Week 8: Get More Sleep

We are still working on learning to be good to ourselves and here in Week 8, Dr. Hanson reminds us to get more sleep. Whether you are 18 or 80, this is such a good idea! My goal this week is to be in bed by 10:30 pm every night.

Lack of sleep is associated with a wide variety of health problems and is a significant cause of traffic and workplace accidents. Rotating shift work schedules are especially problemmatic. Other causes include too much caffeine, caffeine late in the day, electronics use late in the day, and using your bedroom as a work space or office. Students who study on their beds often have a hard time letting go of thoughts about school. It looks so cozy to snuggle up with your laptop to chat or watch movies but you are disrupting your natural sleep-wake cycle (and probably giving yourself a stiff neck). Teens and young adults are so wired these days that giving up 24/7 access to media and friends must feel like social Siberia.

Habits that promote sleep include regular exercise, good nutrition, and set bedtime routines. Doing the same thing at the same time helps to train regularity. Some people chaff at the idea of having set routines, but if sleep is a problem for you, you just might need to try something new. Ask yourself what the resistance to sleeping is all about. For some people it may be about giving up control; for others it may be fear of the dark; for others it may be something else.

I did a quick search on poems about sleepless nights and it turned up a vast sea of poetry on blogs and websites everywhere, attesting to how common this problem is. A common theme is unrequitted love, lost love, loneliness. The song "Sleepless Nights" recorded by the Everly Brothers, Eddie Vedder, Norah Jones and others epitomizes the yearning (and yawning) that comes from pining away for someone you love. The song itself is actually pretty boring.

Broken relationships are painful, especially if the loved one's departure was sudden or unexpected. Often times sleep becomes a chronic problem after the death of a loved one, divorce, a break up, or separations for work. I know many older women especially who sleep in their chairs rather than go to bed. How many others sleep on the couch in front of the television?

Depriving yourself of sleep is punishment. For the bereaved maybe its a form of survivors' guilt. For others it may be a form of self-loathing. "If only I were more lovable I would not be so alone!" There goes the negativity bias again. The problem is not the aloneness but the lack of confidence in one's inherent worth. You are worth the care that sound sleep provides.

So let's get to it. A good routine is to turn off all electronics, except maybe to play some soft music. Check the doors. Pull the shades. Dim the lights. All is secure. Go about your personal hygiene. Straighten up the bed if you didn't make it earlier or set out things you will need for morning. Put on comfy PJ's. Jot down a few notes if needed. Say your goodnights. I am comfortable. Recall our earlier practices and mindfully apply a softly scented lotion to hands and feet (yes, guys should do this too). Settle into bed. I worked hard today and deserve my rest. Read for 5-10 minutes. Turn out the lights. I am ready. Feel the comfort of your bed and pillow and blankets--mindfully sink into the tactile experience. Follow your natural breathe...and zonk you are gone.

So be good to yourself. Your loved ones and coworkers want you to be in good health and they need you to function in the morning. Your work and recreation demand strength and focus. You will be happier when you are rested.

Repeat after me: "All is secure. I am comfortable. I worked hard today and deserve my rest. I am ready."

I'll let you know next time how my experiment with getting to bed by 10:30 goes. Hope you will try it too. Sleep well.

Week 7: Forgive Yourself

Is this the hardest week or what? Now we face it--little guilt vs. BIG GUILT--and the hard work of forgiving one's self begins.

Guilt is a wonderful emotion. Like fear and anger, it is a signal that something is wrong, but now the problem somehow lies within. Appropriate guilt helps to motivate us to correct our behavior so that it is line with expectations from others and expectations of self.

When I was in high school, I started one of the first recycling programs anywhere (yes, I am THAT old). Dutifully I sorted cans and bottles and jars to meet program expectations and to live according to my values. But the unwashed cans and jars were a nightmare. Now when I throw away a jar of moldy sauce, I experience a twinge of guilt. I should open, wash, and recycle, but some days I lack the stomach or the time to do the job the right way. I rationalize that if I throw away only one in 10 jars that I am doing 10 times better than if I threw them all away, but the guilt is uncomfortable enough that I vow to take time with the next jar of expired salsa.

That's little guilt for you. It is manageable, it does not eat you alive, it motivates change for the better.

However, it may take some prodding from friends greener than myself to actually overcome my laziness and do what I promised myself I would do. Accountability buddies are invaluable when we are dieting, training, studying, practicing, writing, or engaging in any sort of self-improvement program. Sometimes we need a little help in getting over that little hurdle of resistance that whispers "I don't want to," "Maybe tomorrow," "Just one more (cookie, brownie, candy bar)," or "Do I have to?" Well, no, you don't have to, but if you want the results and the satisfaction the results will produce, you have to put in the effort. There are no shortcuts.

BIG GUILT is entirely different. It is a chronic feeling of not being good enough or worthy enough. It is as if you and you alone have been prohibited from ever making mistakes, struggling, or hesitating. "I must never be wrong, I must always be perfect, I must do this to be loved, I must take responsibility for everything that happens and always be in control" goes the internal refrain. Who is insisting it must always be so? Your Internal Critic, that relentless voice in your head that insists you are wrong no matter what you do, that whatever you do you will never be good enough, and that the slightest error will reveal your inherent worthlessness. The Internal Critic uses blame and shame to keep you stuck in a quagmire of self-doubt and paralysis.

The Internal Protector, on the other hand, is brave enough to challenge the Internal Critic. The Internal Protector is the voice that reminds you that everyone makes mistakes, that none of us is perfect, and that we are capable of taking action to improve our skillfulness and make amends for lapses in moral judgment. The Internal Protector gently encourages learning and growth and repair. The Internal Protector helps distribute responsibility among the many contributors to problems and makes it possible to "face the music" without fear of being singled out and humiliated. The Internal Protector permits self-forgiveness in being gentle and kind.

One of the nice things about getting older is gaining perspective. When I look back on my life, I marvel that I have come so far and learned so much. The younger person that was me was naïve, earnest, passionate, full of energy, but lacking direction, support and guidance. The younger me did the best she could given the circumstances and continues to learned her lessons slowly and surely. It makes me a softer, maybe fuzzier, certainly more accommodating person. It is a lovely state of balance when one's Internal Protector and Internal Critic are in harmony and working together to foster competency and wisdom.

A little poem from grade school:

The road to wisdom?
- Well, it's plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
~Piet Hein, "The Road to Wisdom," Grooks, 1966

Week 6: See the Good in Yourself

I was struck by a letter to Dear Abby this week by a teenage girl complaining about other teenage girls: why do they need constant reassurance and validation? Girls can be obsessed with questioning "Am I OK? Pretty enough? Nice enough? Smart enough? Sexy enough?" They need their mothers and fathers to love and hold them from the start, but in adolescence they also need their friends to be cheerleaders and coaches, to wildly clap and hoot for them when they make their slamdunks but also let them know when they are messing up. Without that validation, girls can end up feeling unloved, unlovable, and unworthy. They can end up seeking validation in any number of unhealthy ways that parents shudder to contemplate.


By the time unloved teenagers get to be adults, they may continue trying to verify their worst image of themselves by acting accordingly. They may feel entitled to special treatment to ward off the despair of worthlessness. Or they may constantly feel the need to prove their worth through high achievement and excessive caretaking of others. In some cases, they alternate among various possibilities to our endless confusion.

People who do not love themselves are hard to be around after a while, no matter how much we try to give them the love they seek. Its like riding a roller coaster and we end up feeling used and betrayed by their neediness. "If you really loved me, you would..." is the constant unspoken expectation. But the expectation is often unrealistic and often extremely irrational.

Having healthy boundaries means taking care of your own needs through self-soothing, self-care, and self-nurturing. Being an adult means you are responsible for yourself.

The negativity bias once again creeps in and blocks self-love by distorting our thinking. Cognitive errors that impede self-love include all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralizing, filtering out the good, looking for the bad, jumping to conclusions, magnifying flaws, minimizing assets, perjorative labeling, taking everything personally and blaming yourself for EVERY thing.

The habit of monitoring your thinking for possible errors takes time to develop. Responding with a gentle "Ooops, there I go again" and looking at the situation more positively (or at least more neutrally) can reduce the intensity of negative feelings.

So this Valentine's Day, whether or not you get the roses, candy and diamonds that marketers are trying so hard to sell, you might want to look inward. Are you thinking any of the following? "I am an ugly, awkward, needy stupid JERK. No one will EVER love me. I ALWAYS end up alone. I NEVER get to celebrate Valentine's Day with anyone." Do you see the cognitive errors in that stream of negative thinking? If a friend talked that way to themselves, would you let them?

The antidote is to focus on your best features--pretty eyes, nice hands, lovely singing voice, whatever--and to take a lighter view of your flaws. Would you berate a friend the way you berate yourself? Are you really always alone? Didn't you just go out with friends last weekend? No one will ever love you? What about the friend who listens and cares for you--the love of a good friend is a priceless treasure. Are you waiting for the Prince or Princess of Your Dreams to sweep you off to some fantasy island? Why are you waiting for love? Do something loving for the next person--someone who may not expect a kind word, someone waiting just like yourself. The world is filled with wallflowers who could all have a great time together if only they would be the first to just say "Hi."

You are an adult now. Your childhood may have been unhappy, but you get to choose how to live your life now. Its hard to overcome years of faulty learning. But you are reading this blog, maybe writing one of your own, going to therapy, maybe working some self-improvement program. Choose now to be on your side (recall Week 1), to have compassion for yourself (Recall Week 2), and take in the good all around you (recall Week 3) as well as the good within you (this week).

We are all flawed as human beings; no one is exempt. Life is a journey toward accepting and transcending those flaws and not letting them get in the way of experiencing love. Be like a flower and soak up the sun and rain and nurtrients from the earth. It is all there waiting for you. “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”--Rumi

Week 5: Slow down

"Slow down, you move too fast, got to make the morning last, skipping down the cobble stones, looking for fun and feeling groovy." Simon and Garfunkel's song is so happy and mellow. By today's standards, I imagine some young people may judge it as corny and old-fashioned. It's just a simple song with acoustic guitar, nothing high tech or glamorous or sexy.

Dr. Hanson reminds us that "chronic speediness" raises stress hormone levels. Multi-tasking likewise takes a toll.

Children grow up all too quickly and the pressure to "measure up" is often counted in the number of activities they cram into a day. Today's teens rush from school to sports to lessons to recitals to jobs, and simultaneously do homework, watch TV, listen to music, text with friends, and type their assignments. They are up too late and sleep too little for optimum mental and physical health and performance.

According to neuroscientists, multi-tasking is a myth because the human brain is a sequential processor and performs tasks one at a time. Its effectiveness is a delusion. What seems like multi-tasking is actually "task switching." Evidently there is a small percentage of the population known as supertaskers who can actually perform two or more tasks effectively at the same time, but that does not apply to the 98% of us who can barely walk and talk simultaneously. It is nearly impossible to do two demanding tasks simultaneously without loss of productivity or accuracy or both.

So what makes multi-tasking so seductive? Unwittingly we may equate the effects of adrenaline and other stress hormones with the effects of neurotransmitters like dopamine. Moving at high speed and other pleasurable--often high risk--activities give us a buzz and that buzz is completely addictive. It gives us the enduring illusion that multi-tasking is somehow better, but the qualitative experience and long term health effects of busy-ness don't measure up.

Mihaly Csikszentmihaly is known for his studies of the experience of Flow. In performing tasks with the right combination of challenge and skill (which will be different for each of us), we can have the ultimate experience: we feel focused; we step outside our everyday reality and lose track of time; we have a sense of inner clarity, serenity and adequacy. All this, says Csikszentmihaly, enhances our happiness and well-being.

So our practice this week is not only to go more slowly, but to be less busy, to be more effective, to prioritize what is important, to do our work with concentration, to give ourselves adequate quiet time to integrate information, solve problems and be creative, and to savor and enjoy all that we do. Save multi-tasking for folding laundry while watching television if you must. Better yet, try giving the process of smoothing and folding cloth of various colors and textures your full attention and concentration (recall Week 2). You might find yourself feeling soothed and relaxed.

It is surprising to me, five weeks into this practice, that there is nothing miraculous or extraordinary about any aspect of this program. We are applying ourselves to our lives and simply living with intent and awareness. We each can end up singing "Life I love you, All is groovy."