A really cool piece of writing is “Samurai Song” by Robert Pinsky.
http://www.creativemountaingames.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=3
I’m not entirely sure what it means…maybe shifting your focus, looking at things a different way. And that no matter what shit goes down, you can always make a plan B.
Another vote for “keep busy at night.” When I lived in Cameroon town shut down at six. I had no television, no internet, not enough books, etc. to keep me occupied and the loneliness would hit me full force.
Eventually I managed to develop a routine, so that I always knew what to do during that time period. My routine involved cooking a whole meal while listening to the BBC, watching movies on my computer and having the neighbor kids over. Then I’d fall asleep to the sound of the radio. I find having television or talk radio on while I fall asleep can be very soothing and keep my mind from wandering too far.
I find that surfing the Internet at night can make things worse. Although connecting with people can help, sometimes the Internet can seem pretty pointless, which just makes you feel more lonely. Better to do something with a trajectory and goal- like “finish the movie” or “cook dinner.”
Thanks for sharing that. It was beautiful.
My recommendation? Try to find a cognitive-behaviorist therapist in your area. The breathing, muscle, and thought exercises they teach you can really do wonders to break the cycle of worry that can clamp down hard at night.
Of course, don’t neglect the tried-and-true advice of diet, exercise, and fulfilling hobbies.
I know you put a disclaimer in your OP, but seriously think about seeing a doctor if the situation is really bad. There are meds that might help.
I’m a night time worrier, too. One thing that helps is thinking up specific solutions to the problems I’m worrying about. For example, I tend to develop terrible diseases in the middle of the night. Just telling myself that I will tell my hubby how I’m feeling and make a doctor’s appointment in the morning will often help me relax enough to go to sleep. (But I never do make that appt, as I’m always miraculously cured by dawn.) Also, yoga breathing helps. It gives me something concrete and immediate to focus on. And, if things get really hairy, Tylenol PM is my friend!
God, welcome to me.
As you’ve noted, you can stop it by reading. That’s my trick too. Just keep reading. By morning you’ll be OK.
Lobsang, the day that my mother turned 50, I cried all day because I thought that meant she was nearly dead. On the day that I turned 50, I had my first $50 bottle of real champagne and celebrated with friends. I felt great! BTW, my mother is still loving life at 96.
I hope you enjoy your 30s as much as I did. They were so much easier than my 20s!
I too have a hard time at night sometimes. Just this week I got weepy just at bedtime for three nights in a row. I miss having my grandchildren as a regular part of my life and I feel sorry for myself sometimes when I think about it. A visit from my seventeen year old grandson helped. If the others would just call more than once a year it would help.
But my husband is good company. We encourage each other not to worry about those things that we can’t do anything about.
Lobsang, may I suggest having a goal – a big one – to work on. What are some of the things you want to accomplish in life? Places you want to go? Things you want to own? Then do something every day toward accomplishing that goal. Planning a trip makes a great goal. There are so many things involved in actually making it happen.
I am also a night-time worrier. Sometimes I wander down the street of shame, reliving all the shameful things I’ve done in the past. Good times.
You need yourself some cognitive behaviour therapy, in my humblest of uneducated opinions. The basic tenet of CBT is that the thoughts you have affect your feelings, i.e. you think about depressing things, therefore you feel depressed. If you can replace those negative thoughts with more realistic thoughts, you will feel less depressed.
There are a lot of self-help books which you could order from Amazon if you don’t have access to a well-stocked library.
As a starter, I would recommend this website: Public Resources
In particular, these articles:
Who Controls You? Who Controls You?
Twelve Rational Principles - Using the principles of Rational Effectiveness Training
to achieve a satisfying and productive life http://www.rational.org.nz/public/12principles.htm
I would also second/third/fourth the recommendations to keep yourself busy in the evenings. Doesn’t have to be something deep and meaningful, hell you could just get yourself one of those kits for kids where you make a plane or something. Ideally find an activity that will give you satisfaction and a sense of achievement. Something that just zones you out (like watching mediocre television) won’t help you feel better.
All the best!
CBT is a wonderful thing. They should teach it in grade schools.
Lots of great advice. I can slip into night-time worry, anxiety, etc., too.
It feels like the short answer is: there is no short answer. I have found I simply need to accept the fact that night-time anxiety is a fact of my life and slowly adjust my habits to accommodate it. So I am exercising more, drinking less, reading and doing other habitual stuff that gets my body to acknowledge that it is time to get tired and just keep working it…
Over time, I have found the rate of incidents has decreased a huge amount, but I don’t really notice it day to day - but threads like this remind me about where I have been with this in my life…
A writer friend of mine hipped me to it some years ago. I think it’s uber cool but don’t entirely understand it. Pinsky, says Wikipedia, is a Poet Laureate so I have to think there’s more going on there than I’ve comprehended.
BTW here he is, reading it on youtube. I thought more meaning might jump out at me but not really…
Maybe it means,
“OMFG, OP, WHAT IF YOU LOSE YOUR JOB?!?!?!?!”
And OP is supposed to reply, calmly, “I will find another, I guess.”
“BUT WHAT IF IT TAKES MONTHS OR YEARS?”
And maybe OP is supposed to reply, calmly, “I will find a way to occupy myself and survive.”
Etc. You don’t know exactly what you’d do but you can have a calm inner strength and a faith in your ability to deal with whatever happens. In the real world around us, lots of people are suffering through similar problems—but they’ll get help from family and friends and probably the government, so you don’t have to deal with it alone.
If I can figure out where I found it, I’ll come back and post a cite but I think it was Jung—if a client came in and announced he’d received a promotion, Jung would tell him not to lose hope, promised to work through it with him, etc. My WAG is that he meant “Now you have to cope with higher demands, not lose your place, sacrifice even more of your identity to the organization, lose time with your family, lie awake nights worrying about meeting higher goals, etc.”
If a client got fired, Jung would be delighted. “Now some real growth and change can take place.”:smack:
I had (still have?) this same problem for so long. For me I think though, I want to be sociable at night, I want to banter with my family or chat on the internet. I want to have sex (and THAT isn’t happening right now). I now am going out to coffee shops at night and it makes me feel more sociable even if I’m just reading a book.
I don’t want to bore you with my life but you can start with unemployment for the 2nd time in 2 years and throw in a Dear John letter for entertainment value. I’m living through everything you’re worried about. I don’t mean to start a “my life sucks worse than yours” thread but I will say the obvious. Worrying about stuff doesn’t make it better so it’s time poorly spent.
Life is always going to have it’s ups and downs. Everybody gets depressed and it’s only natural that it happens at night. We spend all day with our thoughts and then when we stop to rest it’s an unending video replay.
Reading a good book with a glass of wine takes my mind off things and helps me fall asleep. I read to occupy my mind until I’m tired so I don’t let negative thoughts consume me.
Sometimes this can backfire. If a book is particularly good I’ll actually keep reading for hours until it starts to get light again. Or the book is particularly boring my mind wanders. And when I put the book down (as you should eventually) my mind just starts off again.
But it works reasonably well.
I hope my thirties will be better than my twenties. I hear that for men - the twenties are the worst.
Unfortunately I’ve never been good at goals. I’ve never really had goals. I just kind of fall into things (College, Uni, Job 1, Career 1) It sounds bad to say this: But things have always fallen into my lap (not in a ‘privileged’ way)
I actually hope my mother finds another Partner. My step-dad wouldn’t want her to stay alone for the rest of her life.
I’m sorry to hear you’re living through some of the things I’m worried about. I know that worrying about stuff doesn’t make things better, but try telling that to my brain.
I will follow those links and have a good look. But I’m afraid I’m notoriously bad at sticking with anything self-help related. My Dad often tries to push me towards NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and I know it would be a good thing, but I inevitably put it off and ‘concentrate on more immediate/important things’.
But I’ll definitely have a look at those links/CBT.
You’re not on a low-carb diet or anything like that, are you? I have depression, and I find that if I eat a low-carb diet (which really only happens during Passover for me), that makes it worse. I turn into the Bitch from Hell after about a week, when I get really depressed and irritable. I read somewhere that the brain needs carbohydrates to make serotonin (don’t have time to find a cite right now, got to go pick up Mr. Neville), so that might be my problem.