Gratitude and a Good Night’s Sleep: When Counting Sheep is Not Enough

Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. Maya Angelou

Life is busy.

You are leading a business or leading a team – or both – and you are finding yourself laying awake at night. The reasons are plenty for having sleepless nights or poor-quality sleep. Unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, exhaustion and hormonal spikes are among the common causes of fitful rest for women.

However, when you are in a leadership role, the sheer experience of daily life in the midst of this tumultuous time on the planet can be enough to have you sitting up at night – night after night.In more than fifteen years of organizational consulting, leaders of organizations often cite worries over financial profit, employee engagement and reputation (self and organization) as the reasons for their poor quality of sleep.

Entrepreneurs cite financial worries, lack of time and business development as their greatest concerns. While concern for the bottom line is a unified woe, so too is the simple solution for most leaders – no matter their environment.

So why can’t we shut off our minds and get a good night’s sleep?

If we start with the brain and its function, we quickly realize that the brain is not working in our favour for healthy, deep sleep. You see, the brain has two jobs. First and foremost, the brain is responsible to keep us safe as we move about in the world around us. How it does that? Through it’s second job – taking in information through our five senses. The brain is always busy comprehending the world around us and deciding if we are in danger or not. This is the big idea behind negative marketing. If we believe that we need a product to help us survive well in daily life, or that one product will keep us safer, healthier or more comfortable, our brain takes notice.

Negative messages get to us first and this is a built-in safety mechanism in our minds.Therefore, if we are at all concerned about aspects of our work as leaders in our lives then these concerns are translated in our brains as threats to our safety. Add up enough of these supposed threats and we have a fantastic formula for a brain that is doing its job in trying to keep us safe by simply not shutting off. It takes an intervention of sorts to calm down the brain and allow the mind to safely rest.

This is where the superpower of gratitude can enter the picture of the leader and the overworked brain.

All the while that the worries of leadership are present, the amygdala area of the brain is hijacked and reduces our capacity for logic and reason. The amygdala is part of the older, reptilian brain of humans that is responsible for the flight and fight responses we experience when the brain perceives a threat. Initiating a practice of gratitude can soothe the hyperactivity in the amygdala area and calm it sufficiently to allow us to rest better because we no longer believe we are in a threatening situation.

From a neuroscience perspective, when we are in gratitude we cannot be in anger.

The brain is just not built to experience both gratitude and anger at the same time. We can oscillate but we cannot be in both experiences. So, if we want to move out of an angry situation with someone, the minute we begin thinking of all that we appreciate about them, the anger begins to dissipate. If we verbalize the appreciation to the other person and they internalize it, the dissipation begins happening for them too.

That being said, if you do not want to move out of anger then do not go to gratitude in your thoughts or your words because you will lose the intensity of the adrenaline and its accompanying feeling of power. You will begin to appreciate the other person and, perhaps, even gain empathy or compassion for their perspective.So, what does this have to do with a good night’s sleep?

Well, the old adage of counting sleep had its place in reducing the intensity of worry and concern by giving the brain something else to focus on instead. Counting sheep is a neutral experience of focus while gratitude is an active experience of focus. Practising gratitude accesses an area of the brain called the parietal lobe where humans can feel more connected to one another through thoughts and activities. This stimulation of the brain reduces the experience of separateness and allows people to feel that they are a part of a collective – we are one. By initiating a practice of gratitude, the brain no longer feels threatened. The mind no longer feels unsafe and alone. And we are able to sleep.

A nighttime gratitude practice looks like this:As you lay your head on the pillow of your bed, begin recalling the moment you woke up this morning. Recall your activities of the day – one by one – in detail and in a chronological order.It sounds like this:I remember waking up this morning in my bed. I am so grateful that I have a bed. My bed is in my bedroom that I decorated with the colours that I love. I am so grateful that I have a home and that I had the money to decorate the way that I wanted to decorate my room. I was so comfortable and warm in my bed last night with my new pajamas on.

I am grateful for these clothes that keep me warm. When my feet hit the floor this morning, I was reminded of the wood grain that is in the floor throughout my home. I am so grateful to be living in my house with its beautiful wooden floors. I am so very blessed. I walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth and said thanks for the ability to move my body with ease. I used my new toothbrush. It is green. My favourite colour. I am grateful that I have teeth to brush with my new toothbrush.

When my leadership coaching clients first adopt this practice of nightly gratitude, they find it quite detailed as they try to recall and bless each experience of the day. However, they also find that it works and, each night, they are able to recall different details of the day and find opportunities for gratitude in the sameness and the different. Many clients find it difficult to get past breakfast in their recollection of the day before they find that they have fallen asleep.I invite you to give it a try.

Gratitude is the soft giant superpower that can change your life – one night at a time.

Sonia Byrne is a Mindful Leadership Consultant working with non-profit boards, leadership teams and entrepreneurial incubators to promote self-awareness and leadership discernment through assessments, workshops and retreat experiences. See more offerings at www.mindfulleadershipforsuccess.com