I often ask my clients, “what keeps you up at night?” Ironically, a few months ago I was the one waking up in the middle of the night. My mind would be running in circles and I wouldn’t be able to shut it off and fall back to sleep. Besides being frustrating, this kind of sleeplessness causes a host of other problems. Lack of sleep dumb downs your brain. It hinders judgment, impairs memory, and decreases happiness.

My irrational middle of the night thoughts were mostly about business and the relationships therein. Lack of sleep wasn’t helping me to solve those problems. Plus, people began to notice. One day, a colleague pulled me aside and asked, “are you frustrated with me?” I wasn’t upset with him at all, yet he could see something was off.

I had dealt with insomnia before, but the tools I used in the past to get back to sleep weren’t working. I tried writing down my concerns along with potential solutions, but it didn’t help me to relax enough to drift off. I would pick up a fiction book to get my mind on something light, and then end up reading for hours. I attempted meditation, but my mind kept wandering. I decided this was ridiculous and I needed better tools. So, I reached out to a therapist on BetterHelp.

She helped me realize that I was catastrophizing, coming up with irrational conclusions and situations that exacerbated the importance of the problem. You know, no matter what little thing goes wrong, I’m not likely to end up living in a van down by the river. I was also beating up on myself. This was probably stress induced. Earlier in my career I had a business coach that recognized I might be doing this. I have high standards for myself and when I wasn’t hitting them I brought out my own whipping post. This didn’t help my confidence or the people around me. Now, I was slipping back into some of that old behavior.

The therapist offered two worksheets that have been very effective for me.

Decatastrophizing

Irrational thoughts that have the power to influence how you feel are cognitive distortions. By learning to question your thoughts, you can correct these distortions. Here are the questions that you would fill out on the worksheet.

• What are you worried about?

• How likely is it that your worry will come true? Give examples from your past to support your answer.

• If your worry does come true, what’s the worst that could happen?

• If your worry does come true, what’s most likely to happen?

• If the worry comes true, what are the chances you’ll be okay: In one week?: __%, In one month?: __%, In one year?: ____%.

After completing this worksheet, I realized how irrational my thoughts were and that everything really was okay. It also allowed me to make realistic contingency plans instead of getting stuck in loops of negative exaggerations. However, truly what helped is focusing on what I can control. Instead of worrying about the past or the future, I worked on staying present, moving forward, and enjoying every day. Gratitude was key.

**The Don’t Beat Up on

Yourself Log**

In this worksheet, you simply write down the event, the thought it caused, the consequence of the thought (an emotion and/or behavior), and then a more rational counterstatement. I can use my collegue’s fear that I was upset with him as an example.

Event: Betty acted irritated with me at that meeting.

Thought: Maybe she’s upset with me. She’s been aggravated with me in the past. Am I doing something wrong?

Consequence: Feeling anxiety and spending time thinking about this past situation.

Rational Counterstatement: Betty’s body language makes it seem like she is stressed out. I should check in with her to make that everything is alright.

My colleague didn’t need this worksheet because he naturally went straight from a negative thought to a rational counterstatement. This allowed him to initiate a conversation with me rather than getting stuck in an anxious loop. However, many of these kinds of negative thoughts may be floating through your head on a daily basis, and if so, this worksheet is a good tool to help you rewrite those thoughts.

For another example of a time when the Don’t Beat Up on Yourself Log can come in handy, I noticed a female colleague often called herself “weird.” Later, when filling out my thought log, I caught myself saying something I did was “weird.” This is an example of a self put-down. It’s passing judgment on yourself. Women associate negative words with their behavior more often than men do. When we feel we don’t fit into a societal norm or category some automatic judgments can occur. I brought this particular colleague into my, “don’t judge yourself circle” and since then we’ve helped catch each other doing self put-downs. I was happy to see this really helped her, others, and me.

Success – I’m Sleeping Again

I knew the consequences of not taking action to cure my stress problem could hurt Taylor Studios, myself, and others. I think it’s pretty common to get outside help for your finances, physical health, or career. Yet, there’s still a stigma to getting mental health help. Even with the plethora of business writings on the importance of emotional intelligence and self-awareness for success, people don’t speak freely about mental health.

Talking to a therapist and filling out the worksheets she recommended caused an almost immediate improvement in my sleep patterns and mood. This has an exponential effect because now I also have the energy to do the other things that improve my mental health, like horseback riding, hiking, exercise, and enjoying sunsets.

I ask my clients “what keeps you up at night,” to get to know them better, to understand their struggles, and possibly to help them. At Taylor Studios, we see ourselves as our clients’ guides. Maybe I should be more concerned about the consequences of them waking up in the middle of the night instead. Maybe this blog will help them too.