I’m struggling with sleep. 

I wake up throughout the night. I usually fall back to sleep after the first time and finesse a way to get back after the second, but the third is when the battle is lost. Once my mind is on its treadmill, it’s not interested in getting off.

It starts slowly with a little thought. I have that meeting coming up. 

Then I begin to imagine the room. My boss is next to me. He’ll ask me to explain my sales plan. My mind then runs through the numbers, planning each word of my monologue with Olympian accuracy. 

“Sales on tee shirts were down slightly last month, which was expected. We planned for this by reducing our inventory in non-essential colors. It looks like there’s an opportunity in a lighter shade of teal. We ran out of stock early in the month. We have a month’s supply arriving next week and are chasing another restock in April.

Then it picks up speed. It begins to tear my words apart.

“Is non-essential really the right word for that? Inessential? I know that my boss understand what I mean, but I don’t think the rest of the room will. I could use better wording. We reduced inventory in colors that we didn’t need. That doesn’t sound as good. It was better where it was. Inessential. We reduced inventory in inessential colors. No, maybe it was non-essential. We reduced our inventory in non-essential colors. ”

I wish this was the end. Instead, I realize I can’t remember the initial thought and my mind begins to jog.

“Sales on tee shirts were down. We expected this. We accounted for it by reducing our inventory. Non-essential. Non-essential inventory. We accounted for. Accounted for? That doesn’t sound right. Another word. I had another word in there. Planned? No, too pedestrian. Accounted for a reduction. Teal. Wait. I liked that part. I know there’s a lighter shade of teal in here somewhere.”

Sometimes, I’ll try to stop it. I’ll ask why I’m thinking about next week’s meeting at 3 in the morning. This slows it down for a moment. An exhale carries some of the threads of thought out. 

This isn’t an advertisement for meditation. This is about anxiety. The fear triggered by the creature lurking behind the veil of darkness. The thoughts start up again. 

At this point, I either take something for my anxiety, take deep breaths, meditate or all of the above. 

I’ll start with a valerian tincture. That usually does the trick. Until, I wake up again an hour later. 

Next up, deep breathing. I’ll inhale deeply, hold the breath in and chant a mantra, then slowly exhale. Thirty six times. Sometimes this puts me back to sleep. Others, my mind takes it with it onto the treadmill. 

‘One. Two. Wait, where was I in the counting? I should have counted better. I could use  my fingers for this. I have twelve spaces on my four non-thumbs, is there a word for the non-thumb fingers? Phalanges? I’m sure this came up in high school biology. Maybe it was health class. My biology teacher hated me. Wait. None of this is useful for the meeting! Okay, sales were fine. Inventory is steady. We’re getting more teal. Wait. Where was I in the counting?’

Alright, time for meditation. Which is totally hit or miss. If I can let my mind’s grasp go, then I may enter a deep sleep. If my mind’s at a steady jog, then I become aware that the stress of an upcoming meeting has snowballed into stress for the sake of stress.

Then I bring in the heavy hitter. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I take a pharmaceutical remedy. That one works every time. 

To be clear, I am not endorsing pharmaceuticals. I am not a medical professional, this essay is not medical advice. I’m attempting to share my personal experiences with anxiety and portray it in a different light. 

In my experience, anxiety is a sign that something within my environment is off. Put another way, it is a symptom, not the disease. 

When we have the flu, our body temperature rises. The fever is not the virus itself, but a result of it being in the body. Similarly, when our environment doesn’t feel right, our anxiety rises. The anxiety is not the cause of the stress, but the result of something else. 

My upcoming meeting is my environmental stressor. I am anxious about presenting to my coworkers. My stress increases to match my anxiety. 

In this situation, anxiety is normal. It is normal to feel stress about presenting to others, especially when it’s directly related to one’s financial security. 

Substances, holistic or pharmaceutical, are useful for regulating the anxiety. Like asprin can reduce a fever, valerian can reduce anxiety. However, not even the best substance can change the thing causing the stress. I can down a whole tincture of valerian, but I still have the meeting next week.

Mindfulness brings the anxiety into focus. This is the thermometer taking our temperature. It reveals that our system is out of balance. I realize that I’m stressed over a meeting. This recognition may provide short term relief, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I have a meeting next week. 

I must take action if I’m going to get sleep well again. The anxiety becomes a fuel. During the day I comb through my notes, create neat documents, and may even schedule a pre-meeting meeting to hammer out finer details. 

Of course, there will be times where it’s too much for me to handle. If I can, I’ll cancel the meeting. If not, I’ll distract myself with an extra hour or ten on Facebook.

It’s worth recognizing that for many of us the things that are stressing us are not as simple as an upcoming meeting. Our chronic anxiety stems from factors beyond our control. The money’s been tight for years. Our neighbors hate our guts for the way we were born. The things from our childhood are too painful to comprehend.

In my experience, these underlying things are more related to my sleepless nights than the upcoming meeting. The meeting is only a stand in. I stress over it because it feels more controllable. 

I find that the best I can do in my situation is take substances, meditate, and take action. I use substances to reduce the anxiety to a functional level. I meditate to take space from my thoughts. I take control of my space. Sometimes structured shelves and fresh air come with a greater sense of relief than ten hours of meditation. 

Anxiety is a symptom, not a disease. Our mindful practices and holistic substances reduce this fever, but leave the virus untouched. If we are going to rid ourselves of the virus, we must take action.