Sleep It Off: Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Night’s Rest

Most of the stresses and frustrations we experience on a daily basis aren’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

According to cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman, “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”

In the moment, even the tiniest things can be blown out of proportion. You spill a little coffee on yourself while getting into work, and your brain is immediately hijacked into a state of negativity that lasts the rest of the morning.

Our mental states often reflect what we fixate our attention on. And sometimes the best way to change our mental state is to simply shift our attention to something else.

When you find yourself mulling over a negative experience throughout the day, don’t forget the power of a good night’s sleep.

It often amazes me how much something seems like a big deal in the moment, but then I go to sleep and wake up the next morning not even remembering what I was so worked up about.

This is why your sleeping habits are one of the most essential aspects of your mental health and well-being.

Sleep plays an important role in how your mind processes information and digests it unconsciously. Without a healthy sleep schedule, many people can experience a wide variety of problems: fatigue, lack of willpower, cognitive impairment, and mood swings.

Your mind needs to “turn off” every now and then to function properly.

Sleep is a form of “brain maintenance.” It helps you consolidate new memories based on your experiences, but it also helps you forget experiences that the brain finds trivial, inconsequential, or unimportant.

Perhaps this is why “sleep it off” can be such a valuable strategy. It’s like hitting a reset button in your brain, turning the page, and waking up with a fresh new slate.

Sleep It Off: A Valuable Strategy for Letting Go of Life’s Little Stresses

Here are a few guidelines and suggestions for how to make the most of your sleeping habits.

• Create a healthy sleep schedule – In general, following a healthy and consistent schedule is the best way to harness the power of sleep. This is essential for both your physical and mental health. It increases your overall focus and energy throughout the day, which helps you better manage future stress and frustrations (for example, one recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows how lack of sleep can intensify aggression and inhibit our ability to adapt to frustrating circumstances). Here are core principles behind healthy sleep to integrate into your daily routine.
• Sleep on a big decision before you decide what to do – Due to our brain’s natural need for sleep to process and organize information, it is often a good idea to sleep on a big decision (or big conversation) before deciding what to do the next day. In the moment, we often feel like we already know exactly what we want to do – but sleep can give us a nice buffer to realize that there’s a better way to approach the situation.
• Take advantage of nap opportunities – Napping can also serve an important function in our daily routines. A short mid-day nap helps us to digest the first half of our day and continue the second half on a fresh new note. I use naps strategically when I’m having a particularly rough or stressful day, but it’s also something you can build into your daily routine that may actually make you more productive, motivated, and energized throughout your day (depending on how your schedule works). Don’t underestimate the power of a quick nap when you need it.
• Ask yourself, “Will I care about this in the morning?” – To give yourself perspective, whenever you’re experiencing a daily stress or problem that’s irritating you, ask yourself, “Will I care about this in the morning?” Even a simple reminder that you can “sleep it off” can help to diminish your reaction to the event and help you see the bigger picture. Sometimes the best way to respond to a negative event is to just give yourself time and patience to let it pass.
• Practice a “brain drain” exercise at night – One common problem that hurts our sleeping habits is over-thinking. Your head hits the pillow, then like clockwork your mind starts thinking about every little thing that happened that day. One exercise I recommend before bed is a brain drain exercise, which is essentially writing whatever comes to your mind for a solid 10 minutes. Writing is a great way to express and release thoughts in general, but this particular exercise works as a free-flow of random thoughts, which can hopefully help clear your mind before you go to sleep.

Overall, don’t underestimate the importance of a good night’s sleep on your physical and mental health.

The “sleep it off” strategy can be an underrated yet super effective way to deal with most of life’s daily stresses and frustrations.

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