Do you have trouble sleeping at night?

Many people come up to me from time to time and ask what they can do to sleep better through the night. So I thought I would write this post on some ways to get a better night sleep if stress seems to be disturbing your quiet time.

One reason we can have trouble sleeping during the night is because we keep looping ideas in our minds. It might be a project at work, things we need to do tomorrow, a talk we need to have with someone, but these thoughts rage havoc in our minds. Try as we might to fall asleep, the thoughts see to come up stronger and a faster pace. To help solve this challenge we need to get these ideas out of our heads. Go out today and buy a notebook and pen and place them right beside your bed within easy reach. When bedtime comes around, and your mind is running wild, grab your pen and write down your thoughts. The mere act of writing the ideas your looping in your mind down on paper let them fade away. What you are doing is telling your mind that its OK, you have what needs to be done recorded, it can rest now.

Sometimes its not important ideas flowing in our minds that is keeping us up at night, but just thoughts themselves. Our minds are just agitated and stressed. Trying to go from 200mph to 0mph takes a minute or so and if we do it too quickly we crash. So what we need to do first is calm the mind down a bit before going to bed. What I recommend is the breathing exercise I shared in the blog titled "Gaining distance from stress through breathing" that I have posted on this site.

Watching what we put into our minds will also determine how well we sleep at night. Whatever you are watching, doing or thinking the hour or so before bed your mind will play with. This is the material the mind uses for its first few hours of sleep. If you are putting in stress from watching the news, violence from intense movies, or heavy gossip from t.v. shows then that is what you will feel the first few hours of sleep. I recommend either reading something light or taking a hot shower before bed. Try to keep the stimulation from the outside world to a minimum( but yes it is OK to have intimate fun if you wish, I don't want any rotten tomatoes thrown at me through the computer screen).

I hope these stress management tools help in you getting a better night sleep. As the aboriginals of Australia say, "see you in Dreamtime".

Til next time,

Wishing you the best,

Dr. John Zipp