Unable to Sleep Through the Night

by Gregory Allen Butler

Sometimes I wake up at 3 or 4 am and I am unable to sleep. I usually get up for a few hours. Later, because I work from home, I am able to take a nap if I get sleepy.

The night before last I woke up at 4 am. I got out of bed and went into my home office and spent some time on the computer, checking my website statistics, reading some stories on the internet, checking e-mail. But within about 15 minutes my wife Maggie called me from the bedroom. "Why are you up so early? Come back to bed."

This wasn't the first time this week I got out of bed around 4 am unable to sleep. It was the third time. She asked me why I wake up so often at 4 am. That's a long story and there are a lot of reasons.

First of all, I've been prone to waking up in the middle of the night since I was 12-years-old. I remember back then taking long walks at 3 am, not because I was unable to sleep, but because I liked the peacefulness of the night. One night I walked 13 miles. Late night and the pre-dawn hours were always a special time for me.

I remember when I was 21-years-old getting up every morning at 3 am to practice my saxophone. Again, I got up not because I was unable to sleep, but because I was inspired to be the best sax player I could be. It's the time of day when I am most creative and the most inspired. I have energy then.

I don't get up in the middle of the night nearly as frequently as I used to but if I wake up and can't quickly get back to sleep, I'll just get up and work on an article or do some other work related to the website.

Anyway, I went back to bed to join Maggie who also finds it difficult to go back to sleep once she has awakened at 4 am. We talked about why I get up so early so often. I told her I simply woke up and was unable to sleep. And there were some things I wanted to do for the website. She then told me how the famed Milton Erickson helped his patients who were unable to sleep through the night.

For example, he told one man who was repeatedly waking up in the middle of the night and worried about being unable to sleep, that he should wash all the floors in his house. He dreaded washing the floors so much, that after a few nights of following this advice, and overcome with dread of washing the floors, he began sleeping through the night again.

Another patient of Erickson with the same problem hated writing. Erickson made her promise that if she woke up in the middle of the night that she would write every thought that was in her head. And that was the end of that patient being unable to sleep through the night.

Erickson's ploys got me to thinking what would help me get back to sleep. What do I dread doing? What do I procrastinate about? Maybe Maggie could help.

If Maggie hears me get up some night at 3 am and she wants me to fall back asleep, all she has to do is say, "While you're up, could you work on the taxes?" That would be sufficient incentive to keep me in bed. I can't stand paper work. I'd be back asleep in seconds.

Or she could say, "While you're up, could you fold the laundry and match the socks?" That too would make me very sleepy.

Or if it wasn't tax time and there wasn't any laundry to attend to, she could say, "While you're up, would you mind cleaning up your desk? The ants are walking off with your pretzel crumbs."

Sleep problem solved. Last night before going to bed I promised myself that if I got up in the middle of the night that I would mop the kitchen floor. Guess what? It worked. I woke up. I remembered the kitchen floor, and went back to sleep.

Am I encouraging readers of this site to procrastinate? Not exactly, but there's a time for everything, and the time to procrastinate might be when you're trying to get a good night's sleep. You'll have a lot more energy to get everything done the next day.