Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk, author, and one of the crucial influential non secular voices of the twentieth century — a person preoccupied with solitude, silence, and the calls for of the inside life.
He’s greatest identified for his non secular autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, which traces his stressed youth and eventual conversion to Catholicism.
As I discussed in final week’s Odds and Ends, I not too long ago re-read this guide and loved it. It’s filled with attention-grabbing non secular insights. However I additionally picked up one thing else Merton talked about: a easy, sensible trick for falling asleep.
Thomas Merton’s Trick for Falling Asleep When You Can’t Fall Asleep
Merton found the approach throughout his undergraduate years at Columbia College within the mid-Thirties. He was doing what numerous faculty college students do: looking for himself. He dabbled in Marxism and jazz. He additionally learn tons of of texts on what he loosely referred to as “Oriental mysticism,” or what we now name Japanese philosophy.
Whereas Merton got here to treat most of this section as shallow and misguided, one factor he bought out of it caught with him for the remainder of his life: a trick to go to sleep when you’ll be able to’t go to sleep.
In The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton describes the method thusly:
You lie flat in mattress, with out a pillow, your arms at your sides, and your legs straight out, and loosen up all of your muscle tissues, and say to your self:
‘Now I’ve no toes, now I’ve no toes . . . no legs . . . no knees.’
Principally, you think about your physique disappearing, starting together with your toes and slowly working your approach up. You think about every of your physique components “turned into air and vanished away” — shins, knees, thighs, hips, stomach, arms, palms, shoulders, repeating the absence of every half to your self till it genuinely feels “gone.” You retain transferring up your physique till you drift off to sleep.
Merton famous that this method often labored for him, except he hadn’t fallen asleep by the point he bought to his head; when that occurred, “Immediately, chest and abdomen and legs and toes all got here again to life with most exasperating actuality.” Thankfully, he’d usually be conked out by the point he made his torso “disappear.”
Why Imagining Your Physique Disappearing Can Assist You Fall Asleep
Merton theorized the approach labored as a result of it was a kind of auto-suggestion or simply plain outdated muscle leisure. While you’re good and relaxed, you often go to sleep. He wasn’t improper.
Most insomnia isn’t a physique downside. It’s a mind downside. Your thoughts latches onto one thing (like a piece electronic mail, a dialog that went poorly, no matter) and begins chewing on it. The more durable you attempt to cease ruminating, the louder the psychological chatter will get.
Merton’s approach solves this with a form of cognitive sleight of hand. It provides your mind one thing particular and repetitive to do. “I’ve no toes. No toes. No legs.” The duty is partaking sufficient to occupy the a part of your thoughts that wishes to spin out, however boring sufficient to not hearth you up. You’re crowding out the rumination with out changing it with something that requires precise considering.
There are a few variations on Merton’s approach that you could additionally strive.
I’ve lengthy carried out a model of this methodology that comes at it from a associated however reverse angle.
After I was a child, I watched a present referred to as Beneath the Umbrella Tree. One episode featured Gloria the Gopher having issues falling asleep. Her answer: she went via her physique components one after the other, saying goodnight to every of them. “Time to fall asleep, leg. You’re getting heavier and heavier.” It made an impression on me and I began doing it, and I’ve been utilizing this trick ever since.
I discover imagining that every of my physique components is getting heavier and heavier simpler to conceptualize than imagining that every half is disappearing. Although I’ve had the identical expertise as Merton: whereas I often drift off to sleep by the point I get to my torso, if I attain my head, no matter leisure I achieved immediately reverses and I’m unsleeping.
You may as well strive the tactic that was taught to Naval aviators throughout WWII, which could resolve the issue Merton and I’ve encountered. With this method, you think about every of your physique components going completely lax and limp, beginning together with your head as an alternative of your toes; you first loosen up your scalp, brow, jaw, and even your tongue, lips, and eyes, earlier than you begin transferring down your physique.
All of those approaches get you to the identical sleep-inducing place: a relaxed physique and thoughts. Experiment and see which one works for you; you’ll be sleeping with the beatific stillness of a monk very quickly.