Morning Can Wait

What to expect

You’ve woken in the night, and your mind has switched on. A quiet voice keeps you company in the dark. It lets the night’s thoughts wait until morning. It doesn’t count the hours, and it doesn’t promise sleep. Lying here resting counts for something. After about 18 minutes the voice goes quiet. The music fades over five minutes. Then rain on the roof carries on alone for the rest of the recording.

How to listen:

• In bed, with the volume low. Once it’s playing, turn the screen face down.
• You can turn over or move whenever you like.
• If you’re wide awake and restless, it’s fine to get up for a while. Go somewhere quiet and dim, then come back to bed when you feel drowsy.
• Under the pad are soft binaural beats, a slightly different tone in each ear. Headphones bring them out. On a speaker they’re a faint hum at most.
• Never while driving.

About

Safety and aftercare. You can stop at any point, move, or turn on a light. If you often wake in the night and can’t get back to sleep, and it has gone on for weeks, talk to a doctor. Insomnia is common, and it can be treated. Waking very early with low mood can be part of depression. That’s worth talking about too. So is waking up gasping, or snoring loudly. This is a way of resting. It isn’t a treatment for any sleep problem.

Credits. Getting up when you can’t sleep, and coming back when you’re drowsy, follows stimulus control. It’s part of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), the treatment doctors recommend first.

Written by Lee and Lucas + Twins. Voice: Lucas.

Transcript

Opening

You’re awake, and it’s still dark.

The house has gone quiet without you.

Nothing needs doing about it.

There’s no need to know what time it is.

If the phone is in your hand, you can turn it face down.

Let the screen go dark.

You’re in your bed, in your room.

There’s nowhere you need to get to.

Part One: Nothing is wrong

This happens to everyone, some nights.

Most people wake a few times every night, and forget nearly all of it.

People have woken in the night for as long as there have been nights.

Thoughts can feel heavier at this hour.

Some of that weight is the hour.

Whatever came up can be left where it is.

In the morning there’ll be light to look at it by.

If it comes back, it can wait for morning too.

There’s nothing to solve tonight.

Part Two: Where you are

The bed is under you.

The pillow, holding your head.

The weight of the blanket.

Somewhere, you’re warm.

Your feet, maybe, or your hands, or the side you’re lying on.

Let that warm place be the one you rest in.

You can turn over whenever you like.

Find the most comfortable way to lie, and settle into it.

The bed takes your weight.

Part Three: The night around you

There may be sounds.

The rain overhead.

Something in the house, settling.

Or nothing much at all.

The dark is soft around you.

There’s nothing to count, and nothing to watch for.

If you’re wide awake and restless, it’s fine to get up for a while.

Somewhere quiet and dim, and come back when you’re drowsy.

And if you’d rather stay, stay.

Part Four: Resting counts

No need to add up the hours.

Whatever the clock says, it can say it in the morning.

The night isn’t a test.

Lying here is resting.

It does you some good, even awake.

Sleep keeps its own hours.

There’s no hurry for it.

Nothing you need to do to bring it.

Part Five: Quieter

I’ll say less now, and the rain will stay.

Warm.

The bed under you.

Nothing to do.

The rain, still there.

Morning can wait.