202409222312 I don't sleep because I'm afraid of my thoughts

I've had trouble sleeping for most of my life. In high school, I often stayed up playing video games till 2 or 3 AM when I had to get up at 7 AM the next day. This was partly because I had (have) a crippling procrastination habit, but mostly because it felt like a blessing to be so tired that I could hit the bed and immediately fall asleep. I still have a variety of bedtime routines (scrolling on my phone, reading for 30 min, peeing twice) that I've established so that when I'm "actually" trying to fall asleep, my melatonin levels are high enough that I can fall asleep relatively quickly. I've also never been one to "enjoy" sleep. I don't like taking naps; I don't look forward to sleeping every night. It's just something I have to do before I can start my day.

I'm fully aware of how important sleep is to every aspect of health and bodily function. (I'm currently reading Why We Sleep). Given this, it's surprising to me how little thought I've given my aversion to sleeping. I've always just accepted this as a reality of my life and tried to work around it.

I was casually mulling this over recently and had an epiphany. I don't have an aversion to sleeping; I have an aversion to the 15-30 minutes before I fall asleep that I'm lying in bed with nothing to occupy me but my thoughts. I have a hard time sitting still; meditation is difficult for me. The prospect of "forced" meditation — acknowledging, holding, and releasing my thoughts — in order to sleep is so unappealing to me that I've done everything possible to avoid it.

Once I identified and isolated the problem, I realized it wasn’t as bad as I had subconsciously been making it out to be. Sure, the first few minutes of awkwardly lying in bed might be slightly uncomfortable. But when else during the day do I give myself the permission to relax my brain and body, with no expectations or strings attached? I had been thinking about the pre-sleep period all wrong. I was viewing it as a necessary evil and a precursor to sleep, but instead, I should’ve been valuing it as a unique opportunity to do absolutely nothing and not have to subconsciously beat myself up for it. Being a potato is nice; sleep is just a convenient by-product.

I’m not sure how far this mindset shift will take me, but yesterday, I actually looked forward to falling asleep, which is the first time I’ve felt that as far as I can remember.