Dealing with Insomnia

Rachel, our 11-month-old, is now sleeping (mostly) through the night (yes!). But I'm not. I fall asleep OK, but wake around 3 or 4 am (when Rachel used to), toss and turn for a few hours, and then maybe get another hour of sleep before the alarm clock goes off.

It's common for a mom to be lying awake in bed while her baby or toddler is snoozing blissfully. Unfortunately, low quantity and poor quality (= depth) of sleep erode a mother's health and well-being, and give her a strong shove down the slippery slope toward depression. Getting plenty of good sleep is a crucial aspect of replenishing oneself and preventing depletion. Happily, there are plenty of good methods:

* Try to reduce caffeine overall, eat dinner early, avoid late night chocolate (it contains a caffeine-like substance), and restrict alchohol (which relaxes you at first but then can keep you awake).

* Do everything possible to lower stress. Cortisol hormone normally rises in the morning to prepare you for the activities of the day, but with too much stress, this hormone will kick into gear extra early, waking you at 3 or 4 am. (You can also test cortisol pretty inexpensively to see if this is happening to you.)

* In the hour before bedtime, do relaxing activities like listening to music, meditating, doing yoga, taking a bath, singing to your baby, etc. Avoid arguments with your children or mate.

* If your mind is worrying or obsessing, try writing down your concerns and promising yourself you'll do what's possible to deal with them in the morning. Or extend compassion toward yourself or toward the people you are worrying about.

* Relax your body by imagining your hands are very warm, progressively relaxing each part of your body, or imagining you are in a very peaceful setting.

* Make sure you are getting enough magnesium and calcium, both of which are needed for sleep. The Daily Value (DV) of them is 320 milligrams (mg) and 1000 mg, respectively. You could try a slightly higher dose, 500 and 1200 mg respectively. (For details about nutrition for mothers, see our book, Mother Nurture: A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships, published by Penguin in March, 2002.)

* Finally, you could explore the herbs, valerian and passionflower, available in tinctures at the health food store. Low doses of the hormone, melatonin, can help a person return to sleep. And the amino acid precursor to the neurotransmitter, serotonin - 5-hydroxytryptphan (5-HTP) - can also aid sleep. But you should NOT try these if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, and they are generally best considered only if you are working with a licensed health practitioner experienced in their use.

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Making It Work to Stay Home from Work

I love my time with Josh (3) and Sam (9 months), but I miss talking with the people at work and using my mind in a different way. I don't really want to get a job, I just want some kind of change at home.

You're bringing up a widespread and complex issue, and here's a brief summary of suggestions:
Cultivate community, especially with mothers. That will reduce monotony, give you emotional support and a helping hand, and satisfy the tug in your heart for the company of other mothers.

Leave your work-mind behind. You just can't do motherhood like a day at work. The same pace will frazzle your nerves.
Use your work skills. On the other hand, there's no sense in forgetting the work skills you've got that could be useful at home, like helping organize events for a mothers club or preschool.

Take it easy and enjoy this time. Some women feel guilty about savoring the wonderful moments at home. But you're entitled to! Each day, you handle situations that are harder than most work problems, so when you get an opportunity to relax, grab it and linger. You don't have to keep the house spotless in order to justify your (supposed) "vacation" as a homemaker: it's not a vacation, as anyone well knows who has taken care of young kids all day. You've earned this time with your children, and it won't last forever. Plus you absolutely need to rest whenever you actually get the chance, in order to settle down the stress chemistry in your body and nurture your health and well-being.

Feed your mind. Many mothers pursue a natural subject: child development, health, and family relationships. You could return to an interest you had before children, such as playing a musical instrument, writing letters to help free political prisoners, etc. Or take up a new interest. You could also stay current in your field, so that reentry to work goes well.

Manage the boredom. Taking care of children is often amazingly BORING. Paradoxically, what works is to pay closer attention, noticing details you'd normally overlook. This makes an activity more interesting and draws you into a peaceful awareness. Also, look for the nice parts in your activities, or nudge them in a more enjoyable direction.

Find respites. Every day, you need relief from interacting with your child, such as your partner giving her a bath while you watch TV, another mom coming over with a child who plays with your own, or formal childcare. Study what drags the needle on your internal stress meter into the Red Zone, like four hours in a row alone with an oppositional three-year-old, and do everything in your power to change those things so you never "redline" with stress.

Nurture your sense of worth. Staying home means finding new sources of self-esteem. The first place to look, of course, is your role as a mother: it's the plain truth that you are making a great contribution to your children, and the honor legitimately due you for that is magnified by any sacrifices you've made to be a mother. Next, you could get involved in your children's activities or other kinds of community service, giving you a greater sense of making a difference in the world.

Finally, try to use important abilities within yourself. For example, if you enjoyed using your analytical intelligence at work - perhaps you were a CPA or computer programmer - you could read fascinating but challenging books such as A Brief History of Time. If you worked in TV, try volunteering with community access television. If you liked public speaking, consider joining Toastmasters.

Check in with yourself - Keep paying attention to how it's really going for you. If you try some of the suggestions above and you still feel something important is missing, it could be a sign that you need to shift gears, perhaps by returning to or increasing your work.

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Having a Life of Your Own

This fall, our youngest starts first grade, so all three kids will be in elementary school. I'm starting to think about Life After Children, or maybe just Life After Summer Vacation. It's as chaotic as ever, but somehow the kids need me less. They're more off on their own, my husband and I go to work each day, and we are all so busy. There is so much to do! I'm totally taken up with mom/worker/wife. When things are quiet for a minute I sometimes ask myself "Is this it? Is this the point?"

It sounds like you are feeling the stresses of multiple commitments. All tug at you, so that you can never take care of any single one as much as you would like.

You seem to be serving many masters! Is it fair to ask, When do you serve yourself? When and how do being a mom or worker or wife serve you?
You speak of yourself in an interesting way: as a role ("mom/worker/wife"), defined by what you do, not what you are. From schlepping kids to doing laundry, getting to work and doing your job to keeping a relationship alive with your husband, it sounds like your attention and energy is taken up by external tasks.

And as it turns out, much of what you do is to serve the needs of others.

Thus it's a double whammy: thinking of yourself as a do-er as well as the nature of your doing may draw you away from the core of your own being, your own interests and goals. It can be hard to experience having a life of your own.

That's how most of us think of ourselves, not just moms or workers or wives, but it needn't be that way.

We tend to do so that we can be: I'll work so I can relax. Unfortunately, doingdoingdoing, the endless task orientation, can take over our lives and somehow become an end in itself. We become mainly an "accomplisher" of tasks, rather than an "enjoyer" of living.

It's easy to see in those "other people" zipping along 101, with their tired, pinched faces and looks of concern. Maybe they're driving a nice car, but they aren't having much fun. Are they looking at us and seeing the same thing?

To be sure there is honor in doing, especially the self-sacrificing doing you have dedicated yourself toward. And one can experience being in the act of doing, like the mindfulness of monks as they break bread or work in their garden. Yet the demands of doing can be overwhelming, especially in Marin: the need for income and effort is intense, the typical life feels (and is) fragmented, and there is a high standard of competence and success that most try to meet.

So what can we do? Oops, wrong question: So what can we be?

* Understand the seductions of "doing." They are like the water in which the fish swims, who doesn't know she is wet. Be vigilant and clear-eyed. Your own habits and the appreciation of others will draw you unwittingly into details and tasks again and again.

* Ask others to do more for themselves. This can be hard if our self-worth is based in large part on what we do for others. Remind yourself that when you are looking back, toward the end of your lifespan, the measure of your life will be much more who you have been, for yourself and others, than what you have done. Try risking being more of a benign and loving presence, a humorous and supportive observer, and let others do more of the problem-solving and task-accomplishment. Notice your worth to others as who you are rather than as what you do.

* Experiment with not-knowing. Our doing is based on our expectations and beliefs: what we think we know. Not-knowing is not stupidity. It is the scientist's attitude of skepticism and reserved judgment. It is also the child's attitude of wonder at a star or snail. See what your day is like when you try to assume nothing about it, and consider everything freshly, from the ground up. Maybe you don't really know how your kids or husband or boss will react if you _______ (fill in the blank)! Getting a little distance betwen ourselves and what we "know" can be a tremendous relief.

* Cultivate not-doing. Find a time each day, even a small one, when you sit quietly and simply be. Be aware of your thoughts and feelings without getting sucked into them. Let them come and go while you settle deeper and deeper into a deep, calm and simple awareness. With every breath release limited, task-oriented notions of yourself. Enjoy the sense of yourself as a fluid presence, a Be-ing, grounded in honesty, happiness and good will toward self and others. Try to carry this feeling with you throughout the day.

This could be a good time of change for you. You are in the middle of a small and great transition. The small one is the end of summer, and the large one is (Oh no!) mid-life. I will write more about transitions in my next column. Here I will simply say that all transitions involve the breakdown of familiar structures and the creation of new ones. In that process there is much creative energy and opportunity for you have more of a life of your own.

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Letting Go

By the end of the day, I feel frazzled and chock full of pent up feelings and thoughts. I don't want to let all that out on my kids or my husband - and I hate it when I do - so do you know any ways to get rid of this stuff without exploding?!

It's really normal to feel like you describe. A mom is dealing with so many feelings and needs and wants in her children and partner that the stress builds up over the course of a day. Plus many women have been taught in various ways to keep a stiff upper lip and not to say anything that seems like a complaint -- which just keeps things bottled up and festering.

Of course, it is important to be able to say what needs to be said to your husband or to your kids or to other people. But it's always also helpful to be able to let go of painful feelings, thoughts, stress, or tension entirely within your own mind. Plus, you can adapt these skills for your children, from the age of preschoolers onward, which will be very, very helpful to them.

Here's a summary of practical methods for letting go - and you can learn more from the other recent columns on our website, www.NurtureMom.com.

Relaxing Your Body It is almost impossible to be upset when your body is relaxed. Try one of these relaxation skills, even in the middle of a challenging situation:

* Breathe slowly and deeply while imagining that tension is leaving your body with each breath.
* Try to inhale and exhale for the same amount of time (e.g., inhale for a count of four, exhale for four). Imagine that the breath is going in and out of the region of your heart. Meanwhile, recall or think about things that give you an appreciative, grateful, loving feeling. (For more on this simple but powerful technique, check out the books from the HeartMath Institute in Santa Cruz.)
* For a young child, a little trick that will help her breathe deeply is to ask her to exhale fully and then hold the exhalation for a couple of seconds - when she inhales, she'll naturally take a big breath.
* Deliberately relax certain trigger points, such as the jaw muscles, pelvic floor, or the "third eye" between the eyebrows.
* Recall or imagine a very happy, peaceful scene.

You can deepen your capacity to relax when the fur starts flying by practicing relaxation techniques at calmer times, like right before bed:

* Systematically put your attention on each major part of your body, starting with your feet and working up to your head. If it helps, think a phrase like "relax," or "locate a point" for your left foot, right foot, left ankle, right ankle . . . all the way up to your scalp.
* Tense your muscles for about five seconds and then relax completely.
* Imagine that you are v-e-r-y heavy, sinking more and more deeply into your bed
* Imagine that your hands are very warm, like holding a cup of hot cocoa (this one is especially good for insomnia)

For kids, bedtime is a great time to train them in these techniques, since they'll put up with more mumbo-jumbo to keep you in the room. The point is that you will initially take them through some of the methods above, and then over time you will expect them increasingly to use the methods themselves at night -- as well as during the day, in real-life situations.

Releasing Painful Feelings Yes, life has its share of suffering, and we are certainly not suggesting that you resist difficult feelings or suppress them. Instead, we're talking about simply helping them on their way.

* In a way that's safe, vent - and there are a variety of options. You could really let it rip about how you feel in a letter that you'll destroy after it's written; perhaps burn it in a ritualistic way, scattering the ashes far and wide, letting all the feelings go as you do so. Or tell a trusted friend, with the crucial intention of getting it off your chest and getting rid of it, rather than getting more worked up. Or imagine ranting and yelling inside your own mind. Or yell out loud while in the shower, on top of a mountain, underwater, or while driving a car (stay in control of the car!!!).
* Sense the feelings draining out of your body, perhaps as if there were tiny valves at the tips of each finger and toe.
* Exhale the feelings with each breath, visualizing them as smoggy clouds leaving your body.
* Imagine the feelings being swept away by standing in a cool and refreshing stream on a beautiful, sunny day
* Imagine putting the feelings into a jar and tossing it into a river to be carried off to the sea, or placing them on a rocket ship blasting off to be burned up in the sun.

Saying Good-bye to Negative Thoughts

With this method, you get on your own side and argue against needlessly negative, limiting, or inaccurate thoughts, beliefs, expectations, and assumptions. On paper or in your head, you need to talk to yourself - and it's the opposite of crazy!

A structured approach is to treat the thoughts that make you (or a child) upset as propositions that may or may not be true, and then list three or more ways that they are totally wrong. Try to see which of these classic mental errors might apply: treating a small problem like a big one, regarding a temporary situation as permanent, underestimating your own abilities, overestimating the scale or the likelihood of the challenge, or forgetting about resources in your world.

For example, if an 8-year-old is afraid that bad guys could break into your home, together come up with a list like this one: All our windows and doors are locked. Your bedroom is next to ours. I'm a real light sleeper. There's never been a burglary in our neighborhood. We leave a light on. Crooks look for easy targets, not houses like ours. The dogs next door bark at anything, and they'd sure scare a burglar away. Besides, we're not rich, and burglars go where the big jewels are: we don't have anything they want!

Or for an adult, suppose that childcare has fallen apart yet again for a mother, and she has to take a day off of work to deal with it, and she's got a dreadful feeling it'll never work out. To feel better, she could remind herself that: There are lots of childcare situations out there, and one of them has to work. I've found decent childcare in the past, and I'll find it again. Meanwhile, maybe my mom can take care of my daughter for a few days. Time will pass, and we'll get through this. The important thing is to keep going, to love my sweet girl, and be loved by her as well.

You get the idea. This method works best when you do it in a structured and determined way. Give it a try!

(Rick Hanson is a clinical psychologist, Jan Hanson is an acupuncturist/nutritionist, and they are raising a daughter and son, ages 12 and 14. With Ricki Pollycove, M.D., they are the authors of Mother Nurture: A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships, published by Penguin. You can see their website at www.nurturemom.com or email them with questions or comments at info@nurturemom.com; unfortunately, a personal reply may not always be possible.)

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Finding Your Footing

Obviously I know what I'm supposed to be doing hour to hour in a day, but in terms of the big picture, I feel like everything got turned kind of upside down since I became a mom, like where I was headed in life -- and this has all gotten more confusing since I went back to work . . .

It's really natural to feel pulled in a million directions when you're a mother. And, unfortunately, some important goals or needs of yours can get pushed to the back burner indefinitely. To deal with this, it helps a lot to have some sense of your guiding purposes and priorities. This is not lofty and abstract, but a practical, daily matter; it's like having a roadmap for your life: then you know where you are headed.

OK, so first things first: Are you for yourself or not? It may seem like a dumb, obvious question, but actually many people have a hard time seriously getting on their own side, so that they feel mobilized to reduce their suffering and increase their happiness. Here are some quick methods:

* Reflect on how being for yourself - so that your well-being and functioning improve - will help other people, especially the ones you care about most.
* Reflect on how you want to treat others with ordinary consideration and kindness. Then apply the same standards of fairness and decency toward yourself that you would naturally apply to anyone: why not you, too?
* Consider children in general and your stance of care toward them. Then get a sense of yourself as a child and apply those feelings of caring to that child you once were - who is still deep inside you.
* Inside your mind, wish yourself well, in the form: "May you ____________ ." Such as, "May you be happy. May you be at peace. May you be well. May your heart be at ease. May your body be at ease."

When you're for yourself, you want to support the virtues and priorities that lead to a good life, and contribute mightily to others.

Regarding virtues:

* In your mind or on paper, list three or more important virtues that you routinely embody. A single word will often do, but it's OK to have more. Then go back over your list, and for each one, take a few seconds for the sense of it to sink deeply into your heart.
* Next, list three or more important virtues that you would like to live by better. Do some soul-searching here. Sometimes it helps to be a little quiet in your mind and ask your innermost being - or even God, if that's meaningful to you - for what it thinks. But remember that you are being a good person in your willingness to acknowledge where you could be even better. Some classics: Patience. Restraint of anger. Courage. Sobriety. Cheerfulness. Determination. Love. Generosity.

After getting clear about these, think about what would help you live more by each one. Then see if you can make a commitment to doing that. For real.

Regarding priorities:

* In your mind or on paper, make a list of major areas of your life. Like Health, Spirituality, Love, Pleasure, Marriage, Childrearing, Career, Creative Expression, Finances. Have a few broad or many specific areas, however you like.
* Next, make yourself put that list in priority order. Sorry, no ties are allowed. It's just an exercise; in real life we tend to pursue multiple priorities.
* When you have your priority list, take an honest look at it, and tell the truth to yourself about how you are and how you are not living your life accordingly. Let that truth sink in even if it is uncomfortable. Recall your feelings of being for yourself.
* Then make a real plan about what you could do, concretely and practically, to live more by your true priorities. Stare at that plan and see if you can really commit to it.

To be blunt, we generally end up where we've been heading. So it's vital to head in good directions, and keep telling the truth to ourselves about whether we're still actually on course. Then we have the best possible odds of ending up with the family, the children, the marriage, the life that we deeply want and long for.

(Rick Hanson is a clinical psychologist, Jan Hanson is an acupuncturist/nutritionist, and they are raising a daughter and son, ages 12 and 14. With Ricki Pollycove, M.D., they are the authors of Mother Nurture: A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships, published by Penguin. You can see their website at www.nurturemom.com or email them with questions or comments at info@nurturemom.com; unfortunately, a personal reply may not always be possible.)

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