When Sleep Won't Come

Written by Day Marshall, LMHC (Senior Clinician)

Have you had those nights when sleep is evasive? When you shift in bed and adjust your pillow, throwing off or adding on layers of cover? Apart from general, good sleep hygiene practices such as keeping a regular sleep schedule, setting the tone for sleep with lighting and calming activities, sometimes it can feel like there is little to be done when our minds keep wandering once the lights go out. Based on what clients often tell me, I think that often the anxiety of not falling asleep is the primary culprit keeping us awake.

While there are numerous ways to help increase the ability to sleep, I want to introduce you to one method that is a favorite of mine.

Our brains are remarkably made and incredibly adaptive. Every sensation we experience, be it sound, sight, taste, smell or touch, is communicated to us by our brains. Therefore, if my brain is thinking about stressors, my body will naturally tense up and likely go into problem-solving or worry mode.  However, if I focus my mind on the most serene and relaxing environment I can imagine, my whole body begins to relax. Using anti-anxiety grounding techniques when lying in bed can provide relaxing, sleep-inducing benefits.

I like to begin with deep breathing; long, slow, full breaths and exhales. While I deep breathe, I begin to visualize myself in a relaxing place. I’ll share mine with you, but you’ll need to get your own because my place is relaxing because no one else is around for miles!  My serene place is a warm beach with pristine sands devoid of all bugs and the only human is me.  I lie on my back facing up toward the perfectly warm sun. I feel the gentle give of the sun warmed sand beneath my body. I can drag my fingers over it and dig my fingers into it and feel the cool under the surface. The gentle ocean breeze dances over my skin and I can feel it on my face and on my arms and legs. The trees around the beach quietly rustle their leaves in response to that wind, and there are myriad birds singing in chorus high in the trees. I listen to the waves coming in and going out; a gentle, reliable rhythm. I can taste the mixed sweet and tang of watermelon and pineapple. There is a crackling campfire burning in the near distance. I smell the wood burning as it mixes with the salt air. I am still deep breathing and taking in all the sensory wonders of the beach serenity. If my mind begins to pull away to a worry or stressor, I gently but firmly draw it back to the sensory experience of the beach. The smells, the sounds, the sights, the feel and the tastes of my beach retreat become weightier than the worries and stress that it lulled away. In the midst of all of this, sleep generally comes quietly.

Sleep well!

Too Many Bath Mats

Written by Megan Farcas, LMHC CMHIMP (Clinical Supervisor, Senior Clinician)

The other week I found myself in need of a new bath mat. I decided to search online for this purchase—as one does in pandemic times—and what should have been a 5 minute task turned into a 45 minute ordeal. I quickly found myself down a rabbit trail of questions I had never thought about in previous years of buying the occasional bath mat. Here’s how some of those thoughts went: 

"Well this bath mat is cheaper but this more expensive bath mat has more suction cups…how many suction cups are enough suction cups? Should I get the one with big suction cups or little suction cups?…This one has 1,000 4.5 star reviews but this one has 6,000 4 star reviews. Which is better? This review says the mat had a strong plasticky smell…what kind of plastic is this made out of anyways? *searches Google for different types of plastic and toxicity levels*…should I even have a bath mat? Is it dangerous? Do I need to ventilate it before I use it?…"

As I began to catch myself in this spiral of thoughts, I was reminded of the book The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. In his book Schwartz argues that, rather than being helpful, having too many of choices can lead to feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed in making a decision. This "analysis paralysis" results from spending too much time analyzing all of the possible choices we are faced with which then leads us to feeling stuck, often taking a longer time to make a decision than needed.

Not only that but once we do finally make a decision we frequently then experience regret with the decision we made. Because we are faced with so many choices we begin to think that there must be a "perfect" choice to make, and so when we experience disappointment with our decision we assume we chose incorrectly. Studies show us that when we have less choices to pick from we often feel more satisfied in the final choice we make.

So how can we apply some of this information to our day to day life? Well, as a starting point you could try to identify ways to reduce the number of choices you make. Maybe it’s deciding to shop at the same grocery store and buy the same brands each week regardless of what ads you see that might tell you otherwise. Perhaps it is deciding to go to the restaurant with the smaller menu to choose from. Maybe you minimize your wardrobe a la Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs and wear the same type of clothing every day. In identifying small ways to reduce choice each day you might find an increase in your satisfaction of choice and a decrease in time spent making decisions.

Oh and yes, I did buy a bath mat :)

Spotting Trends through Journaling

Written by Dan Brown, MA (Director of Operations, Senior Clinician)

Living in Boston, you live with history all around you.  You get used to it and almost expect it. Our home is on the Paul Revere trail, and just down the road on Paul’s horse route is the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington.  Paul actually lived there as a kid, and Rev. John Hancock owned and lived there in 1775.  On Paul’s famous ride, he stopped there around midnight to warn Hancock and Sam Adams that the British were in fact coming and then headed off to Concord to continue to alert the militia.  

There is a museum at the Hancock-Clarke House that has on display a journal belonging to someone who lived there during that time.  The Hancock House is just steps away from Lexington Green where the first shots were fired of the American Revolution.  This journal often chronicled the weather, the people visiting the home, the meals served and events of the day.  

April 18, 1775 the day was evidently a lovely spring day, according to the journal, with sun and good meals planned.  Then one would think April 19, 1775, the day the first shots were fired, there would be a long entry with drama about the events and its significance to the cause.  There was no such entry.  That morning was overcast, the flowers were starting to pop up, and there was some kind of dust up at Lexington’s green near Buckman Tavern.  But instead of a long winded entry, the writer talked about how lunch was going to be a nice stew later that day.   I do love a good stew and spring flowers.   

The reason I share this is that sometimes we “overcook” events that happen in our day, giving it too much significance or taking it as a general theme of how bad things seem to happen to us and only us.  In the Hancock House journal, the writer could have made all sorts of comments about what he or she was seeing and what was going on in the world at that time.  Sure there wasn’t Twitter or Facebook to connect people and events, but this journalist would have known what was going on but he or she chose not to report that.  Seemingly the meal was as important as the shots fired that were supposedly heard around the world.  It was almost as if the writer, being only a short walk away, barely heard the shots and went about their day.  

When it comes to those “overcooked” events, we must work to challenge those automatic thoughts and test them to see if they are actually true.  A good way to do this is (funny enough) through journaling.  Now you might “overcook” the events from time to time in your journal and that’s okay.  Or you might only allow for good things into your journal and that’s okay too.  The key is to start to see the trends in journaling.  

From our side of the office we would call that catastrophizing and black and white thinking.  If you are prone to making every event a catastrophe challenge that thought and don’t let it go to its negative conclusion.  Or you might look at X or Y event as simply being great or terrible.  If you failed at something reframe it into a learning experience instead of a failure.  

Wisdom is the skill to interpret God’s hand in the midst of life’s struggle and mundane moments.  And the ability to truly understand why things happen and what they mean can be hidden. We can sit in that struggle and be curious about our feelings and what God might be doing without “overcooking” things.  And I promise if you do you’ll watch how God will show you Himself in those experiences.

Benefits of Expressive Writing (Part 2)

Written by Day Marshall, LMHC (Senior Clinician)

When I wrote Part 1 of this post, I had no idea the turns that life would present in the space between writing Part 2. However, as God’s will so consistently demonstrates, it is perfect and provides opportunities for growth and strengthening of faith if we have the willingness to embrace it.

In recent months, one of my most beloved friends was diagnosed with cancer, and his prognosis continues to worsen as treatments are applied and tests are run. In the midst of this, my Dad died quite suddenly. As my emotions and mind play leapfrog, trying to find reason while being overcome with floods of feelings, I have used journaling to express the inexpressible. Writing out my incomplete and complex fears, anger, questions, regrets, and sorrow has been powerful. It is, at its core, lament; a way of expressing our hearts and innermost self to God himself. Though it is entirely possible to lament verbally, the benefit of lamenting in writing is profound. It forces me to slow down just a bit; to allow each thought and feeling to linger a bit longer and to be examined a bit more closely. The few seconds it takes to print a word give the brain an extraordinary amount of neurological time to process the thought. The nanosecond required to realize that a thought exists is slowed down and the thought is held under a magnifying glass while the thought goes through the neurological process of moving to the writing part of the brain and transmitting the impulses to the fingers to form the letters or push the keys. This produces a visual representation of the thought before the eyes, which is then uploaded into the visual part of the brain for further processing.

The lament I experience, once expressed in journaling, allows for the powerful part of the exercise to take place — the peace. In taking the time to lay those emotions and thoughts out on the table, so to speak, I am able to move to a place of rest. In a sense, I’ve spoken my truth; I’ve expressed my pain, anger, grief, fear, loss. This clears the way for my heart to find some peace. It is here that entering into a place of expressing gratitude and hopefulness becomes more meaningful, or perhaps at some points, it is what allows it to be possible.

Benefits of Expressive Writing (Part 1)

Written by Day Marshall, LMHC (Senior Clinician)

Early in my career I was introduced to the therapeutic benefits of journaling and expressive writing. In that program, we set aside a 50 minute window each week to give our residential patients time to journal. These journal entries would often be a generator for discussion topics during individual counseling. Very often, the client unearthed a concern or belief during the journaling exercise that he or she was previously unable to put into words.

I often request that my current clients engage in expressive writing as a part of our regular counseling process. I describe this exercise as allowing the jumbled and vague thoughts and feelings that are sitting in their minds to be filtered through the writing-skills part of their brain in order to sort them out and let them be seen for what they are. The writer ‘gives air to’ or ‘lays out on the table’ beliefs, feelings or fears that they have previously never directly acknowledged. This action alone can be extraordinarily beneficial to relieving emotional distress.

Giving yourself a chunk of uninterrupted time to simply express your thoughts and experiences is a luxury lost to time for most of us. For many generations, keeping a journal was a normal part of life and provided documentation of one’s activities and opinions. In our modern age, journaling has often been set aside for the more flashy and mindless activities of screen-based entertainment. However, once we allow ourselves the time to intentionally express ourselves in writing, we discover its immense power to improve our emotional and even physical states. For example, numerous studies among patients with varying illnesses including depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, asthma and fibromyalgia have found that expressive writing has a direct positive impact on the patients’ symptoms.

If you don’t know where to start with expressively writing your feelings or thoughts, begin with a prompt. Use the prompt to get the ball rolling. For example, begin with the prompt, “If I had no fear whatever, I would . . . “ and then give yourself 30-50 minutes of uninterrupted writing time to dive deep into the process. Another example is “the most painful emotional experience of my life was. . . “ Try to consider how the experience made you feel in the moment, the impact it had on how you see yourself or others, and any lingering impacts it has had on your beliefs or behaviors. Journaling specifically about issues that cause fear, stress and anger can be very therapeutic. If you receive a diagnosis that is fearful, writing about that uncertainty can relieve some of the emotional weight of it. If you have a strained relationship, writing a mock letter to the person with whom you struggle can provide an outlet to express all of the emotions and words you have inside that may not be helpful to express directly to the person.

Expressive writing can be kept in a journal, on a private computer document, or can be ‘writing one-offs’ that are deleted or thrown away immediately after the words are put on paper or screen. There is an additional layer of potential therapeutic benefit to journaling that I will save for another post. For now, be encouraged to start! Begin with something. It doesn’t have to be extensive or profound. vEven a commitment to writing 2-4 times a week at 5-10 minute intervals in order to simply begin expressing your emotions and thoughts is helpful. Give it a try. Perhaps you’ll discover the value of it for yourself.