Thinking Flexibly

People with sleep problems often have a range of unhelpful thoughts that get in the way of our ability to sleep. These include, all or nothing thinking, catastrophizing and perfectionism. My anxiety just is like, what if this happens? What if this happens? You never know, you've got to be prepared. Unhelpful thoughts often elicit distress, and that distress is often related to kind of increased arousal that makes it really hard to fall asleep. An example of all or nothing thinking is this idea that you're either gonna have a really good night of sleep or not, right? That there's no in-between. I think because I've developed an anxiety about the inability to sleep, so even if I'm like just dead tired then this little light hysteria comes up like, oh, you're not going to sleep. Catastrophizing is really kind of blowing out of proportion the impact of a bad night of sleep. So a common thing that I hear in the clinic is someone who thinks that they can't possibly do their job the next day if they have a bad night of sleep, right? But the truth is that's probably not the case. Usually at night when I'm going to sleep, my thoughts are around the worry of is this going to be a good night's sleep or not? And then if I happen to wake up during the night, then I get this fear of oh, no, how long am I gonna be awake? I'm I gonna feel terrible tomorrow? Perfectionism is really this idea of kind of putting sleep up on a pedestal, right? That it's so fragile that everything has to be perfect for it to go well. But of course we know that sleep changes from night to night and we can still have a pretty good night's sleep despite some of the barriers that might get in the way. And by providing a different perspective, the goal is to relieve some of that distress to kind of turn down that arousal system and allow the thoughts to kind of dissipate and be able to get to sleep. Now, let's move into an exercise that will help you practice thinking flexibly. Have you ever been so overwhelmed by an emotion that you can't get anything done? It's like your feelings literally stop you in your tracks. I've been there and I know how frustrating and overwhelming this experience can be, but thinking flexibly can help. It's the ability to think about things in a new or a different way, and it can help us to navigate our emotions and deal with uncertainty. Maybe you feel nervous about a big presentation at work, or you're still fuming from something someone said earlier. Naming the feeling you're experiencing is one way to support ourselves in working with our emotions. You can start by noticing your thoughts. Just like leaves floating down a gentle creek, you can observe your thoughts the same way without judgment as...