Unfortunately, entrepreneurs, freelancers, artists, and creatives of all stripes have a dual-sided problem. When things are going great, it's hard to sleep! Your mind is racing, filled with great ideas and inspiration.
The flipside is no better -- haunted visages of worries and concerns feeling us up.
And when it happens, we're presented a dreadful choice: lie there in a frustrating unsleepable mood, or get up restlessly and push your sleeping hour back. Neither, frankly, are great options.
Then, I found a solution that's been one of the biggest gains to health and happiness I've discovered over the last year.
I took up a more serious meditation practice earlier this year in Japan. I set my goal very simply: just meditate five minutes per day. I don't focus on having a "great meditating session" -- often they go poorly -- but even the poor sessions teach me something.
When I meditate, I just focus on the feeling of my breath as it actually courses in and out of my body. Through my nose or lips, down through the airways in the chest, and into the lungs as they expand. Then, the opposite way as I exhale.
Inevitably, thoughts emerge and my focus moves to them and off my breath. After however much time, I'll realize it, and just go back to focusing on the very physical sensation of breath and nothing more. If something is very noteworthy in the environment -- noise, light, heat -- I try to just let it be there, know it's there, and keep re-centering on my breath.
I don't get as much time to meditate as I like. I try to get in my five minutes daily, and sometimes block out more time beyond that.
Then, one day in bed, feeling rather miserable that my mind wouldn't shut down on command, I decided to try meditating. What's there to lose, right?
And so, eyes closed, head on pillow, body under sheets, I just started focusing on my breath, and then --
....zzzzzzzzz....
It's hard to know how much time passed. But I took this up every time I'd get restless and not be able to sleep, and sure enough, I felt calm and passed into sleep sooner or later (probably sooner).
This has been really quite revolutionary for me -- it replaced one of the worst sensations I've experienced (unable to sleep), with a pleasant mental focus and calibrating that also puts me into dreamland quickly.
Try it out. If you've never meditated before, ask around your social circle for someone to sit and walk you through a guided meditation. It was very helpful for me in taking up the practice. Don't be shy -- people who like meditating like teaching it. Just ask around; someone within one degree of separation in your social circle meditations, almost certainly, and they'd probably be happy to show you the basics.
Then, next time you're restless and can't sleep, just focus on your breath, and....