How to Sleep Well in a Job Search
It is 1.15 am. Your brain can’t switch off, and you feel on edge. Your interview might be in five days, but it feels like you are about to walk into the room. Not many people can sleep well in a job search.
You try to go back to sleep, but the stress hormone cortisol is causing your heartbeat to quicken, your blood sugar to spike and your senses to sharpen. You haven’t slept well for weeks, and it is starting to affect your judgement and energy levels during the day.
Break this disrupted cycle to sleep well in a job search. Here are a few ideas of how you might manage to do it:
Recognise that sleep is a critical factor in your job hunt. When times are hard, a good night’s sleep can give us the mental fortitude to face the challenges of our waking hours. While we seek to maximise every minute in our job search, the 7-9 hours of sleep at night are often neglected. The gains here are not marginal. If we spend our afternoons and evenings with the quality of our night’s slumber at the back of our mind, we will make better decisions (less coffee, no devices before bed, etc.) and sleep like a baby.
Give your job search a break before bedtime. Any sort of activity that can take your mind off the job search is ideal for getting you into a different headspace before you drift off. If you are in the job search zone right up to the moment you fall asleep, that tension and anticipation will continue into your dreams. The mind doesn’t distinguish between a dream interview and the real thing. Your stress hormones will start flowing, and you will likely wake up in a cold sweat at some point.
Sleep well – avoid your job search
Outlaw any job hunting in the bedroom. It is incredibly beneficial to avoid any type of job search activity in your bedroom (at any time). It is essential to strengthen the association between your bed and sleep. Weaken the link between your bedroom and any worrying job search thoughts. If your bedroom is a calm space designed for rest and renewal, it will become your oasis in a sea of uncertainty. Maintain those boundaries.
Practice mindfulness before falling asleep. There is a lot to be said for silencing the cacophony of job search thoughts for a while regularly. Mindfulness is the practice of focusing on a small detail of the immediate moment (like listening to a bird song or predicting the drip of a tap). This act of focus will clear your mind of intrusive thoughts and help you focus on what you are doing. You might want to read a book for 30 minutes before going to bed. Mindfulness will help you focus on that rather than be distracted by thought grenades about your interview tomorrow.
Job seekers who sleep well make the best decisions and perform to their potential.
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This blog is shared with Job Seeker Duetists.
Written by former recruitment ghostwriter Paul Drury (not AI).
