle of support (whether being held by the beauty of nature, spiritual figures, or people in your circle of connections who you feel supported by).
Sleep is not something that can be forced, but there is much we can do to create the conditions to support it. Focusing on helping your nervous system feel safe enough to shift into a parasympathetic state of rest can offer a helpful way to support you in all those hours you spend in bed, whether or not you fall asleep. And over time, you may just find that some shuteye begins to happen more naturally.
Originally published on Psychology Today.