Fifteen Tips to Overcome Insomnia

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I have struggled with insomnia—intermittently—since 2003. It has been so long that I rarely talk about it unless someone asks. I resigned myself to insomnia as a way of life. My insomnia is like an unwanted friend who periodically shows up late at night. He makes his visits without warning. I can go for weeks with relatively good sleep, though I have probably not had a sound sleep the way a child enjoys sleep since I was a child.

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When All Else Fails

Our children—when they were young—could sleep anywhere. They awoke fully refreshed and ready to go about their day. They never complained about a poor night’s rest. I do not believe it occurred to them that a person cannot sleep well. When my poor sleeping season comes, I can go for weeks without sleeping all night. It might be 3 AM before I finally give up the fight. Most nights, I toss and turn until 5 AM or later. I became angry during the first few years as I tossed and turned. I finally grew weary of going through the anger ritual, so I repented.

I then asked God to give me the strength for the day after a rough night of sleeplessness. The Lord is faithful; He provides what I need to get through a day, even when I’ve had two or three hours of sleep. Though my sleeping cycles have improved dramatically, now and again, the nights are long. I am mostly okay when the sleep debt is high because it motivates me to become an active practitioner in grace appropriation, a fancy way of saying, “Dear God, help me.” If you struggle with a lack of sleep, my best tip is for you to pray, asking the Lord to give you what you need to endure seasons of deprivation.

Insomnia is like depression in the sense that each person is different, and there is no way to provide a universal solution for all its causes. My best response is, “I do not know why you do not sleep well.” I have some ideas, but I am not dogmatic about them—any more than I am dogmatic about the causes of depression. Life can be mysterious for Adamic people, requiring a level of comfortableness with the un-resolvableness of challenging problems. But we do need practical help, and I want to make a few suggestions. With the backdrop of prayer as your constant go-to and your willingness to live in life’s mysteries, let’s begin by considering these two things:

• What kind of person are you?
• What do you need to add or eliminate from your life?

The Gift of Faith

Sleep is connected to faith. In a real and practical way, a lack of sleep is a trust issue. It reminds me of Jesus sleeping in a boat during a dark and stormy night (Mark 4:38). To sleep well is to trust well. You can substitute the word security or stability for the word faith. A child in a secure environment, for example, where he is not worried about anything, is not distracted from sleeping well. A child in a chaotic home, where arguing and drama are the norms, has more difficulty being at peace. Worry, anxiety, drama, chaos, and instability interrupt a person’s faith, which interferes with their sleep. The object of your faith is what gives strength to your faith. The solution for weak faith is not more faith but to figure out what keeps you from focusing on the object of your faith. Faith in Jesus, the object, is broken, weakening you. This Adamic problem leads to the question: What keeps you from appropriating Christ in your life, redemptively improving your sleep? Perhaps sharing three of my faith interrupters will help.

My Faith Interrupters

• Self-Reliance: I struggle with self-sufficiency, which is doing things under my strength rather than trusting the Lord. 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 teaches how to rely on the Lord rather than ourselves. God sent trouble into Paul’s life to break him from his nasty, self-reliant habit. The irony is that my insomnia is God’s merciful intruder, sent to help me break a bad habit. I’m learning to rely on the Lord regarding the things I cannot fix. In this case, the thing I cannot seem to fix is insomnia. If you wrestle with things in your life that appear to be unfixable, like fear, anxiousness, anger, or despair, you are not relying on the Lord. If you do not break the habit of self-reliant insomnia, for example, you may always entertain this nightly bedfellow.
• The Gifted Curse: In the television series Monk, there was a repeated theme when folks experienced Monk’s unique gift for solving crimes. They would say, “It is a gift,” to which Monk would always follow with, “And a curse.” Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. Oswald Chambers said, “An unguarded strength is a double weakness.” Connected to my problem of self-reliance is the gift of an active mind, which is a perpetual, overworked, whirring processor. I do not know how to stop my brain from thinking. My always on the move mind is most active when the Lord gives me a thought, even at night. I call them my nightly visitors who latch onto my brain. Most of the time, it is a thought about creative ideas or better ways to run our ministry. Once my mind latches onto one of these creatures of the night, it speeds up to the point that I cannot stop thinking about it until I exhaust the idea.
• Communal Tension: I do not do well when people are angry with me. It is hard for me to ignore tension in my closest relationships. I am not necessarily bothered by internet friends who say nasty things about me, but it is different with those who are friends. Though this circle is small, tension affects my thought life. People become big, and God becomes small. I can spend more time thinking about the individual who is angry with me than my Lord, who owns me. However, when I see the difficult person as God’s mercy, it helps to break my tendency to self-reliance.

15 Tips to Consider

If you struggle with insomnia, I recommend you consider what might be happening in your mind when your planned sleep is slipping away. Here are a few questions that will help.

• What is happening in your life, relationships, or situations?
• What are you thinking about that keeps you awake?
• What is bothering you? Who is bothering you?
• What are some things you can remove from your thought life? How can you take your thoughts captive?

Spend time thinking and discussing these questions over the next few months. (Just not at night.) As you begin to discern your faith interrupters, drill down into these problems, with plans to take those thoughts captive and subject them to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Process of Elimination

I have spent many years thinking about insomnia. I am not an expert, but I have learned a few things. I have also implemented some ideas that help me battle sleep issues. What I do is not a prescription for you. My list is different from yours. I am not a doctor, but a regular guy who does have occasional insomnia problems. The main thing I do is pray. That is your best action item for sleeplessness and gracefully enduring the next day. These first seven things are standard practices that nearly every health professional believes are musts if you want a better quality of life. These are non-negotiable, not just for a sleep problem but for all potential health concerns.

1. Eat Healthily: I am not talking about a diet but a lifestyle. Eating well, which includes what you drink, should be a daily habit.
2. Exercise Often: Find a workout plan that fits your lifestyle. You must be active.
3. Proper Weight: Most people don’t want to hear this, but you have to take action if you weigh too much.
4. No Smoking, Moderate Alcohol: I have a disdain for tobacco and have never enjoyed alcohol, so these two items are not a problem for me.
5. Proper Sleep: I am working on this one. I take power naps during the day, anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours—depending on what is needed. If I go too long without enough sleep, I sin more. Proper sleep reduces sin problems.
6. Clear Conscience: Your inner voice can keep you awake at night, which makes it imperative that you do not have hidden sin. If you are wrestling with sin, you must let someone know. Do not be intellectually dishonest by talking about remedies for insomnia while holding on to sinful habituations.
7. Work Hard: When you work, work hard. Do not slouch around all day and go to bed. Exhaustion is one of the benefits of exercise, in that it wears you out to where you are ready for bed. Work your body hard so that when it is time to sleep, you will have your best shot at sleeping.
8. Remove the Blue Light: Technology is one of the biggest culprits to poor sleep habits. Devices have a blue light that tricks your brain into thinking it is daytime. During the evening, your melatonin rises, which helps you sleep. The device’s blue light tells your brain it is not nighttime, which reduces your melatonin. Lowering a child’s melatonin at bedtime is a huge problem. Sadly, rather than moderating device use, parents put them on medication. Use the computer’s software that changes the screen at dusk by filtering the blue light. Changing my screen at night is a big help since most of my job is on the computer.
9. White Noise: I have two forms of white noise that blow air: room-temperature air from a fan and hot air from podcasts. For several years, I have gone to bed wearing earbuds. I listen to interviews, books, and sports, which are not worth remembering. I’m not a super sports fan, so listening to trivial sports information distracts me from the important things that tend to keep me awake.
10. Blackout Material: Our bedroom curtains have blackout material on the back. The Lord cursed the Egyptians with a darkness that could be felt (Exodus 10:21), and we have nearly reproduced that darkness in our bedroom.
11. Keep Quiet: Lucia has to go to bed before I do. If she is up and moving around, it is nearly impossible for me to sleep. For the record, she loves this tip.
12. Stop Eating: If I stop eating and drinking by 6 PM, I have my best chance of sleeping. As I have aged, the need to go to the bathroom at night has increased.
13. Midnight Snacks: Typically, when I cannot sleep, I want to eat. Late-night eating not only adds poundage but also keeps me awake. Eating late as an answer to insomnia is not a good idea.
14. Health Check: I have blood work done twice yearly. From these visits, I can adapt my health plan every six months.
15. Be on Time: A standard, though not rigid, sleep schedule is a good idea. I try to be in bed by 10 PM, hoping to get eight hours of sleep.

The Gift of Sleep

Sleep, like faith, is a gift from the Lord. He controls all things. He can give you the peace you need to sleep well and remove that peace, too. His sovereignty does not relieve you of your responsibility for sleep or faith, which is why your cooperation with the Lord is essential to sleep well (Philippians 2:12-13). Your cooperation ensures you have eliminated all the things hindering your sleep. If you still cannot sleep, ask the Lord to explain to you why you cannot. Use your seasons of sleeplessness to learn more about yourself while enriching your relationship with God. You may find being up late is a gift.

Call to Action

1. In what ways will you use this information to improve?
2. How can you help a friend who struggles with their sleep? You may be surprised at how many folks do not sleep well.
3. Will you invite someone into your plans for change?
4. If all else fails, listen to my podcasts.

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Rick Thomas

Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.

In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).