If you are like most humans, you probably find yourself worrying about things in the middle of the night if you can’t sleep (and in particularly nasty cases of this human condition, the worry keeps you from ever getting back to sleep). I had a couple of Big Worries with a capital B.W. going on over the last year regarding the health of loved ones, and this affliction hit harder than normal.

I have tried the trick in the past to schedule your worry. As a champion planner and scheduler I was sure this was for me, and sometimes it did work. But, because I’m also a generally happy person in the light of day, the time would come up on my list when I was supposed to be worrying and I just wasn’t in the mood. But if I didn’t do it, I felt like I wasn’t completing my plan. So, this didn’t seem like a great long-term strategy for the middle of the night ruminations.

Then one night, as soon as the tickle to worry struck me, I made a new rule for myself right then and there: No worrying lying down. I could worry whenever I wanted, I told myself, but I had to be upright. Have I told you about my bed? It is c-o-m-f-y!!! As much as I wanted to worry, I was not leaving my cozy cocoon. And somehow, making the choice – because I did give myself a choice – to stay laying down rather to get up and worry somehow seemed to signal to my body that this problem must not really be that bad and it calmed me enough to help me rest.

More often than not when I wake up things seem a lot brighter, and even though I’m upright, worries just fly in and out with other more pleasant thoughts without sticking in the gears of my brain. In other cases, in the light of day I am better able to turn worry, which is essentially useless, into problem solving and sort out what I have the power to control and what I don’t. Then I can plan to take some action steps in the right direction.

Now I’m starting to think of what other kind of rules like that I can make – I know they are arbitrary and maybe somewhat silly, but if I state it with authority to myself I somehow am compelled to do it. Maybe someone who hates rules should make one that says worry as much as you possibly can right now – and then they won’t? One of you rule-breaker types will have to let me know how that goes.

Cheers,

Lisa