“Writing an essay or an article about sleep is one of the primary signs, I think, that you have officially run out of ideas.”
Excellent way to start. I suppose it did have to be addressed at some point, may as well get it out of the way.
“Part of me suspects that my young brain- in a piece of twisted but understandable logic- realised that the middle of the night was the only time where I was left alone in peace and so manufactured the necessary hormones and chemicals to maximise this time. That and the fact that school was such a waste of time for me that it made a kind of sense to endure the weekday daylight hours in a somnambulant fugue state most of the time.”
My feelings on the matter exactly, though articulated more eloquently. Schooling was a mixture of no sleep, enduring teachers, getting in trouble for rarely doing homework, not particularly caring in any regard.
I was speaking about this yesterday with my girlfriend, but I had an interesting experience as a kid that marked me, probably leading to the maladaptive behaviours that kept me from being a good student.
I had a series of childminders growing up, with my parents working full-time, most of whom were harmless, but one of the early ones, Samantha, was a tyrant.
I vaguely remember her doing anything besides reading gossip magazines, sitting on the phone, eating crisps and barking orders. She would always force us outside, rain, hail or shine, no matter the time of day, to go and “kick a ball around”.
Personally, I’ve never been arsed with balls. Pause. But this greatly cut into my precious reading time as a 10 year old, so naturally I resented her.
One morning, I was sitting reading in the front room, a book about teenage spies - I mean The Brothers Karamazov - when she came in to boot me out so she could get the little hit of satisfaction that comes with telling someone what to do.
So, being enthralled in my book, and possessed with a previously latent rebelliousness I simply told her “No”. Naturally, she responded with “What? Go outside, or else.” “Or else what?” I respond. “Or else I tell your parents”, she retorts. “Ok, tell them”, I close with, and return to dissecting Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor soliloquy.
She subsequently told my parents… and, well, nothing happened. They didn’t care. From that point on, I somewhat internalised that vague adult threats of “you do this, or else”, don’t actually mean a damn thing - which is what 99% of school obedience is based around.
Anyway, I’ll end my aside and return to the piece.
“The mind is trying to puzzle something out and it won’t let the body or even itself rest until there is some resolution.”
No supplement in the world can beat writing for as long as it takes to get all that out on paper.
“And if I had the solution to such questions I would be a world renowned philosopher. Or a charlatan.”
Or a successful guru on Money Twitter.
“‘What can they actually do to me?’ This last one being good at quelling hierarchy-based neuroticism that school and work foster and instead encouraging the kind of positive risk-taking that a good life often necessitates.”
I typed out the above story before I had read this far down the piece - like attracts like, perhaps more than we can ever know.
Great piece, devoid of lists, conversational and entertaining. What more could you ask for?
The last simple yet overlooked advice from you is the most useful/practical one. I don't know how I've got here to this point in my life where I can't sleep peacefully for a good session of 8 hours. Unlike you, I used to sleep great in my teens but now with Job, with so many expectations, with so many things (that actually shouldn't matter to me at this point of life - politics, religious questions, the meaning of life, etc.) always coming around to bother me--I don't know how I've got here.
But your advice is, yes to a certain practical sense, could work. Like just even pretending to not know every answer in the middle of the night could bring some peace and finally put me to sleep. We'll see.
I don't think we can find for sure the root causes of insomnia, but it seems that it always bore metaphysical roots. Even in Ancient Greece, Hippocrates linked it to the "atrabilia" - the black bile responsible for melancholia - and noticed it was more prevalent among old men afraid of not waking up. To pursue the Greek idea, Hypnos (Sleep) is the son of Nyx (the Night) and Erebus (Darkness), and his own brother is Thanatos (Death). A God so powerful he's one of the few who managed to trick Zeus himself. I dont know about you, but I almost feel like the Greeks "created him" not as a clearly identified idea/concept, like Death or Night, but as a doorway, a kind of mist to put into words something they couldn't totally explain but knew it was more than what it seemed (Sleeping). Something frightening and spooky apparently (given his family tree).
So maybe us mortals aren't supposed to ask ourselves some of these metaphysical questions? Maybe we're not supposed to tear down the veil of the gods and peer inside the cosmic black seas ? And when we do, we're rewarded with insomnia. Bummer. Should have known better.
Apart from the metaphysical aspects of insomnia that fueled so many (bad) philosophy essays, there's a much simpler one; a few years ago I read in a psychology book (dont remember which one) that Insomnia happens when at the end of the day, the mind cannot reconcile the actions of the body. I think some call it cognitive dissonance, and I seems to be the most common cause of insomnia. And unfortunately, blackout curtains and valerian roots won't help much in this case (been there in the past, so I'd know).
Anyway, great article Thomas, and for those who read this comment, don't forget to like 'n subscribe !, as they say.
I gotta say that reading this at eleven PM on a sunday is really refreshing. Checking it off my "TJB weekly sunday read" list. Better late than never, which applies to sleeping as well. Thank you as always Thom.
My two cents (and that of many monastic orders of old, as it were): Qui bibit, dormit; qui dormit, non peccat; qui non peccat, sanctus est; ergo: qui bibit, sanctus est.
Let me ramble...your post has caused me to think which is the greatest compliment I can offer. The insomnia we speak about these days holds a strict connotation of artificialness; precisely, sleeplessness that is due to unnatural causes. Natural sleeplessness is something else entirely, and not relevant here (and sounds awful).
That being distinguished, my own view is that this artificial restlessness in sleep (defined, insomnia), is a second order effect of being out of tune with nature, and is also something we have wholly invented. The safer our surroundings, the warmer our beds, the worse our collective sleep. Why? It is unimaginable that in the dark silence of a remote wilderness we do not sleep soundly. Our wildernesses are constantly illuminated concrete jungles. Our Sirens are sirens. We are far from home.
Now, I don't believe this 'out-of-tuneness' to be intrinsically negative. It can have a mismatched aspect to it, sure, but also a creative aspect to it (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Proust, Nabokov), a rebellious aspect to it (Fe Def below), though in all cases is a departure from our natural state. This departure, this distance, again, it is inherently unnatural though not automatically bad. For example, is it in our nature to produce poetic wonder? I'm not sure it is, but I'm sure glad that we do. It certainly isn't in our nature to travel in an aluminum tube 1000 km/h, but it sure is a convenient triumph.
I wonder if the ancients suffered from such insomnia, though I doubt it (as you theorize). We become more distanced from ourselves, and can't expect our bodies to function all the same. Depression, running a sub 2 hour marathon, insomnia, memorizing the bible, anxiety, programming a spaceship to land on the moon. These are all distances from our places of origination. Sleep is one of our oldest biological processes. I think insomnia is one of the most inhuman things we can feel. I think if we really looked, we would look around in our modern lives and find more inhuman feeling and activity. And I wonder if it all related.
Sometimes it is good to be in tune with nature, sometime it isn't (when that nature is dangerous, for example). Figuring out which is which is simply living...and sleep, or lack thereof, is a test of our lives authenticity. There is no fooling the mind when it comes to sleep.
I noticed that this kind of insomnia, thinking insomnia, happens to me mostly when I work before going to bed - writing, coding (not related to my daily job), whatever requires deep thinking. It won’t happen when I watch films, play games or, moreover, go out. But when I interrupt the thinking process, I won’t sleep for an hour or three, pecking the phone in the dark saving my genius ideas. Some of them I will delete the next day, but some end up being good. So I’d say it’s often a continuation of a working session and it’s better to finish it and then go to bed having a moment of stillness and satisfaction.
Another type of insomnia happens when I don’t go to bed when I want to sleep, my mother calls it “over-sitting” (like oversleeping). After fighting your sleepy self for hours you don’t want to sleep anymore and don’t have a choice apart from staying awake.
But for any anxiety-related thinking, the methods you suggested work well, I can confirm that. I got that problem when the pandemic started and asking questions similar to what you mentioned helped (+some journaling).
As usual, thanks for the brilliant essay, Tom.
Cheers,
John
P.S. I am writing this at 22:30, but don’t worry, I will sleep well. I walked 14km today.
My subconscious is loudest when sleeping. Oftentimes, when I suppress worries or doubts during the day, they surface at night via dreams that eventually wake me up and force me to ponder through the meaning. I’ve begun to think that this is why walks are the best antidote to poor sleep, because walking is when your mind takes up all the anxiety and calmly reasons it away.
Wonderful writing and thoughts as always, Mr. Bevan. I wish we could have a coffee in person (before 7PM).
You basically just summed up ACT for insomnia in that last bit.
So Guru you are, whether you know it or not. I'll be waiting with bated breath for your forthcoming tome on the three steps necessary for a lifetime of unceasing happiness.
“Writing an essay or an article about sleep is one of the primary signs, I think, that you have officially run out of ideas.”
Excellent way to start. I suppose it did have to be addressed at some point, may as well get it out of the way.
“Part of me suspects that my young brain- in a piece of twisted but understandable logic- realised that the middle of the night was the only time where I was left alone in peace and so manufactured the necessary hormones and chemicals to maximise this time. That and the fact that school was such a waste of time for me that it made a kind of sense to endure the weekday daylight hours in a somnambulant fugue state most of the time.”
My feelings on the matter exactly, though articulated more eloquently. Schooling was a mixture of no sleep, enduring teachers, getting in trouble for rarely doing homework, not particularly caring in any regard.
I was speaking about this yesterday with my girlfriend, but I had an interesting experience as a kid that marked me, probably leading to the maladaptive behaviours that kept me from being a good student.
I had a series of childminders growing up, with my parents working full-time, most of whom were harmless, but one of the early ones, Samantha, was a tyrant.
I vaguely remember her doing anything besides reading gossip magazines, sitting on the phone, eating crisps and barking orders. She would always force us outside, rain, hail or shine, no matter the time of day, to go and “kick a ball around”.
Personally, I’ve never been arsed with balls. Pause. But this greatly cut into my precious reading time as a 10 year old, so naturally I resented her.
One morning, I was sitting reading in the front room, a book about teenage spies - I mean The Brothers Karamazov - when she came in to boot me out so she could get the little hit of satisfaction that comes with telling someone what to do.
So, being enthralled in my book, and possessed with a previously latent rebelliousness I simply told her “No”. Naturally, she responded with “What? Go outside, or else.” “Or else what?” I respond. “Or else I tell your parents”, she retorts. “Ok, tell them”, I close with, and return to dissecting Ivan’s Grand Inquisitor soliloquy.
She subsequently told my parents… and, well, nothing happened. They didn’t care. From that point on, I somewhat internalised that vague adult threats of “you do this, or else”, don’t actually mean a damn thing - which is what 99% of school obedience is based around.
Anyway, I’ll end my aside and return to the piece.
“The mind is trying to puzzle something out and it won’t let the body or even itself rest until there is some resolution.”
No supplement in the world can beat writing for as long as it takes to get all that out on paper.
“And if I had the solution to such questions I would be a world renowned philosopher. Or a charlatan.”
Or a successful guru on Money Twitter.
“‘What can they actually do to me?’ This last one being good at quelling hierarchy-based neuroticism that school and work foster and instead encouraging the kind of positive risk-taking that a good life often necessitates.”
I typed out the above story before I had read this far down the piece - like attracts like, perhaps more than we can ever know.
Great piece, devoid of lists, conversational and entertaining. What more could you ask for?
Best,
Conor
Reading this at 1 AM IST. Excellent essay Tom.
The last simple yet overlooked advice from you is the most useful/practical one. I don't know how I've got here to this point in my life where I can't sleep peacefully for a good session of 8 hours. Unlike you, I used to sleep great in my teens but now with Job, with so many expectations, with so many things (that actually shouldn't matter to me at this point of life - politics, religious questions, the meaning of life, etc.) always coming around to bother me--I don't know how I've got here.
But your advice is, yes to a certain practical sense, could work. Like just even pretending to not know every answer in the middle of the night could bring some peace and finally put me to sleep. We'll see.
Love,
Sid
You're right, it did send me to sleep.
I don't think we can find for sure the root causes of insomnia, but it seems that it always bore metaphysical roots. Even in Ancient Greece, Hippocrates linked it to the "atrabilia" - the black bile responsible for melancholia - and noticed it was more prevalent among old men afraid of not waking up. To pursue the Greek idea, Hypnos (Sleep) is the son of Nyx (the Night) and Erebus (Darkness), and his own brother is Thanatos (Death). A God so powerful he's one of the few who managed to trick Zeus himself. I dont know about you, but I almost feel like the Greeks "created him" not as a clearly identified idea/concept, like Death or Night, but as a doorway, a kind of mist to put into words something they couldn't totally explain but knew it was more than what it seemed (Sleeping). Something frightening and spooky apparently (given his family tree).
So maybe us mortals aren't supposed to ask ourselves some of these metaphysical questions? Maybe we're not supposed to tear down the veil of the gods and peer inside the cosmic black seas ? And when we do, we're rewarded with insomnia. Bummer. Should have known better.
Apart from the metaphysical aspects of insomnia that fueled so many (bad) philosophy essays, there's a much simpler one; a few years ago I read in a psychology book (dont remember which one) that Insomnia happens when at the end of the day, the mind cannot reconcile the actions of the body. I think some call it cognitive dissonance, and I seems to be the most common cause of insomnia. And unfortunately, blackout curtains and valerian roots won't help much in this case (been there in the past, so I'd know).
Anyway, great article Thomas, and for those who read this comment, don't forget to like 'n subscribe !, as they say.
I gotta say that reading this at eleven PM on a sunday is really refreshing. Checking it off my "TJB weekly sunday read" list. Better late than never, which applies to sleeping as well. Thank you as always Thom.
My two cents (and that of many monastic orders of old, as it were): Qui bibit, dormit; qui dormit, non peccat; qui non peccat, sanctus est; ergo: qui bibit, sanctus est.
Let me ramble...your post has caused me to think which is the greatest compliment I can offer. The insomnia we speak about these days holds a strict connotation of artificialness; precisely, sleeplessness that is due to unnatural causes. Natural sleeplessness is something else entirely, and not relevant here (and sounds awful).
That being distinguished, my own view is that this artificial restlessness in sleep (defined, insomnia), is a second order effect of being out of tune with nature, and is also something we have wholly invented. The safer our surroundings, the warmer our beds, the worse our collective sleep. Why? It is unimaginable that in the dark silence of a remote wilderness we do not sleep soundly. Our wildernesses are constantly illuminated concrete jungles. Our Sirens are sirens. We are far from home.
Now, I don't believe this 'out-of-tuneness' to be intrinsically negative. It can have a mismatched aspect to it, sure, but also a creative aspect to it (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Proust, Nabokov), a rebellious aspect to it (Fe Def below), though in all cases is a departure from our natural state. This departure, this distance, again, it is inherently unnatural though not automatically bad. For example, is it in our nature to produce poetic wonder? I'm not sure it is, but I'm sure glad that we do. It certainly isn't in our nature to travel in an aluminum tube 1000 km/h, but it sure is a convenient triumph.
I wonder if the ancients suffered from such insomnia, though I doubt it (as you theorize). We become more distanced from ourselves, and can't expect our bodies to function all the same. Depression, running a sub 2 hour marathon, insomnia, memorizing the bible, anxiety, programming a spaceship to land on the moon. These are all distances from our places of origination. Sleep is one of our oldest biological processes. I think insomnia is one of the most inhuman things we can feel. I think if we really looked, we would look around in our modern lives and find more inhuman feeling and activity. And I wonder if it all related.
Sometimes it is good to be in tune with nature, sometime it isn't (when that nature is dangerous, for example). Figuring out which is which is simply living...and sleep, or lack thereof, is a test of our lives authenticity. There is no fooling the mind when it comes to sleep.
I noticed that this kind of insomnia, thinking insomnia, happens to me mostly when I work before going to bed - writing, coding (not related to my daily job), whatever requires deep thinking. It won’t happen when I watch films, play games or, moreover, go out. But when I interrupt the thinking process, I won’t sleep for an hour or three, pecking the phone in the dark saving my genius ideas. Some of them I will delete the next day, but some end up being good. So I’d say it’s often a continuation of a working session and it’s better to finish it and then go to bed having a moment of stillness and satisfaction.
Another type of insomnia happens when I don’t go to bed when I want to sleep, my mother calls it “over-sitting” (like oversleeping). After fighting your sleepy self for hours you don’t want to sleep anymore and don’t have a choice apart from staying awake.
But for any anxiety-related thinking, the methods you suggested work well, I can confirm that. I got that problem when the pandemic started and asking questions similar to what you mentioned helped (+some journaling).
As usual, thanks for the brilliant essay, Tom.
Cheers,
John
P.S. I am writing this at 22:30, but don’t worry, I will sleep well. I walked 14km today.
My subconscious is loudest when sleeping. Oftentimes, when I suppress worries or doubts during the day, they surface at night via dreams that eventually wake me up and force me to ponder through the meaning. I’ve begun to think that this is why walks are the best antidote to poor sleep, because walking is when your mind takes up all the anxiety and calmly reasons it away.
Wonderful writing and thoughts as always, Mr. Bevan. I wish we could have a coffee in person (before 7PM).
You basically just summed up ACT for insomnia in that last bit.
So Guru you are, whether you know it or not. I'll be waiting with bated breath for your forthcoming tome on the three steps necessary for a lifetime of unceasing happiness.
I think the phrase you’re looking for is revenge bedtime procrastination which is delaying sleep to regain control over your time. Great article.