How I Calm Fears in the Night
I love living alone. And I hate living alone when I’m thrust into fear in the middle of the night.
In those frightening moments, I wish there was someone here to comfort me, tell me what to do, and dismiss my fears.
I’ve always been subject to fear at night. As a child, when I laid my head on the pillow, I feared the man under the bed or the one in the closet. Feeling alone with those concerns, it naturally took time to get to sleep.
As a young adult, I suffered an assault in the middle of the night. Now I had a good reason to fear the dark morning hours. It took decades to heal that fear to the extent I could live alone.
But I still have nightmares from time to time that bolt me upright.
As I’ve aged, my night fears have taken yet another form too.
When I wake up and feel a pain in my head, I wonder, “Is it a stroke?”
When I wake up and feel tension in my back, I wonder, “Is it a heart attack?”
When I wake up and feel my fingers tingling, I wonder, “Is this the end?”
In one sense, I’m more at peace with death than ever before.
But my body and the trauma history embedded in my being does not agree, especially not in the middle of the night.
And so, fear infiltrates my restful sleep now and then, jarring me wide awake.
Those moments of fear activate all the previous trauma lying dormant in my subconscious mind and living within the borders of every single cell.
So I find myself semi-frozen, the pace of my heart quickened, and wild thoughts flying around my head.
What do I do when this happens? How do I calm my nervous system?
Over the years, I’ve learned many different ways to return an agitated nervous system to calm—some from trauma experts, some from meditation teachers, and some that I’ve stumbled upon on my own.
I won’t pretend it’s easy to settle a raging nervous system. It isn’t for me. And I don’t believe anyone who says you can calm your nervous system “instantly.”
In fact, I often need to use several different techniques in succession, allowing one to build upon another, until I finally relax back into sleep.
Here’s a play-by-play of how I managed a recent intense night terror. Whatever your fears, stressors, or triggers, whatever your age, these methods might be helpful to you too.
Intentional Breathing
Slowing the breath is my go-to response. We’re told a million times over to “just breathe.” So it makes sense breathing comes immediately to my mind.
But I’ve never found slow breathing to be enough on its own to soothe my own highly agitated nervous system. It’s a helpful first step, however.
And it might work perfectly for you, even on its own.
According to the experts, intentional respiration counters shallow breathing, which typically occurs during the stress response.
One of the easiest approaches is belly breathing, also known as abdominal breathing or diaphragmatic breathing.
I like this breathing technique because it’s easy to remember when fear has temporarily dimmed my brain’s cognitive capacity.
This is how it’s done:
Put one hand on your chest and the other on your belly.
When you inhale, expand your stomach into your hand. This will help deepen and slow your breath.
When you exhale, slowly expel air through your mouth while constricting your belly.
I no longer need to use my hands. I just feel the expansion and contraction.
Grounding
I learned this technique during a week-long training on building resilience conducted by the Trauma Resource Institute. It helps to balance your nervous system so it can help whether you have trauma, fear, or stress.
Grounding means allowing your body to make direct contact with the ground or whatever is providing support to your body. When you ground, you return to and at least for a while, remain in the present moment. This can especially help if your mind tends to gone off into fearful scenarios.
This is how I ground when in bed in the middle of the night.
I feel my body making contact with my mattress. I notice the sensation of my back against the soft surface of the mattress, then the back of my thighs, and then the back of my legs.
I notice any pleasant or neutral sensations in my body. If I’m aware of unpleasant sensations, like my heart pounding or my muscles constricting, I shift my attention to a place in my body that feels pleasant or neutral.
You can use the same technique when sitting in a chair by feeling your back and buttocks against its seat. And of course, you can ground by feeling the sensations of your feet as they meet the floor.
Holding My Fingers
If I’m still agitated, I also use a Jin Shin Jyutsu® technique that involves holding each finger in sequence.
Jin Shin Jyutsu® is an ancient Japanese art that involves lightly placing the fingertips on different points of the body to unblock the flow of subtle energy.
This practice has been validated by a number of scientific studies. For example, a March 2021 study found that Jin Shin Jyutsu® self-help reduced nurses’ stress.
In the Jin Shin Jyutsu® system, each finger is associated with an emotion as well as a corresponding function and organ system within the body, as follows:
I start by wrapping my opposite hand around my thumb, until I feel a pulse—one to two minutes. If a strong pulse is already present, I hold the finger until the pulse calms.
Then I move on to the next finger until all five are complete. The process takes about ten minutes.
If you feel extremely worried or fearful, you could hold just the finger for that emotion until you feel a calming effect.
I also use this Jin Shin Jyutsu® technique during the day, when I need a short break and want to relax. It’s a wonderful way to calm and rebalance the body.
Expanding My Focus
We tend to contract when we feel an unwanted and intense emotion like fear. Suddenly, the focus of our mind narrows, consumed by the sensations and thoughts associated with the emotion.
I learned this very simple technique for giving an emotion more space from the popular meditation teacher Pema Chödrön.
I expand my awareness so that it’s surrounded by a vast sky. The sense of unlimited space I now feel dwarfs the emotion.
You can indeed expand your focus at will with a little practice.
Just imagine the difference between tight concentration on a task immediately in front of you and looking at a sunset. You have the capacity to do both, but it might take practice to learn to expand your awareness whenever you wish.
This tiny method brings me so much peace. But I usually use it in combination with the preceding methods.
Extending My Heart to Others
Once I’ve given the emotion a universe of space, it’s easier to remember that my intense physical and emotional response is quite insignificant in the larger scope of things.
In that fearful moment, I’m not actually dying. No one has assaulted me. For me, the arousal of intense fear is simply a deeply embedded trauma response. For someone else, it might just be a natural response to a nightmare or a scary sound in the night.
So I shift my focus away from my own concerns. Instead, I think of the many people in the world who are suffering brutalities due to war, hunger, sex trafficking and other inhumane acts.
I make prayers for the end to their suffering and all the suffering in this world. I also appreciate how fortunate I am to have a home and all the basic necessities.
This is about when I gently fall back asleep. With my sense of safety restored, I feel calmer, less self-obsessed, and more grateful.
Concluding Thoughts
It’s okay to be afraid.
We all have different paths and propensities in this life. Some people contend with anger, others with jealousy, and others with greed.
Emotions will always arise. But we don’t have to let them rule our behavior and cause harm in the process—to ourselves and others. We can use techniques like the ones I’ve shared to calm and transform our emotions.
You can use one of the methods or all of them in succession. Experiment and find what works for you.
This is not an overnight fix. It takes time and patience to catch a difficult emotion before it catches you. But I know from my personal experience, we can succeed when we put our mind and heart into it.
I wish you relief from whatever emotion troubles you.
And by the way, I really don’t want a knight in shining armor to rescue me. I’m doing just fine on my own.
[Photo by RDNE Stock project]
Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious! Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self.
You might also like to check out my Self-Care Shop. May you be happy, well, and safe – always. With love, Sandra
