Think Happy!

The American Sociologist, Tony Campolo, once said,

“For 18 years, I thought I thought I was depressed. Then, I found out I was just tired!”

Though ‘Sleeping Better’ may seem like a strange topic for a Happiness blog, it’s importance could hardly be over-stated. If you are not sleeping well, you will struggle to maintain a happy state of mind.

However, I have come across a number of people – my former self included – who have simply concluded that they will never have a good sleep pattern. It seems to work something like this:

Have trouble Sleeping >>> Define oneself as an ‘insomniac’ >>> Lose any sense of sleep routine >>> and back to square one!

I’ve even heard of a schoolgirl being allowed to play computer games until three in the morning, because she doesn’t sleep well at night any way! Take it from someone who’s been there, this is a nightmare!

The label of ‘insomniac’ is as unhelpful as it is meaningless. It simply means, ’someone who has trouble sleeping’. Yet, doctors throw it around as if the tired patient in front of them has a hopeless disease that they will be burdened with until the day they die. In fact, to be labeled as an ‘chronic insomnia’ – which certainly sounds serious! – simply means that the patient has had trouble sleeping for at least 3 nights a week for more than a month. Obviously, that’s a hard thing to have to endure, but it’s made a hell of a lot worse by being given the impression that you have a ‘condition’ that may or may not be treatable.

So, if I could give one piece of advice to those struggling with sleep, it would be this: ditch the labels and get practical! (Okay, that’s two, but whoever complains about getting 2-for-1?) Don’t give-in to the idea that you’re just one of those people who can’t sleep well. That may have been your experience so far, but that doesn’t mean that you should just resign yourself to be this way forever. Instead, treat this like you would any other problem you’re currently experiencing – work at finding the solution!

I’m pretty sure that if the teenage girl, mentioned above, was told by the GP that she had acne she wouldn’t just accept that was her set-in-stone destiny. She would research and discover how to live with and deal with acne. She might try new cleansing routines, or buy products to fight acne. At the most, she would accept that she would be this way for a couple of years.

The difference is that she hasn’t been told by the GP that she has insomnia. She’s been told that she is an insomniac. This, according to her doctor, isn’t just something she is experiencing. This is who she is.

I don’t mean to be too harsh on doctors. And it may well be that there is an underlying medical issue affecting a very small minority of people struggling to sleep. I’d certainly recommend getting that ruled out. But don’t stop there. Ask your GP to recommend sleep tips, or teach you some relaxation techniques. In fact, ask him to do anything other than label you!

In fact, I would say that if you are wanting to get beyond the label and start addressing your sleep patterns, there is no better way to begin than with recording the when, why, where, what and how of your sleeping. You might just find that you actually sleep more than you thought you did. Or, you might find that you had somehow picked up the crazy habit of having a Coffee or a Malt Whiskey just before retiring for the night. Either way, it will be useful to start a Sleep Log to document your sleep habits and begin to do something practical to overcome this issue.

There’s one exception and one group of people that I would not recommend keeping a sleep log for, but I’ll come back to that next time.