I love sleeping. And I love waking up.

But many of my clients struggle to get to sleep.  And once they get to sleep they struggle to stay asleep.  And if they wake up in the night – it’s game over!

If that sounds familiar to you, you’re in the right place.

I’m not going to pretend here that I sleep like a baby every night, I don’t.  In fact, when I was going through my burn-out out stressy chaos time I popped sleeping pills regularly, and that’s what I used to recommend to my clients.  Not the heavy pharmaceutical drug pills but herbal sleeping tablets that actually worked like a dream for me – pun intended.  And I’m not discounting them.  I still recommend them occasionally because sometimes that’s what’s needed, but it’s been years since I’ve used them. So I’m going to share my secrets with you.

A good night’s sleep is your birthright

You’d be amazed at how many people put up with sleepless nights and just accept it as their lot in life.  It’s not my friends, sleep is your birth right.  It’s essential, wonderful, powerful and energising. 

For many years it has confused the hell out of psychologists and scientists.  Sleep made no evolutionary sense at all.  Why are humans designed to sleep for hours at a time, every day, when it’s the one action where they are absolutely helpless to defend themselves?  Let’s face it, we’re like sitting ducks when we sleep.  We’re vulnerable and quite often totally oblivious to what’s going on in our environment.

But we do it because it’s essential to our wellbeing.  It’s so essential that depriving people of sleep is a form of torture.  Lack of sleep has negative effects on our health, longevity, memory, weight and emotions. While you’re making zeds and largely oblivious, there’s a very complex process going on that is essential to our well-being and has a positive effect on our psychological and physical well-being. Sleeping is essential to reaping those benefits.

So what happens when we sleep?

First off, it’s helpful to know that we sleep in roughly 90-minute cycles.  In each cycle, our depth of sleep varies. That’s why sometimes you wake up groggy, and it takes a while, and other times you wake up easy and feel wide awake straight away. Being shocked out of a deep sleep state by an abrupt alarm clock not only shocks you (not a great way to start each day) but takes you longer to feel awake - hello, snooze button!

Our body and brain use these different depths of sleep to carry out different psychological functions efficiently, maximising the opportunity to process, heal and regenerate.

Each cycle has four stages of different states

1.       N1 – Non REM – lasts about 1 – 5 minutes and is our dosing off time

2.       N2 – Non REM – lasts between 10 - 60 minutes, where we drift deeper and deeper into a relaxed state

3.       N3 – Non REM – lasts between 20 – 40 minutes and is deep restorative sleep with a Delta brain wave pattern.  Critical for insightful thinking, creativity and memory.

4.       REM sleep – lasts between 10 and 60 minutes and is when our brain becomes really active processing everything that is going on in the waking day and making new neural connections.  Our dreams are a processing system and essential for physical and mental health and wellbeing.

 

My first tip for waking up refreshed is set your alarm clock so that you wake up as one cycle ends and another starts.  I know you’re going to say “but I don’t know how long it will take me to fall asleep”. I’m getting to that.  Let’s see if we can get you to drift off like a baby.

Now, I shouldn’t need to say this because in 2021 we all know it but …

TURN OFF YOUR TECH!

I can’t stress this enough – turn off your tech a few hours before bed.  This is really important if you want to sleep like a baby for two reasons. 

First, all that blue light is messing with your circadian rhythm.  Our bodies and brains are wired to respond to night and day.  Yep that’s right, they’re designed to make us awake in the day and asleep at night.  In fact 20,000 neurons in your brain are busy trying to keep you in sync with nature while you’re on social media at 12 o’clock at night.  Support your circadian neurons by getting out in the light of the day during the day and dimming down the light at night for better sleep.

Secondly, we’re all addicted to tech.  Whether its social media, Netflix or information hunting, surfing the net is stimulating and we’re totally over stimulated.  Whatever our vice, it’s interacting with our brain, keeping it active and on high alert when we should be winding down. Think of the sheer volume of information coming in with any of these vices, from crime drama or political news to trying to get your head around a new skill or comparing your life to the perfectly curated Instagram life.  That’s not how our ancestors spent their evenings; I’m thinking of campfire stories or sharing what happened in your life today.  Let your sleep do what it’s meant to do – sort out and process your life, not sort out a news story, crime drama or someone else’s life.

Turning off your tech at different times of the day and reducing incoming stimulus also gives your mind a chance throughout your day to wander, process and be creative.  If it doesn’t get this chance through the day it will take it at night time when you do finally disconnect.  Or even worse, in the middle of the night when you wake up at 4 am.

WHAT TO DO AFTER YOU TURN OFF YOUR TECH

I have found that when I turn off my tech – and by the way, you can set an alarm clock every day for 9 pm and label it, TURN OFF YOUR TECH! – I sleep better.  But I sleep even better when I do my bedtime ritual.

Create a bedtime ritual

Turn off your tech and then start winding down.  I know it’s tempting to start sorting out that stuff for the car boot sale or sorting out a to-do-list for tomorrow but resist.  These activities keep your brain active.

Instead, create a bedtime ritual.  Before bed is the perfect time to do that meditation and pranayama or breathing exercises that you’ve been wanting to fit into your life for eons.  Trust me, if you want to sleep like a baby breathwork and meditation will help.  These practices still the mind, relax the body and reduce stress.  So, if you haven’t tried pranayama or breathwork, you need to.  And if you need help getting started with your meditation practice or breathwork, book yourself onto one of my meditation and breathwork courses.

It’s better to do your bedtime breathwork and meditation ritual sitting up, not in bed. So, after you switch off the tech find a comfortable position where you are sitting upright and do your breathwork and meditation. 

If you want to sleep like a baby I recommend doing both breathwork and meditation but if that’s too much start with the breathwork. It slows the mind.  In fact, when I teach yoga and pranayama, my favourite saying is ‘where the breath goes the mind follows’.  If you’re new to meditation you might find your mind getting more active unless you do the breathwork first.

When you finish your new night time ritual

don’t check your email.

Go to bed!

And if you want to sleep like a baby, again, this is basics here, make sure you have a good bed, and good pillows and support that’s right for your preferred sleeping position. And if you don’t know what support is best for you, find out and change it if you need to.  While you’re at it, get rid of those blue lamps that are great for reading before you go to bed! Swap them out for soft warm glow lighting.

Once you’re in bed. Close your eyes, close your mouth and breathe through your nose. Inhale count of five, exhale count of five.  Repeat this breathing pattern either till you fall asleep or until you feel like its keeping you awake concentrating on it.  This practice sets you off on the right foot bringing you deeper into relaxation and continuing to quieten the mind. You can think of it as as one of the stages I talked about before, we’ll call it N-Zero. Plus this breath is great for anyone who snores or wakes up with brain fog.  Ideally you want to be breathing through your nose when you’re sleeping so this exercise will at least start you off right.

What do I do if I wake up at night?

Okay, so first off, we spend a lot of time stressing about getting back to sleep which is counterproductive.  When we stress about getting back to sleep, we’re telling our autonomic nervous system we’re in stressful situation.  Dutifully, your sympathetic nervous system responds to your plight and releases stressor hormones so you can fight or fly your way out of that place – in this case…your bed!

Here’s where your meditation will really serve you because meditation trains the brain.  It disciplines it so that you are the master of your mind.  So, take control, and instead of being a victim of the busy mind, focus again on closing your eyes, closing your mouth and inhaling and exhaling for a count of five.  If you have reduced your stimulus and done your bedtime ritual of breathwork and meditation, your mind will already be less busy.  If after 45 minutes you are not asleep, get up, do your bedtime ritual again, hop back into bed, eyes closed, nose closed and inhale exhale on counts of five.

One last thing, the rejuvenating effects of breathwork and meditation are the closest thing to the rejuvenating benefits of sleeping.  If you can’t sleep, as long as you are doing breathwork or meditation you will still feel more rejuvenated in the morning than if you spend the night tossing and turning and stressing that you’re not asleep.

Its time to wake up each and every day of your life

feeling rejuvenated

These tips are tried and tested, and they work…instantly. I know because not only do I sleep better but my clients sleep better too. This is not something you have to practice for months and months to get results. So, if you are not sleeping well, I challenge you to give yourself a better night’s sleep and drop us a comment below when you wake up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

So here’s a quick summary

·       Get a good bed, pillows and support for your preferred sleeping position

·       Reduce light pollution in the bedroom before you sleep

·       Turn off your tech

·       Get a bedtime ritual - do your pranayama or breathwork followed by meditation

·       Get into bed, close your eyes and mouth and breath for a count of five on inhalation and exhalation

·       Sleep like a baby

Sweet dreams my friends

References

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/stages-of-sleep
https://nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/Circadian-Rhythms.aspx