When I’m worried and I can’t sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
and I fall asleep counting my blessings.
-Bing Crosby, White Christmas
The precious hours of the night devoted to sleep seem like a brain and body restoration elixir and (sometimes) a mythic resource for dreams big and small. But even for an appreciator of this nighttime pastime, disruptions occur. The mind wide-awake at 3AM is often not the engrossed mind, the happy mind, the contented mind. In fact, it can be a muddled and muddied wanderer, a clock-peeker, and quite glum. For solution oriented folks, search the term, “sleep hygiene” or consult a local specialist.
Here we divert to explorations of the mind itself. To start, it seems we have a naturally selected bias toward negativities, diurnal or nocturnal. After all, there is nothing like rumination over a sideways glance from the boss, a kerfuffle with the next-door neighbor, not to mention war, famine or economic collapse. We seem to be so effective at dwelling on real and imagined negativities; and not so good at long-lasting chews on positive events. Trouble is most of us share that bias toward the negative; a predisposition toward identifying threats and responding to them. In modernity, the good news is that immediate, actual threats are fewer (no saber-toothed tiger around the corner)…but imagined threats seem to proliferate these days. Somehow, we must change these self-defeating habits of mind.
In a theory of brain malleability, a Canadian Psychologist once observed connections between the brain and experience/behavior. Summed up poetically (mneumonically), this is some crucial reportage:
Neurons that fire together
Wire together.
Called neuroplasticity, our extraordinary cerebrum actually changes, rewires, with our experience-for worse or for better! Thus, the more negative we think and behave the better we get at that, but the more positively, the better we get at that too.
So what about the counsel of Der Bingle cited at the introduction? For some and at times, counting blessings may retrain an anxious mind into equanimous sleep, or at dawn, toward a positive start for the new day. But for many of us, more preparatory exertion is required. Why not invoke the gratitude practices of the Positive Psychologists? Write down “three good things” everyday or in some other form keep a gratitude journal-never on your phone, always handwritten, please.
Identify blessings across the people, places and situations of everyday life. Don’t just name them; describe them in detail. Try making each blessing event-specific: not just a “friend” but a specific moment with a specific friend: the time they rescued you from a flat tire on a rain-soaked day, or whispered that your fly was down in a crowded room. Gratitudes that are event-specific carry remembrance impact. As we recall them, there may be a slight lifting of the mouth corners and cheeks (the levator anguli oris), a warming of extremities or a deepening of the breath. It is the body and specifically, the brain holding the blessing. Night or day, this is the potent mind medicine we need to displace our ruminations.
We all know that mastering golf swings and pickleball strokes takes practice. Likewise, Bridge, Go and (people say) The Campaign for North Africa require concerted effort and learning. Why would we expect changing the mind to require anything less?
Night or day, counting blessings could be a high yield exercise for the earnest practitioner. But don’t expect instant results from just watching White Christmas over the Holidays this year. Handwrite a paragraph on an event-specific blessing right now. And beware, your levator anguli oris might be showing!
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