Why you can’t fall asleep

Last night I felt myself struggling to fall asleep. After not feeling very well in the week, I was tired. My body knew it needed sleep.

I avoided my phone before I headed to bed. I read something light-hearted to relax my mind. I did the things you’re supposed to do.

I climbed into bed. I settled in.

And that’s when it happened. My mind was off to the races.

“What if I don’t feel better in the morning? How will I finish writing that report if I wake up with a headache? Will that mean I’ll have to work late on other days and re-schedule plans? Why am I thinking about a rabbit suddenly? Was it because that golf swing video I watched earlier inexplicably referenced a rabbit?”…

Does the sensation of your mind cascading out of control while you’re lying in bed feel familiar to you? (OK, the rabbit thing is probably on me.)

I can’t remember where I picked up the age old wisdom to apply in this scenario, but I know it’s been in my consciousness for years. I’m sure you know it too, perhaps even tried it.

Counting sheep.

I thought I understood why counting sheep should work. And it made sense to me. The repetitive motion of counting these little clouds of white drifting over a fence time and time again should be so boring that it would calm my mind enough to silence those thoughts, and allow me to nod off.

Over the years, I’ve tried it a lot. Sometimes it worked. But more often than not, I’d begin counting, and it wouldn’t be long before I’d forgotten all about the sheep. They would be replaced by a work thought. Or an awkward conversation I needed to have with someone. Or something stupid I did earlier that day. Hypothetical scenarios would play out in my mind like mini-dramas. Featuring rabbits.

My thoughts were mightier than the flock. I’d resent those white fluff-balls and their inability to conquer the whirring, swirling noise of my mind. It would leave me feeling anxious. And the more I fought those feelings of anxiety, the stronger they seemed to grow.

About 5 years ago, I started experimenting with the meditation app, Headspace. I'd heard about meditation and its ability to calm the mind. And my struggle with sleep was ultimately my battle against the hyperactivity of my brain. So I thought it was worth a go. Even if it sounded a bit new-agey and airy-fairy for me.

One of the key exercises starts with you. You are asked to imagine yourself walking out into an empty field of green grass. Clear, perfect blue skies exist above you. And in the middle of the field is a tree stump.

You’re invited to take a seat on that stump. And to immerse yourself in the sensations of how that feels.

The press of the shorn tree beneath your thighs.

The silky grass in amongst your toes.

Your hands folded over each other in your lap, or resting softly on the wood beside you.

Above you is that perfectly clear blue sky. Empty and calming. In that precise moment, there’s not a thought in your mind.

But suddenly, a rabbit. You’re in a field, of course there’s a bloody rabbit. And then there’s your work colleague. Or the friend you had an argument with appears.

Each of these thoughts is like a little puff of cloud above you on that clear, blue sky.

But here’s the thing about clouds.

They’re too far above you to do anything about. You can’t control clouds. If you tried to grasp them, they’d evade your clutches.

And they move.

As a kid, we all spent at least one afternoon watching the clouds above us trying to guess their shapes. We would watch as they moved across the sky and morphed into something new. They scaled across the vast expanse of blue from left to right and moved on, to be replaced by other amorphous shapes of white.

Watching clouds is calming. We can’t shape those clouds. We’re can’t grab them and force them to be something different. We simply let them drift above us, and try to notice their shape as we look up. Sometimes we can name that shape. Dog. Rocketship. Half-cooked spaghetti. Rabbit.

Other times we can’t accurately identify them, and yet still we let them pass on harmlessly by above us.

The art of meditation is not about sitting in deathly silence, with your back ramrod straight, eerie music playing in the background and your hands clutched together at an awkward angle.

Meditation is simply the art of watching your own mind. It is watching your own thoughts. Not judging them, not trying to control them. Just watching.

It is placing yourself on that tree stump, in that green field, with the blue sky above, and just watching the clouds roll in, over and above you, lazily drifting from left to right, and out of view.

Anxiety is apprehension, a nervousness, about something uncertain in the future. We get anxious when we're worried about something that we can't control. Because it's in the future, and it's unknown.

When we are lying in bed, trying to sleep, we can’t control that difficult conversation we need to have. Or re-write the fight we just had with our partner.

What we can control is letting those thoughts pass over us, and watching them as they do. We can become aware of those thoughts, but not react to them. Because in that moment, with your duvet pulled over you and your head resting on a pillow, you can’t do anything about them. Clutching at those thoughts, trying to chase them is like trying to grab a cloud above you: fruitless.

Tomorrow, when you wake, that conversation will need to take place. That situation will need to be faced. But you can’t do that as you lie in bed.

I realise now that I had the idea of counting sheep all wrong. It was never about boredom. It was always about letting those sheep pass over you, harmlessly. Those white fluffy sheep are the clouds of thoughts in our minds. We’re not supposed to count them, only watch them. As they come, and go.

So the next time you can’t sleep, start with bringing yourself out of the future, or the past, and into the present. The easiest way to do that is to focus on the physical.

• Feel the press of your body into the mattress beneath you

• Notice your eyelids as they rest against each other while closed

• Feel the tips of your fingers pressed against your palms

• Take yourself off to your tree stump

• And watch the clouds pass over you

How to watch the thoughts in your mind:

Meditation can take place anywhere, and doesn’t have to put us to sleep. You can meditate while going for a walk, listening to a song, sitting on a bus. All the while, noticing the clouds of your thoughts and feelings as they pass over you.

Watching your own mind allows you to become more aware of your feelings, thoughts and emotions, without reacting to them.

It allows you to take back control in areas of your life that might previously have felt noisy, disruptive and consuming.

And lets you see the blue skies of your life, no matter how many clouds might be drifting in and out, or how dark they might seem.