What Keeps You Up At Night? How to Stop Overthinking and Start Sleeping Deeper

Makena: Hi, everyone.

Makena here, and I am recording a solo podcast episode this week. Funny enough, I am actually visiting my mom, Gigi, who is usually on the show with me, and I’m here in Houston visiting her. Our babysitter fell through, so—real life moment—she is watching Sienna, my little one, while I record. That’s what led us here today, and I’m really excited to share this episode. We have been talking about what would be of the most value for you, and a theme that’s come up recently in our coaching is these things that keep you up at night. 

In other words, if you ever wake up in the middle of the night and your mind is racing, with a million different things going on and you can’t get back to sleep, or if you have a hard time getting to sleep in the first place because you lay down and suddenly your mind is flooded with all the things that didn’t cross your mind during the day—or maybe they did, but you’re worrying about them—how do you navigate through those things that keep you up at night?

Right.

So, there are different approaches here, and we—

Want to talk about a couple of—Different aspects of this to help you sleep better from this perspective. We’ve done an episode on sleep, which we can link in the show notes, but that was more around how to optimize your sleep, which is very different. Here, we’re talking about the mental and emotional component of sleeping deeper by clearing your mind so you can fall asleep, hopefully easily and joyfully. What’s keeping you up at night? 

Well, what’s keeping me up at night is my baby—no kidding—but actually sometimes, right? There are those nights when I wake up and I’m nursing her, then it’s time for me to go back to sleep and my mind is running. I’ve learned some strategies, and Gigi’s really taught me some things over the years. 

That’s what I want to share with you: how to clear that out so I can move through those thoughts quickly and go back to sleep.

A great word for this, one Gigi used while we were planning this episode, is “ruminating.”

Ruminating. I almost want to look up—The definition right here while I’m recording.

Ruminating, so I can read it to you. To ruminate is to think deeply about something, and that’s a very high-level definition. Examine attentively or deliberately implies careful weighing of a problem, or often prolonged thinking about a problem. Another definition is repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. So, it can have this sort of not-so-great implication. Sometimes when we’re ruminating, we’re just going around and around. 

When you feel like you’re doing this, the simplest, most effective thing you can do in our experience is to write everything down that’s on your mind. If it’s the middle of the night, you might have to wake up, get a pen and paper, and put everything down because it feels so huge in your mind. But when you get it down onto paper, it’s often not as much as you think, or it might feel that way at night, but then in the morning, when you’re rested and have a clearer mind, you can look at it and see how you want to tackle everything that’s on your mind. 

We’ll talk more about how you can do that here in this episode. This can take the form of a list—just bullet points of things you need to do, worries, concerns, or fears. List it out if that’s easiest for you. Or, if you’re more of a journaler, you can write your thoughts more fully.

This isn’t something you’re going to hold onto. It doesn’t need to be in your most beautiful journal. I’d use scratch paper, loose paper, or a note in your phone—maybe ideally wearing blue light blocking glasses so you’re not on your phone in the middle of the night messing up your melatonin—but getting it all out of your head, onto paper or digital paper, is the first step. 

Once you’ve dumped it all out, come back to the list in the morning when you’re better rested. 

Go through everything you wrote and put it through a few filters. 

The simplest filters we often use are: first, what can you let go of? Sometimes we’re worried about something, or thinking we need to do something, but there’s not a lot we can do about it, or maybe it’s just not the time. Is there anything you can let go of and make peace with yourself about? Relax around it, and let it go.

And hopefully you can cross off at—Least a couple of things using this “let go” filter.

Then you can ask, is there anything I wrote down that can wait until later? Maybe you don’t want to let go completely—you’re worried you’ll forget, or it’s not a priority right now. But you do need to do it eventually, or you want to focus on it. If it can wait until a later date, I always put it on my calendar, maybe a month or two later, to revisit. I’ll set a meeting with myself on my calendar so I don’t forget, and note anything that isn’t a current priority but needs to happen later. 

When that day comes, I reassess: is now the time, or do I push it off again? So, first filter: what can I let go of? Second: what can wait until later? Actually put that on your calendar. Third: is there anything I can delegate, hand off to someone else, or get support with?

That really brings us to the second part of what we want to talk about: systems of support. How do you get supported in your life? This is something we’ve talked about on the podcast before, but it’s always worth revisiting—definitely worth revisiting in the context of this conversation.

In the context of this conversation.

The way I look at delegating is I often ask: what are the biggest pressures in your life right now, personally or professionally, that could potentially be taken on by someone else if they got trained or if someone could come in and support you?

So right now I’m in a phase—Of having a newborn baby—she’s three months old—and I’m working on setting up our family system. We have a part-time nanny, house cleaners once a month, just simple things for support. But it’s not just about hiring people if you can; it’s about looking at the rhythm and flow of our week. 

One area of pressure for us after the baby was born was we had no time for each other anymore. This is so common in relationships—once you have a child or multiple children, you’re full-on taking care of the child so there’s really no time for each other. Maybe when they’re napping, but even then you’re distracted because you don’t know how long they’ll be asleep. So, how do you carve out time for your relationship and also for yourself?

This was one of the pressures for us in those early weeks.

After she was born, I said, okay—What’s a system I could put in place, or where could we get support? We hired a nanny to come weekdays part-time, but then I thought, what if she came in on weekends for a few hours? Then my husband Sunny and I could really use that time for quality time together.

So if there’s anything we need to—Talk about or work on, or just have a long conversation—just time for us, with no distractions and not needing to be there for our little one—we could make it about the two of us. That was the system we put in place for support.

In that case—We delegated childcare during those hours. That helped alleviate that pressure of feeling like we didn’t have time for each other. That’s what I mean: what’s the biggest pressure now? Or there might be multiple, personally and professionally. 

Look at your list or journaling: what, if you cleared it up, would take a huge weight off and be supportive? Is there something you can delegate? If you don’t have the financial means to hire someone, you can get creative. Maybe your spouse or a friend can help, or you can trade with someone. There are many ways to get support that don’t mean just hiring. Get creative and think: how could I approach this?

Something I read years ago that I wanted to mention was from an Alison Armstrong book, though I can’t remember which. Perhaps “Keys to the Kingdom.” Alison Armstrong is a relationship and communication coach, a lot like my mom, but with her own flair.

One thing I loved was the idea in a partnership of each partner owning different areas. For example, Sunny owns taking care of our vehicles. We’ve applied this concept over the years with regular conversations about what he owns and what I own. Sunny manages our vehicles; for the most part, he gets the oil changed, makes sure registrations are up to date—sometimes I help, but mainly it’s his job.

An area I own is travel.

So, seventy-five percent of the time, unless it’s a solo work trip for him, any family travel—which we do a lot—I take on. I research the tickets and rental car, handle most things related to travel. For example, on this trip, we were heading to the airport and Sunny asked, “Wait, we’re flying into Austin and out of Houston?” Then, “What’s happening with the rental car?” I told him, “We’re dropping it off in another city,” and he realized he had no idea what our trip looked like because that’s my area. He wasn’t concerned or didn’t think to ask, which is a great example. I enjoy it, so it’s something I own. This can apply to whole categories—like who takes out the trash (his area), or who does the laundry (my area).

Whereas I might have something else—I do most of our laundry. It seems silly when you break it down to that level, but it takes so much stress and pressure away. If you’re always tag-teaming everything in a relationship, it’s a lot of work and mental effort for both people. If you can own certain areas, it frees part of your brain and you know: that’s my partner’s area. They’ve got this.

So, that’s something you can think about as well.

If you’re in a partnership, or even—In your family system or dynamic.

With your kids, there could be areas certain kids own. Growing up, I loved grocery shopping and cooking; sometimes as a teen, I took that on and did most of the grocery shopping and some of the cooking for our family. So you can get your kids involved and see—

What areas they might like to own. That gives them a sense of responsibility. And takes something off your plate so you’re not trying to do it all. That’s something we see a lot with women in our work—they end up taking a— Lot of these things on. And that can lead to— Staying up at night or waking up thinking about a million things you need to do.

So, we’ve talked about a lot of—Different things already—ruminating, getting up to write it all down, then looking at what you can let go, what can wait and go on the calendar, and what you can delegate. Delegating doesn’t just mean hiring help; it can mean trading, looking at areas you or someone else in your family or partnership dynamic owns. 

There are many ways to get creative. If you do have the ability to hire help, that’s great to consider too—house cleaners once a month (like we do), or weekly, or whatever frequency, help organizing, or even gig workers from local Facebook groups who’ll come for a few hours. There are creative ways to approach this. It could be childcare.

Getting support—like our part-time nanny, or a babysitter so you can have a date night. Childcare is definitely a type of support you can hire. A virtual assistant is one we often talk about and support our clients with, thinking through how they can hire or delegate to them. A lot of people struggle with this. I was one of those people who thought I had to do everything myself because I did it “better” than anyone else could. 

That was my way for a long time—I’m effective at getting things done. Gigi, when we were growing our business, said, “Makena, you can’t hold all of this. There’s no way. You don’t have the time, and you’re stressed, pressured, and overwhelmed.” So, we hired our first VA. At first, it was like pulling teeth for me to delegate anything. I thought, “It’s too slow, too hard, she doesn’t know what to do.” Gigi said, “You need to slow down. Train her on each thing exactly how you want it. Give feedback. It’ll feel like it takes so much time, but it’ll free you up in the end.” She was so right—I trained our first assistant really well, and after a few months, she did it better than I could and knew exactly what I wanted. 

She worked with us for years, then we’ve had many others since. It’s a great feeling to have that team—a well-oiled machine, or even just one person who takes on so much personally or professionally. 

So, a virtual assistant is another great example.

Or an in-person assistant. There are many ways to get support. You can hire someone to come in and cook meals.

You can hire—There are many options if you look into hiring, but always start with: what’s the area you feel most pressured by, or what do you not want to do—and who could support you in that? 

I want to reference an episode where we went deeper into this, called “Every Pressure Needs a System.” I believe that’s the name of the episode. We’ll link it in the show notes. We go more deeply into—This concept of pressures and how you get support. We talk about some things—

I’ve mentioned here, but also go much deeper. 

So, this is basically your system, your flow— When you’re up in the middle of the night thinking about a million things and can’t sleep. These are geared toward tasks and things that overwhelm you.

Sometimes what’s keeping you up at night is more emotional or—Something you’re worried about. If that’s the case, this still works; you definitely want to write it down and get it out of your brain. Otherwise, you keep going around and around. Writing it down pulls it out of your mind and gives you perspective. Then, ask yourself the same questions: Can I let this go? Is there any support I could get around this—maybe talking it through with someone, a coach, therapist, or family member. If it’s child-related, usually I call my sister Mariah, who’s been a parenting coach and has two babies of her own. This is her wheelhouse. 

Or sometimes Gigi—usually for other issues that come up. Again, write it down, and ask: can I let this go? If not, what kind of support do I need? Or maybe it’s something you’re spinning over, but it’s not something you need to focus on now. You can put it off for later. The same system applies. You may need more support if it’s emotional: talking it through, working it out yourself.

If it is more emotional, maybe you pray or meditate, or have a practice that helps bring you peace. That can be your own system. Write it all out, say a prayer, hand it over to God, or meditate and let it go. Whatever works for you, create your own repeatable process to make peace so you can sleep. If you can’t tell, I’m a sleep person—sleep is very important to me. I love this topic.

That’s a little bit about how to shift and let go of the things keeping you up at night. If you have any questions, reach out to us—we’d love to hear from you. You can email me at makena@wayofthemuse.com. Also, let us know what other topics you’d like to hear—we’re always curious. Usually we share from our own lives and what we see with our clients and coaching. As you may notice—or if this is your first episode—we have a wide variety of topics, but we love it that way.

Thank you. Thank you.

Share this with someone who you think could really use it—a friend or family member who’s stressed or stays up at night worrying. Share this episode so they can learn the system and a different approach. It’s a huge gift to give someone. We’re heading into the holiday season—I love this time of year! We’ll have some fun topics for you around this time. See you in the next episode. All right, everyone—see you next time.

Bye. Bye.