By Leo Babauta

Over the past week, as I write this, I got myself into a bit of a sleep deficit. Waking in the middle of the night and having trouble going back to sleep, there was about a week in a row when I had less than 6 hours of sleep. My brain wasn’t too happy.

The problem was a few things going on in my personal life that had my brain become super active. Everything is OK, and I’m OK, but my brain couldn’t seem to stop in the middle of the night.

So my days were a lot harder. Not only was I tired, but of course I had a really hard time concentrating. I took short naps in the afternoons, which helped, but I couldn’t get a lot of things done.

Work piled up, emails went unanswered, none of it felt very good. I noticed myself really wanting to get more done, but not having the energy or powers of focus that I needed.

So here’s what I did:

  1. I gave myself a bit of compassion and grace — it’s hard operating on low sleep, and I was dealing with a lot. I didn’t need to be perfect, and could give myself a bit of a break.

  2. I gave myself days where I didn’t do a lot. I got the minimum done, and let that be OK. That’s all my brain could handle.

  3. I started to deal with the underlying fear. My brain was on hyperactive mode because my personal life situations were full of uncertainty, which brings up fear. The brain goes on hyper mode when it’s feeling insecure, uncertain, and afraid. So I just let myself soothe the underlying fear, to let my brain calm down a bit.

  4. I prioritized rest. Going to sleep earlier than usual, doing what I can to clear my mind and make myself feel good before bed, destressing and showering and meditating.

  5. Once rested, I attacked my pile of tasks and emails with gusto! Today I came back to work well rested, after a good 7 hours of high quality sleep. It felt so good to be rested! I gave myself most of today to tackle the tasks that had piled up, from writing tasks to financial and administrative tasks, to emails that I haven’t replied to, and more. I probably won’t get it all done today, but it sure feels good to start to clear things out.

I’m feeling good today, and I’m appreciating the value of sleep more than ever. I’m wishing you some high quality sleep and days of beautiful powers of concentration.

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