A number of years ago, I wrote a book called Natural Sleep. I started doing the research for it because of my own sleep issues. In the process, I discovered a treasure trove of natural remedies and sleep aides, from vitamins and herbs to relaxation techniques to dietary practices and more. They all helped, and they all contributed to a book that helped a lot of other people.
But the most valuable takeaway from my research was a change of attitude: maybe I’m not an insomniac after all. Maybe not sleeping 7-8 hours straight through is not a pathology. Maybe the problem is I think I have insomnia. Maybe I just have what sleep specialists call an idiosyncratic sleep pattern. Now, when I wake up after 4-5 hours and don’t fall back to sleep right away, instead of fretting over it and tossing and turning, I calmly get some reading done, or do some breathing exercises, or start my morning meditation. Later, I’m likely to go back to sleep for a while, and sometime that day I’m likely to take a short nap. All in all, I get enough sleep. It’s a weird pattern, but it’s mine and it works.
In my experience, there are probably millions for whom such a “multiphasic” sleep pattern would suit their natural rhythms, but they don’t know it’s okay or don’t have the lifestyle flexibility to accommodate it. If you think you might be one of them, try it out.
The idea that everyone needs eight hours of solid sleep a night is as irrational as thinking that everyone needs to eat the exact same diet. Our bodies have different requirements for sleep, just as they do for exercise, food, sex and other physiological drives. If we don’t get enough of those things, we suffer. But what is enough? An awful lot of people make themselves miserable because they think they’re insomniacs, when they might be getting just the amount of sleep their bodies require. Or, they’re not adapting their sleep times to their natural rhythms.
The problem is, believing you have a problem can make you depressed, and depression makes you feel tired, so the belief is reinforced. And … you guessed it: thinking you have a sleep problem makes you anxious about not sleeping, and the anxiety can keep you awake at night. It’s the very definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Bottom line: don’t evaluate your sleep by the number of hours you’re asleep, or when you get that sleep, but by how you feel and function during the day. And don’t go by whether or not you get sleepy in the afternoon. Even solid sleepers have energy slumps, depending on what they eat for lunch and how they use their energy during the day. That’s why the Brits invented afternoon tea and the southern Europeans invented the siesta. Naps are one of nature’s great gifts (famous nappers include Thomas Edison and Winston Churchill), but we don’t let ourselves take enough of them. You’d be surprised how refreshing a fifteen or twenty minute snooze can be.
Having said all that, there are plenty of other things you can do to make your body more amenable to natural sleep, and to intervene at times when you’re too agitated to fall asleep. If I had to rank the tips that do the most for most people, I’d say: get more vigorous exercise; eliminate or reduce the caffeine and sugar; meditate and do yoga asanas regularly – and when you can’t fall asleep.
I think I’ll end where the Hippocratic Oath begins: First, do no harm. In the case of your own sleep, that means two things: 1) don’t take sleeping pills; they’re among the most habit forming drugs on the market, and they actually interfere with the natural sleep cycle, and 2) don’t try to fall sleep, i.e., don’t force it; you can no more coerce your body to fall asleep than you can coerce someone to fall in love with you.
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