Follow up:
Thank you for the below answer.
I’m stuck on this one.
I know my sleep was low quality because I woke up about every 10 minutes after 2 am.
This has been happening for a week or so straight now. It’s like sleep deprivation. Worse than newborn life in my experience.
So it very much feels factual.
The rest of my thoughts I can see are optional.
Can you help me here? Physical body stuff seems factual.
Thank you.
Hi,
I have been feeling unwell a lot lately. And the worst thing for me is poor sleep. After many, many nights of low quality sleep, I am finding it hard to stay engaged with my goals of growing my business as a Life Coach during the day.
I am having thoughts that it’s my fault that I am not sleeping well because I yoyo diet (although I have followed all the good sleep hygiene recommendations online for the last year).
I am also feeling defeated because I had a lot of action items this month that I have not followed through on.
So, today it feels like I can not take a break because I am already behind this month on my goals. The things I said I would do.
And lastly, I feel like a hypocrite as a coach because I feel so poorly today, physically and mentally.
These thoughts feel overwhelming and I don’t know where to start first to get myself moving.
Answer:
How do you know your sleep is “low quality?”
One way to gain awareness and feel more empowered in any situation is to first separate out the facts from your opinion. Maybe the facts here are 5 hours of sleep, woke up 2 times, spent 10 minutes thinking, got out of bed at 6 am.
But when you make those facts mean that the sleep is “poor quality” it could create a feeling that makes it harder to follow through on what you want to do. Let’s look at how this could show up in a model:
C: 5 hours sleep, woke up 2 times, spent 10 minutes thinking, got out of bed at 6am
T: that was poor quality sleep
F: frustrated
A: think about how I didn’t rest enough, think “this is the worst thing for me,” believe “it’s all my fault,” don’t feel motivated to follow through on actions, think “I’m a hypocrite,” don’t utilize the rest I had to be productive, don’t consider what I have control over right now, don’t accept my situation and try and learn from it, don’t show compassion or kindness to myself
R: I create a poor quality day for myself
Notice how your optional thinking contributes to the result you create.
What if it doesn’t need to be a problem that the sleep happened the way it did?
Instead, if you can reach a place of acceptance or neutrality about what happened, it might be easier to learn from the experience. It’s possible there is some valuable information that you could be useful in helping you move forward.
Your brain is offering some thoughts about yourself, and you get to decide if those thoughts are true. Perhaps some of those thoughts have served your primitive brain, because when you believe them it leads you back to habits that keep you stuck. Remember, the primitive brain is motivated by what’s easy, comfortable and creates pleasure in the moment.
But the thoughts themselves are neutral. Until you believe them, they don’t have an impact. You can notice the thought when it shows up and decide to what to do with it.
How do you want to respond when you brain suggests “that was poor quality sleep?”
