Sleeping Amid Chaos

Someone asked me the other day, “Do you sleep easily?” Answer “Yes.” “Yes?” they questioned, “with all that is going on, the world in chaos, crime, border, legal, politics, Iran, China?” I said, “I think when I am awake, then sleep.” They said, “And how … do you sleep?” So, this is how.

While not a doctor, so wholly unqualified to offer sleep advice, my friend was right. The world qualifies as a mess. That is disappointing, but the world has always been a mess, and many periods of history far worse.

I am putting in mind the past hundred years, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, fear and heartache in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, assassinations, riots rocking cities for years, the Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, later 9-11. We survived.

I am reminded of how Winston Churchill responded when asked how he slept during the deafening Battle of Britain, his whole country’s existence in question.

Actually, his wife Clementine was the one who spilled the beans, explaining how Churchill got through it. Beyond confidence in freedom, God, the RAF, and those on the front lines; beyond clever comments about scotch, cigars, and walks, “he just gets into bed, and says, ‘bother the world,’ falls fast asleep.”

Her answer, while likely true, is entertaining if unsatisfying. How, after all, did he find it possible to sleep with bombs dropping, chaos unleashed, world war afoot?

Truth is, whether chaos is international, national, local, or internal, the level of worry, cortisol in the system, rises. In any context, that can be paralyzing, can create ambivalence and overthinking, and make sleep hard.  Yet Churchill did it.

Years ago, I learned you can throw your cards in, surrender to worry, keep the brain revving all the time, use up your fuel going nowhere, or take a different path, conserve your fuel, and apply those same energies to something other than worry.

Some will say, do yoga, meditate, and medicate, others will say – my preferred option – rely on faith, prayer, history, exercise, work, and distraction from what vexes you.

So, how did Churchill manage to sleep? How do those under great stress? Churchill would nap, for up to two hours. He took solace in what he called loosely faith, knew “The Almighty” was with him, and then “slept the sleep of the saved.” Those were his words, not Clementine’s or mine.

That was especially true once the US joined the cause in battle. Which brings me to our good fortune. One reason to sleep well is – whatever ails us – we live in the strongest, most self-correcting, unabashed garrison of freedom in human history.

We have our troubles, internal and external. We face threats to liberty, and national and personal security, from ignorance and ideology to external adversaries. But we also have a distinguished history of coming to our senses and putting things right.

So, on that practical question, of how one sleeps, and keeps peace of heart, another story. Years ago, traveling India by train and jeep, life and death were raw, sleep uneasy.

My solution, after sufficient exhaustion, was to breathe deeply, just trust God had my back, even on a crowded all-night train, or jeep in Naxalite (Marxist) Orrisa or a forgotten village – just relax face to toes, think a good thought, worry not – in Churchill’s words, “bother the world.”  Thus, did it happen, I won no wars, except mine with myself, but sleep did come. Think when you are awake, think not asleep.