The Art of Falling Back Asleep
For those nights when anxiety is louder than your dreams
Lately, I’ve been falling asleep the second my head hits the pillow but then waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of a thousand anxieties fighting for my attention. The loudest and the worst one is: time is running out.
This has become such a regular occurrence that I’ve started keeping track of what helps me fall back asleep, if possible. Here are a few of the most useful ones:
This Thing From A Declassified CIA Document
I’ve listened to about 8,000 ASMR videos of people counting down (in a whisper, don’t come near me with that soft spoken bullsh*t), but I’ve successfully banished my phone from my room at night and so have to do this in my head.
The main problem with this method is that more times than not I do reach the count of 20 and the normal, restful sleep still eludes me. I love that this document specifies that this exercise is for normal sleep, so if you were looking for something a little wilder, look elsewhere.
Making An Announcement
This one works best if I never open my eyes to check the clock or look at my cat. Inside my head, I imagine I’m using the P.A. system in my middle school to make announcements. “Your job is not to worry” I say over the loudspeaker. “Your job right now is to rest. I repeat, your job right now is to rest.”
And I repeat that until I don’t need to anymore.
Become A Ghost
You know in cartoons when someone’s ghost stands up out of their body? That is what I do. Simple. Then I *poof* appear in rooms of people I love. I see them sleeping (please note that I don’t watch them sleeping, that’s another thing entirely). They are peaceful, breathing deeply, with a soft smile on their face.
Ghost me smooths their hair out of their face. Sometimes I’ll give them a kiss on the forehead or tell them, “You did so great today.”
I visit my family first and then friends I don’t see enough. I stop by pets in their crates and fluffy beds. There have been nights where it takes me so long to get back to sleep that I end up in the room of a high school sweetheart or someone I sat next to in English 101 in college. A particularly memorable karaoke singer. I don’t touch those people. Even in ghost form, that seems inappropriate. Instead, I just whisper, “sweet dreams,” and move on.
This might be my favorite way to fall back to sleep, but sadly I often forget that it’s an option. Anxiety can make us forget good things are available to us, right? But maybe tonight, we’ll all remember.
I’ll see you in my dreams.
P.S. What happened to the weekly live videos?
The past few weeks have been joyfully busy — I was in the writers' room for a documentary, Season Two of Stones Throw started, I interviewed E.J. Koh for Lit Fest at the University of Washington, and I celebrated a birthday!
And almost every single one of those things happened on a Tuesday 😅
I’m so sorry that F*cking Deal With It Together suffered as a result. I miss you all. And will be back to my regular Tuesdays at 2pm PST live video time this week.
Thank you for being patient with me.