You wake up at three in the morning.
You need to sleep. You have a long day tomorrow.
You turn over and close your eyes. Ten minutes later, you look at the clock.
3:17.
Now you’re calculating. If you fall asleep right now, you can still get four hours. That’s not enough, but you can manage four hours.
You close your eyes again.
Why aren’t you sleeping?
You were tired when you went to bed. You did everything right. You shouldn’t be awake.
3:31.
Now you’re angry.
You’re not just awake anymore. You’re awake, watching the clock, calculating tomorrow, and trying to make yourself sleep.
The being awake is already happening.
The rest is something you’re adding to it.
Turn the clock around. Stop calculating how many hours are left. Stop trying to make sleep happen.
You may still be awake.
But now you’re only awake.
The same thing happens elsewhere. You’re upset, then angry at yourself for being upset. You can’t concentrate, so you push harder. You’re overwhelmed, so you start trying to figure out why you’re overwhelmed.
Sometimes there is something useful to do. Sometimes there isn’t.
Before you add another effort, another judgment, another problem to solve, see what happens if you leave the first problem alone for a while.
It may not get better.
But you can stop making it worse.