My 3:48 a.m. brain (happened this morning) is a bit different than yours. For me, I worry about what's coming up: deadlines at work, the health issues my mom has, if my kids will be okay, etc. Thank you for sharing this because it helps me see how others struggle with similar thoughts. What works for me to go back to sleep are:
1. Slow and deep breaths. Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 and then slowly exhale for 8.
2. Pick a random 4 letter word. Take the first letter and think of four random words that start with that letter, then move on to the 2nd help, 3rd, and 4th. The random thoughts and breathing helps to let your brain know that it's okay to go back to sleep.
Not sure if these will work for you but can't hurt to try. As for the negative thoughts you're having, I'm sending you some positivity. One technique I found (again, what works for me may not work for you) is to imagine that I'm a kid again and I'm scared. As an adult, I go up to me as a kid and wrap him in my arms in a big hug and let him know that I love him and will always be here for him.
You are welcome! I do hope that I didn't come off as "Mansplaining" or giving unwanted advice. I wish to make certain that I'm sharing suggestions--what works for me, may not work for you, but thought it would helpful to share.
A) you write - you wrote this - therefore you’re a real writer
B) tell your brain to stop talking to you when you’re not writing. unless it’s being a cheerleader - then it’s ok
C) you’re funny - that’s harder than it looks
D) the goals you have set for yourself might not have turned out how and when you pictured them - but maybe it’s better this way. You won’t know that till later on though.
“The 3 AM brain” - I love this label for this feeling! My 3 am brain picks from a bouquet of self-doubt, past trauma, and wondering why my last dream was so vivid and what it meant. Once I contemplated if a dream in which I was running from a murderer is still a nightmare if in my dream I looked like a particularly beautiful model who was popular at the time?
Haha that is such an interesting dream! What did you decide: nightmare or not? Last night I had a dream I was late for a train because I was trying to buy gum and Diet Coke (both things I’m trying to cut back on…)
Thanks so much for reading and for the thoughtful comment!
Ha! I have experienced the same, when I'm trying to cut down on something, it will sneak into my dream to tempt me. And I don't think I ever did decide, but also dwelled mildly on how vain my subconscious may be, ha.
I've had your newsletter unread in my inbox for days--I didn't want to lose it in there. My husband and I joke that 3am brain is, at best, utterly unreliable. She's got dumb ideas, is often unfriendly, and panicky over stuff that looks bats in the light of day. So you're not alone there :)
On Bob's Burgers a few weeks ago, Linda said that when she can't sleep she "takes Oprah grocery shopping," so I try to do that to shut my brain up at night now. I walk with Oprah (who for whatever reason is a cardboard cutout of her 1980s self) to get stuff alphabetically.
Or I put on a sleep podcast. Mostly my 3am brain needs other words/thoughts to occupy it so it doesn't start its nonsense.
Jen!! There is SO MUCH I love about this comment, I don’t even know where to start!
1st: the fact that you kept this unread so you could return to it is the loveliest thing ever. Thank you!
2nd: I absolutely LOVE Bob’s Burgers! I don’t know that episode! That sounds so funny. I am cracking up at the idea of taking Oprah shopping and even more so that you are taking a cardboard cutout shopping in your imagination 🤣 How brilliant!
Finally, I love that you and your husband are joking about 3 am brain! It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship.
I was nodding my head the entire time I was reading this post Emma! What I loved the most was that you acknowledged all that you have achieved in the end rather than focus what needs to still be achieved!
Hi Emma! I'm so grateful you keep writing and climbing. I DO read what you write, and I am finally tackling the demons that keep me from committing to writing time this fall, but I started first with climbing mountains....Mt. Katahdin last week! I thought I'd never climb it again so it lingered in the clouds of my half-wake 3:00 a.m. dreams when I thought I was leaving the planet imminently, but 4 years out from my last surgery, I walked there on my own two feet. I was last there just before my breast cancer diagnosis in 2019 to take my childhood friend's ashes to the top and had imagined it would be an annual pilgrimage to be up in the sky with her. This time, I hiked the Knife's Edge feeling fully alive, present to those I've lost, and those I'm still around for. And maybe my survival memoir can begin now...just by continuing to show up we have been surviving all the way along. Sending care, Lydia
Hi Lydia! I’m so happy to hear from you, and over the moon to hear of your recent success on Mt. Katahdin! That sounds so amazing. How long did it take you? I Googled it, and search results said it’s infamously difficult!
I am so sorry you haven’t been able to make the regular pilgrimages to your friend that you were hoping.
Thanks for your kind message! I can’t wait to cheer you on with your return to writing! You are a wonderful writer xx
Thanks Emma, I am ready to dig in and keep finding my voice post-apocalypse. It does seem like one thing most of us cancer survivors have in common is the sense of B.C and A.C. from that moment of first diagnosis. It's a stunning fall foliage day here in Maine. I hope you are thriving with lots of time in nature where you are. Much care, Lydia
I will write about this eventually. But one night, struggling with waking up in the middle of the night, angry at myself for being pissed off about work when my wife had died just nine months earlier -- Who cares about work, you selfish-jerk? -- But I couldn't quiet my mind, so I grabbed for my phone off my nightstand, only to knock over a book I read several years ago: How to Tame Your Gremlin.
I started rereading it. This time it really sank in. I didn't do the work like the book suggested. So this time I imagined my Gremlin (my ego) and I spent the next hour describing him. Then I spent the next hour writing to him, asking him why he was tormenting me so much over my life, over not saving my wife, over not being enough. So now, whenever my 3 am brain flares up, I grab my journal and write to my Gremlin, which I call The Royal Worm. It helps.
Give it a try. If you need it as a guide, the book is super cheap on eBay. Good luck quieting your mind. And YOU ARE a writer.
Ah, Mark! How serendipitous that the book found you again in that moment! It sounds like it was exactly what you needed.
I haven’t heard of the book, will have to check it out! Both the title’s description of the ego as a ‘gremlin’ and your naming of yours as the ‘royal worm’ are so apt and diverting!
I’m really sorry about the mean thoughts your gremlin says to you. It sounds like we have kind of similar 3 AM brain 😖
As a fellow cancer survivor I all to well know the 3am brain. I agree with your therapist, sleep is the closest we get to death while alive and sometimes it's terrifying to go to sleep and wonder will I wake up. I spiral for the same reasons, all of which are out of our control. I try to redirect like the other reader suggested, either saying the states on alphabetical order to get my mind to shift or do the breathing exercise. Sometimes neither are helpful. We often find out flaws ba focusing on and celebrating our successes. We move on too quickly when we do have a win but we dwell on the losses. I have made a conscious effort to celebrate something small each day and it's helped, but 3 am bully is something I certainly still experience and did last night too. All the best. Hopefully you get some sleep tonight. 🩷
Ahhhh Jessica! You are my kindred spirit! I so agree with and relate to everything you said.
It’s interesting how cancer changed so much for me. I’d never really thought of the link between death and sleep before, although I do believe it’s an innate fear we all have as children.
As a Brit who’s lived in LA for 11 years but has awful US geographic knowledge… perhaps I ought to practice my states! xx
My 3.30AM brain worries that all the negativity in the world and the reliance on technology and social media is going to make it hard for my boys to have a peaceful, healthy future with positive relationships. When I think about their mental health, I go into a doom spiral and then in the morning I give them a monologue of how it’s always important to be kind and thoughtful and true and to talk to friends when they are feeling sad, to not bottle it up, etc…They are barely awake, have slept a good 12 hours as teens do and just gawk at me like I have 3 heads. “OK Mum, don’t worry so much, can you make me breakfast?” Oh but I worry! How can I not? This world right feels cruel and unkind.
Oh, Josephine, what a wonderful Mum you are! I don’t have kids myself, but another reader also commented that all their nighttime fears have become for their kids rather than themselves! I’m sure it’s very normal, but I can’t imagine how scary it must be to raise kids in this terrifying world. Your boys’ reaction to your anxiety shows how wonderfully happy and safe they must feel! xx
As another reader replied, most of us would never speak to a friend the way we speak to ourselves! The more I work on my inner voice, the more I find I’m able to create some separation between the ‘voice’ and the truth of my person.
Mercifully, I don’t have a 3 a.m. brain (thank you, Trazodone 50mg), but rather a spiraling unaccomplished to-do list that bursts on scene as soon as I wake, stealing whatever peace I might otherwise have. The similarly lies in the common denominator of intrusiveness.
When I used to describe my flaws or failures to my brother (hi, Paul!) he gifted me a helpful tool that is simple, but unfailingly useful: translate the voice of The Critic into the voice of The Friend. Would I say the things I was telling myself to a dear friend without changing the tenor or tone? No? Then why not apply the same filter to my Self?
It’s okay to be self-critical, it’s how we grow. But it’s not okay to be mean. We are not robots or accomplishment-bodies (please go read Sunflower Sutra, Allen Ginsberg, you can thank me later ;). 🌻❤️
Ah, your brother’s name is Paul? So is mine!! Your brother sounds so wonderful, Tracy 🥲
I feel you about those to-do lists! I have to write everything down or I will forget something!
I love your brother’s advice. He is right that most of us would never speak to a friend the way we speak to ourselves. It’s a good reframe to remember.
Thank you for the poem recommendation. I hadn’t come across it before and it was so powerful xx
Wow! I am so grateful my Paul led me here, what are the chances! Might you also have an Uncle Bob? Mine taught be about signs that remind me that I’m on The Path. 🥰
I love that, Tracy!! I am also very close with my brother, but sadly, we live on different continents 😢 We do message each other often and have monthly facetimes 🙂
I hear you, I’m in Massachusetts and he’s in California, may as well be a different continent, though we’ve lived that as well with one or the other of us in France for a spell…
I’m a bit anxious about my upcoming surgery in a couple of weeks, but I’ve been going on long walks and keeping myself busy so I don’t overthink it too much. 👩🏻💻
My 3:48 a.m. brain (happened this morning) is a bit different than yours. For me, I worry about what's coming up: deadlines at work, the health issues my mom has, if my kids will be okay, etc. Thank you for sharing this because it helps me see how others struggle with similar thoughts. What works for me to go back to sleep are:
1. Slow and deep breaths. Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 and then slowly exhale for 8.
2. Pick a random 4 letter word. Take the first letter and think of four random words that start with that letter, then move on to the 2nd help, 3rd, and 4th. The random thoughts and breathing helps to let your brain know that it's okay to go back to sleep.
Not sure if these will work for you but can't hurt to try. As for the negative thoughts you're having, I'm sending you some positivity. One technique I found (again, what works for me may not work for you) is to imagine that I'm a kid again and I'm scared. As an adult, I go up to me as a kid and wrap him in my arms in a big hug and let him know that I love him and will always be here for him.
Ron, these are such lovely suggestions! Thank you so much! I actually tried your four-letter word technique this morning when I woke up!
Your suggestion of imagining your inner child is also a lovely one.
And I feel you about the worries for others, too. I’m not a parent yet, but I am sure that once I am, all my nighttime concerns will transfer to them!
Thanks for reading and leaving such a kind and helpful comment!
You are welcome! I do hope that I didn't come off as "Mansplaining" or giving unwanted advice. I wish to make certain that I'm sharing suggestions--what works for me, may not work for you, but thought it would helpful to share.
OMG not at all! That didn’t even cross my mind! We’re just two humans connecting on a similar human experience 🙂
Love it! 👏
A) you write - you wrote this - therefore you’re a real writer
B) tell your brain to stop talking to you when you’re not writing. unless it’s being a cheerleader - then it’s ok
C) you’re funny - that’s harder than it looks
D) the goals you have set for yourself might not have turned out how and when you pictured them - but maybe it’s better this way. You won’t know that till later on though.
This is the lovliest comment ever!! Thank you, friend!
P.S. I’m really glad this came across as funny, because that’s what I hoped! You never know how it’ll read outside of your own head 🤣
Wishing you a lovely start to your week! xx
☺️ same to you!
“The 3 AM brain” - I love this label for this feeling! My 3 am brain picks from a bouquet of self-doubt, past trauma, and wondering why my last dream was so vivid and what it meant. Once I contemplated if a dream in which I was running from a murderer is still a nightmare if in my dream I looked like a particularly beautiful model who was popular at the time?
Haha that is such an interesting dream! What did you decide: nightmare or not? Last night I had a dream I was late for a train because I was trying to buy gum and Diet Coke (both things I’m trying to cut back on…)
Thanks so much for reading and for the thoughtful comment!
Ha! I have experienced the same, when I'm trying to cut down on something, it will sneak into my dream to tempt me. And I don't think I ever did decide, but also dwelled mildly on how vain my subconscious may be, ha.
Thank YOU for sharing your writing!
I've had your newsletter unread in my inbox for days--I didn't want to lose it in there. My husband and I joke that 3am brain is, at best, utterly unreliable. She's got dumb ideas, is often unfriendly, and panicky over stuff that looks bats in the light of day. So you're not alone there :)
On Bob's Burgers a few weeks ago, Linda said that when she can't sleep she "takes Oprah grocery shopping," so I try to do that to shut my brain up at night now. I walk with Oprah (who for whatever reason is a cardboard cutout of her 1980s self) to get stuff alphabetically.
Or I put on a sleep podcast. Mostly my 3am brain needs other words/thoughts to occupy it so it doesn't start its nonsense.
Jen!! There is SO MUCH I love about this comment, I don’t even know where to start!
1st: the fact that you kept this unread so you could return to it is the loveliest thing ever. Thank you!
2nd: I absolutely LOVE Bob’s Burgers! I don’t know that episode! That sounds so funny. I am cracking up at the idea of taking Oprah shopping and even more so that you are taking a cardboard cutout shopping in your imagination 🤣 How brilliant!
Finally, I love that you and your husband are joking about 3 am brain! It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship.
Thank you for making me smile this morning xx
Aw yay I'm glad it brought you a smile. :) I have no idea where the cutout came from, but that was how she appeared! Brains are funny.
I was nodding my head the entire time I was reading this post Emma! What I loved the most was that you acknowledged all that you have achieved in the end rather than focus what needs to still be achieved!
Ah, thank you so much! That’s the great place I’ve got to now… I can listen to the voice and know it’s not always telling me the truth
Hi Emma! I'm so grateful you keep writing and climbing. I DO read what you write, and I am finally tackling the demons that keep me from committing to writing time this fall, but I started first with climbing mountains....Mt. Katahdin last week! I thought I'd never climb it again so it lingered in the clouds of my half-wake 3:00 a.m. dreams when I thought I was leaving the planet imminently, but 4 years out from my last surgery, I walked there on my own two feet. I was last there just before my breast cancer diagnosis in 2019 to take my childhood friend's ashes to the top and had imagined it would be an annual pilgrimage to be up in the sky with her. This time, I hiked the Knife's Edge feeling fully alive, present to those I've lost, and those I'm still around for. And maybe my survival memoir can begin now...just by continuing to show up we have been surviving all the way along. Sending care, Lydia
Hi Lydia! I’m so happy to hear from you, and over the moon to hear of your recent success on Mt. Katahdin! That sounds so amazing. How long did it take you? I Googled it, and search results said it’s infamously difficult!
I am so sorry you haven’t been able to make the regular pilgrimages to your friend that you were hoping.
Thanks for your kind message! I can’t wait to cheer you on with your return to writing! You are a wonderful writer xx
Thanks Emma, I am ready to dig in and keep finding my voice post-apocalypse. It does seem like one thing most of us cancer survivors have in common is the sense of B.C and A.C. from that moment of first diagnosis. It's a stunning fall foliage day here in Maine. I hope you are thriving with lots of time in nature where you are. Much care, Lydia
I so agree, Lydia! BC and AC identity is VERY real.
Wow, that sounds so lovely! I REALLY want to visit Maine. I just watched a lovely YouTube video of a couple restoring a little cottage there.
Sending you love! xx
I will write about this eventually. But one night, struggling with waking up in the middle of the night, angry at myself for being pissed off about work when my wife had died just nine months earlier -- Who cares about work, you selfish-jerk? -- But I couldn't quiet my mind, so I grabbed for my phone off my nightstand, only to knock over a book I read several years ago: How to Tame Your Gremlin.
I started rereading it. This time it really sank in. I didn't do the work like the book suggested. So this time I imagined my Gremlin (my ego) and I spent the next hour describing him. Then I spent the next hour writing to him, asking him why he was tormenting me so much over my life, over not saving my wife, over not being enough. So now, whenever my 3 am brain flares up, I grab my journal and write to my Gremlin, which I call The Royal Worm. It helps.
Give it a try. If you need it as a guide, the book is super cheap on eBay. Good luck quieting your mind. And YOU ARE a writer.
Ah, Mark! How serendipitous that the book found you again in that moment! It sounds like it was exactly what you needed.
I haven’t heard of the book, will have to check it out! Both the title’s description of the ego as a ‘gremlin’ and your naming of yours as the ‘royal worm’ are so apt and diverting!
I’m really sorry about the mean thoughts your gremlin says to you. It sounds like we have kind of similar 3 AM brain 😖
Thanks for the lovely comment!
As a fellow cancer survivor I all to well know the 3am brain. I agree with your therapist, sleep is the closest we get to death while alive and sometimes it's terrifying to go to sleep and wonder will I wake up. I spiral for the same reasons, all of which are out of our control. I try to redirect like the other reader suggested, either saying the states on alphabetical order to get my mind to shift or do the breathing exercise. Sometimes neither are helpful. We often find out flaws ba focusing on and celebrating our successes. We move on too quickly when we do have a win but we dwell on the losses. I have made a conscious effort to celebrate something small each day and it's helped, but 3 am bully is something I certainly still experience and did last night too. All the best. Hopefully you get some sleep tonight. 🩷
Ahhhh Jessica! You are my kindred spirit! I so agree with and relate to everything you said.
It’s interesting how cancer changed so much for me. I’d never really thought of the link between death and sleep before, although I do believe it’s an innate fear we all have as children.
As a Brit who’s lived in LA for 11 years but has awful US geographic knowledge… perhaps I ought to practice my states! xx
My 3.30AM brain worries that all the negativity in the world and the reliance on technology and social media is going to make it hard for my boys to have a peaceful, healthy future with positive relationships. When I think about their mental health, I go into a doom spiral and then in the morning I give them a monologue of how it’s always important to be kind and thoughtful and true and to talk to friends when they are feeling sad, to not bottle it up, etc…They are barely awake, have slept a good 12 hours as teens do and just gawk at me like I have 3 heads. “OK Mum, don’t worry so much, can you make me breakfast?” Oh but I worry! How can I not? This world right feels cruel and unkind.
Oh, Josephine, what a wonderful Mum you are! I don’t have kids myself, but another reader also commented that all their nighttime fears have become for their kids rather than themselves! I’m sure it’s very normal, but I can’t imagine how scary it must be to raise kids in this terrifying world. Your boys’ reaction to your anxiety shows how wonderfully happy and safe they must feel! xx
Think a lot of us have that 3am brain . I am not a fan of my inner voice sometimes, have learned to ignore and redirect but not all of the time
I only have one question for you
If your post was somebody else's post that you read. As a compassionate, caring person that you are what would your advice be?
As always wish you well
That is such a good reframe, Steve! Thank you 🙏
As another reader replied, most of us would never speak to a friend the way we speak to ourselves! The more I work on my inner voice, the more I find I’m able to create some separation between the ‘voice’ and the truth of my person.
Thanks for the lovely comment!
Mercifully, I don’t have a 3 a.m. brain (thank you, Trazodone 50mg), but rather a spiraling unaccomplished to-do list that bursts on scene as soon as I wake, stealing whatever peace I might otherwise have. The similarly lies in the common denominator of intrusiveness.
When I used to describe my flaws or failures to my brother (hi, Paul!) he gifted me a helpful tool that is simple, but unfailingly useful: translate the voice of The Critic into the voice of The Friend. Would I say the things I was telling myself to a dear friend without changing the tenor or tone? No? Then why not apply the same filter to my Self?
It’s okay to be self-critical, it’s how we grow. But it’s not okay to be mean. We are not robots or accomplishment-bodies (please go read Sunflower Sutra, Allen Ginsberg, you can thank me later ;). 🌻❤️
Ah, your brother’s name is Paul? So is mine!! Your brother sounds so wonderful, Tracy 🥲
I feel you about those to-do lists! I have to write everything down or I will forget something!
I love your brother’s advice. He is right that most of us would never speak to a friend the way we speak to ourselves. It’s a good reframe to remember.
Thank you for the poem recommendation. I hadn’t come across it before and it was so powerful xx
Wow! I am so grateful my Paul led me here, what are the chances! Might you also have an Uncle Bob? Mine taught be about signs that remind me that I’m on The Path. 🥰
Goodness, I wish I did! Your Uncle Bob sounds wonderful! 🥲
PS My brother is my best friend, he is indeed wonderful, and then some!
I love that, Tracy!! I am also very close with my brother, but sadly, we live on different continents 😢 We do message each other often and have monthly facetimes 🙂
I hear you, I’m in Massachusetts and he’s in California, may as well be a different continent, though we’ve lived that as well with one or the other of us in France for a spell…
It’s so hard! FaceTime is a miracle!
Sending you all my love ❣️
Thanks, friend! How have you been? xx
I’m a bit anxious about my upcoming surgery in a couple of weeks, but I’ve been going on long walks and keeping myself busy so I don’t overthink it too much. 👩🏻💻
Thanks for asking, Emma ☀️
Oh it’s always so anxious waiting for a surgery! I wish you a smooth few weeks ahead. How great that you’re getting out for lots of walks! xxx
Have courage, will succeed 💪. Most of us encounter these feelings. All the best 💐.
Thank you, friend! It’s actually so helpful to know that most people have these feelings! I don’t think it’s something people regularly admit to!
Amazing! I could not worded this better. 3 am brain is a bully and I am always struggling with this . I am reading this at 3 am :)
Ahhh, I see your Substack name confirms your expertise in this matter!!
I’m glad this found you at 3 AM and hopefully quelled the thoughts just a little bit.
I appreciate you, and I appreciate your lovely comment! xx