If we are able to recognize that how we sleep doesn’t completely dictate the quality of our day, how we live our life, or what we are able to do, we might put less pressure on ourselves to sleep at night — and this helps create better conditions for sleep.

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For many people, doing things they enjoy — even after difficult nights — leads to some improvement in the quality of the day and daytime mood. It is possible, though, to find that our experience of activities — activities that once brought us a lot of joy and enrichment — changes after difficult nights. These activities might feel more difficult or less enjoyable.

Often, that’s down to our wandering mind.

Our brains are hardwired to wander and to multitask but the problem is, the brain is not very good at focusing on more than one thing at a time! When our brain wanders, we can find it hard to concentrate on anything! When we try to focus on just one thing, the mind constantly drifts — and when we have insomnia it usually drifts to sleeprelated thoughts and worries and ongoing monitoring for the effects of a difficult night or a run of difficult nights.

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It’s this drifting and our natural tendency to fight or suppress that drifting and those sleeprelated thoughts that can make it harder for us to focus on enjoyable activities — and this can make them feel less enriching and enjoyable and it can create and maintain a sense of brain fog and fatigue.

The good news, though, is that we can "rewire" the brain to focus on what we are doing at the present moment by repeatedly recognizing when it has drifted, and bringing it back to the present moment without judgement.

The aim here is not to feel great all the time (that’s impossible!). It’s not to fight sleeprelated thoughts or to avoid them. And it is certainly not to stop the mind from wandering!

Instead, the goal is simply to notice when the mind wanders, to recognize that it has wandered (which is OK!), and to gently guide it back to what you are doing at the present moment. At first, you might find yourself doing this dozens of times a minute! With practice, though, it gets a lot easier to notice the mind drifting, to bring it back, and to remain more focused on doing whatever activity is important to you.

Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind, though, is that even if doing activities that once brought you more joy doesn’t feel quite as good after difficult nights of sleep, that’s OK! It’s OK because it’s impossible to feel good all the time — and it’s OK because you are still pursuing activities that align with your values and you are still doing things that are important to you and that add meaning, enrichment, and value to your life.

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My name is Martin Reed and I am the founder of Insomnia Coach®. I offer sleep coaching services that give people with insomnia all the skills and support they need to enjoy better sleep for the rest of their lives. I also offer a free twoweek sleep training course for people with insomnia at https://insomniacoach.com/sleeptrain...

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