How well you sleep at night often depends on your mental state before you go to bed. You may feel exhausted physically but if you are beset by worries, have thoughts without end whizzing around in your head, it can be very, very difficult to get to sleep. And if this happens, what do you do? Do you just lie there in the dark with nothing to distract you from your thoughts? Feel really uptight and helpless, and perhaps get more and more frustrated at not being able to get that good nights sleep that you are long overdue? Or do you just give up and get up for a while? And when you finally get to sleep, do you awake feeling good or just more tired than ever?
Everyone experiences times when sleep is a problem, for example when really important examinations loom large. For short periods that can be OK, we can cope with it being temporary. But when poor sleep is what we experience night, after night, after endless night, then it is a very different story indeed. We can become trapped in a vicious, continuous cycle of increasing stress levels and damage to our physical, emotional and mental health.
Ironically, a good nights sleep is one of the best antidotes to stress, the irritability, lack of concentration and other ways of being "off" that result when we suffer from a lack of good sleep. By good sleep I mean regular, quality sleep that revitalizes the mind, body and spirit. So just how do you break the vicious cycle and once again enjoy good sleep?
Sleeping pills may give some temporary relief but of course they often come with unwelcome side effects such as drowsiness. With pills there is also the risk of addiction. Medical opinion is clear: sleeping pills are not a long term solution. So what then is the solution?
Being a hypnotherapist it will come as no surprise to hear the solution that I recommend! Hypnotherapy can help greatly by eliminating the real source of your sleeplessness and resetting your body's sleep clock. But you can also do much to help yourself with or without hypnotherapy and here are some strategies you can try to ensure that you have a restful nights sleep:
o Get a good mattress - we spend about a third of our lives sleeping so for goodness sake invest in a really good bed. It is worth it.
o Make sure your bedroom is cold or very cool - open a window and get fresh air if you can. Also make sure that your bedding does not make you over warm.
o Get up early - this might sound strange but by getting up 30-60 minutes before you normally would, you start to feel tired earlier in the evening. You need to practice this until you find yourself falling asleep at a more reasonable and regular earlier hour.
o Make time to unwind before bedtime - don't go to bed if you are not tired. Develop a good pre sleep routine. Have a bath before bed if this helps you relax; turn off the TV; read a good book; play some relaxing music, go for a walk...do whatever works for you. Avoid watching TV in bed or reading in bed - try and associate being in bed with sleeping.
o Try and get up in the morning and go to bed at night the same time every day. No napping during the day.
o Bore your mind to sleep! - instead of counting sheep to try to eliminate any busy thoughts, just try and bore your mind to sleep...for example, in your mind make a list of all the furniture in your house; think about all the times at school and at work when someone was droning on and on; make a list of all the car makes you can name; the names of the streets in your neighbourhood; all the branded tinned food you can recall from your last trip to the supermarket; all the things that you have ever found boring.....
o Relaxing Blank - make a list of everything that could go wrong in the area that is preoccupying you, give each thing a careful description, make it as specific a worry as possible and then say "NEXT" loudly in your mind. You will be surprised how quickly you run out of worries and if you find yourself still worrying, just repeat the exercise.
o Delegate problems to your unconscious to sort while you are asleep - Edison and Einstein used this method. Just hand the problem over to your unconscious by saying " I now handover this problem to my unconscious so it can work on it while I am asleep. I am now free to rest and go to sleep" Use this before you "need" it so that you are ready and you can feel a sense of release
o Exercise - it need not be strenuous or mean going to the gym; take 2 brisk 15 minute walks a day
o Avoid caffeine, chocolate, sweets, cola and other soft drinks and sugary foods from 2 PM onwards (or from 6pm if that is just too hard for you to do!).
o Drink a cup of Camomile tea before bedtime - the scent of lavender in your bedroom can work wonders too.
o Eat main meals early - at least 3 hours before you go to bed. If you must eat something before bed, eat lightly and drink plenty of water.
o Drink little alcohol.
o Get ready all that you need for the next morning - in a relaxed way (clothes ironed and ready, case packed, To Do list sorted etc)
o Do some gentle stretches - to relieve any tension in the muscles.
o Do relaxation exercises (see examples further below)
o Have a notepad and pen to hand - to capture anything that you worry you will forget in the morning
o And if all else fails - don't just lie there, get up, get dressed and do some work - not watching TV or just sit there doing nothing! Do some paperwork, read, clean out the cupboards or whatever keeps you occupied. Only go back to bed when you are fighting to stay awake.
RELAXATION EXERCISES
1. Relaxing Into Sleep
Step 1
o Sit on the edge of the bed, up with your arms by your side
o Take a long breath in and out
o Breathe in, stretching your arms at shoulder height and slowly hold the stretch for some seconds
o Breathing out slowly, bring your arms down to your sides
o Repeat 2 or 3 times
Step 2
o Get into bed, lie on your back and make sure your head is rested comfortably on a pillow.
o Let your breathing slow to a gentle rhythm centred in the upper part of the lungs
o Continue to breathe lightly and let your mind rest on the regular rise and fall of your breathing
Step 3
o Let your body find its sleeping position
o Visualize an image of harmony (e.g. a blue sky, a beautiful forest, a wildflower meadow) and concentrate on its tranquility as you continue to breathe easily
o If you wake early, just breathe slowly and recall your images and the relaxed way you were breathing.
2. PERIPHERAL VISION EXERCISE FOR RELAXATION & CALMNESS IN 5 Minutes
(This exercise is taught by some UK police forces to help their drivers to stay calm and focused)
o Take some nice deep breaths in and out and stretch your muscles gently; notice where any tension is, and spend a while easing it out
o Then settle yourself comfortably in a chair (or propped upright on a bed) - make sure that there is no strain on your neck (support your head with pillows if necessary)
o With your eyes open and still, just pick a spot level with your eyes and 6-10 feet or so ahead, and focus on that spot
o Continue staring at that spot and as you do so, without moving your head or your eyes, see what you can see in your peripheral vision (notice how much more you notice on your right, left, below and above)
o Put your hands up, behind your head, fingers level with your eyes but out of sight....then slowly move your hands forward and wiggle your fingers as you do so, eyes still, until you can see your fingers in the periphery of your vision - repeat a few times
o Notice how different you feel when you stop doing this.
3. DEEP RELAXATION - 10 -15 minutes
o Find a place where you can sit undisturbed for a while (use a toilet at work if you have nowhere else where people, phones etc can interrupt you)
o Sit upright comfortably, making sure your head rests comfortably on your shoulders, no strain on the neck or tight clothes that constrain your breathing and ability to relax
o Place feet flat on the floor and both hands palms upward resting on your legs (no clasping!)
o Just close your eyes and as you do so tell yourself that you will relax for x minutes, yet can awake at anytime as you relax if necessary but will definitely awake at the end of the time you have set yourself.
o Turn your attention to the muscles in your feet tighten those muscles, hold and then spend a while relaxing the muscles, allowing them to lengthen, ease and get heavier as they do so. As you physically tighten and then relax each muscle, watch too in your minds eye as the muscle tightens, shortens and then stretches easily. Move on when you feel that your feet are relaxed.
o Repeat with each area of your body, moving upwards -
o Lower legs, calf muscles
o Muscles around the knees
o Upper leg, thigh muscles
o Bum and groin muscles
o Lower back
o Stomach
o Upper back
o Chest and lungs (relax your breathing, slow, ease it)
o Shoulders
o Upper arms
o Lower arms
o Wrists, hands and fingers (then back up the arms again)
o Neck (back and front)
o Facial muscles (screw up your face and eyes)
o Back of head and scalp
o Send wave of relaxation back and forward through your body, form the top of your head to the tips of your toes and back again
o As you do so, imagine that each in breath is a colour - a colour which for you represents peace, calmness, ease, relaxation- and watch that colour spread to every part of you breathe in
o Now give each out breath a different colour - a colour which for you represents tenseness, negativity, anxiety - and watch that colour be expelled from your body and evaporate just before you breathe your vibrant colour in again.
o When you have relaxed every part of you, just imagine that you are at the top of a beautiful staircase that leads down to a special place, a private place where you can go to and just let the world fade away and let your mind relax.
o See the staircase before you and walk down it nice and easily, with each step feel yourself becoming more relaxed, sleepier, and heavier and calmer.
o Count yourself down the stairs and when you reach the bottom just let the stairs and the everyday world fade away as you go to your special place. It could be a tropical beach or a peaceful garden or perhaps it is a wonderful forest or a bubbling brook or maybe you are just watching a beautiful sunset - just let your mind wander, where it will, see what you see, hear what you hear, feel what it feels like to be there.
o Let go and as you begin to let go, imagine a soft warm mist surrounding you, a comfortable, warm mist all around you. Just drift with the mist, float and drift into a warm comfortable feeling. You feel safe, secure, relaxed, at ease, comfortable. Allow any thoughts or questions that come to mind to just float up and disappear in the mist.
o Stay in your special place until you sense it is time for you to return to the everyday world and when you sense this, take your time and just float back up, slowly until your eyes open all by themselves
o Know that you can go to your special place whenever you want and each time you do the experience will be better than before.
o Stretch and take a few moments to come around
