Do you wake at night, toss and turn, fretting that you can’t get back to sleep?

Do you get caught up in endless thought patterns that you just can’t break, even though you know there’s no point in going over and over something that already happened . Or endlessly run through some future event that’s worrying you?

Do you wake up in the early hours and lie there for ages debating whether to get up, and “trying” to get back to sleep.

Or is it getting off to sleep that’s the problem? You just feel too wired and can’t unwind.
Insomnia comes in many guises but the results are pretty much the same. Gritty eyes, itchy brain, shortened fuse. The feeling of dragging yourself through the day in a fog, being less present, more irritable and less able to focus. A tendency to expend and lot of mental energy thinking  about sleep and having sleep-related thoughts.

It’s a vicious circle. You calculate in the morning how many hours’ sleep you’ve had, and that information further adds to the sense of exhaustion.

The pace of life today is relentless. And it’s speeding up. We can pay bills, order the groceries, talk to people all over the world, and listen to music whilst on the way to work. These days, having to wait a few seconds for a map of how to get to your next meeting to download, seems like an eternity.

“Come on, come on”, we mutter as the images upload with what seems like agonising slowness. Every millisecond has become a chance to get something else done. We push ourselves to use each moment to email, tweet, update, upload and connect electronically. Well, everyone else does so we’d look lazy or incompetent if we didn’t, wouldn’t we?

This incessant need to be “doing” pushes our brains into constant overdrive. Rather than having bursts of increased high level beta wave activity when something needs an extra push, we get stuck with the fuel injection button on. We can’t slow down. Attempts to do so feel odd. We can’t sit still without feeling anxious, bored or itchy.

“Relaxing” involves crashing in front of the TV or laptop with a box set and/or bottle. This is not relaxing! This is another form of “doing”, bombarding our brains with information, disconnecting rather than re-connecting, further fuelling  the Busy Brain syndrome.

By the time bed time arrives, we’re still wired. To get restful, restorative sleep we need to slow down our brain waves to big, slow steady delta waves. That’s a big shift in gears. And the source of a lot of sleep problems.

Evidence shows that engaging in meditative practices such as Tai Chi, mindfulness, contemplative prayer, and certain types of yoga have a profoundly beneficial impact on our sleep. When we engage in such activities, we are slowing down the relentless overactivity of our brains to a low level of beta wave and then alpha wave.

As our brain activity slows down, there is less outpouring of the stress hormones, adrenalin and cortisol. Our bodies can rest , restore and repair. Sleep is nature’s way of giving us vital time to do this.

The notion of the perfect eight hour sleep is actually a relatively recent and culturally determined ones.  Before the advent of electricity and artificial light, we tend to sleep with the setting and rising of the sun. It was common for people to wake up in the middle of the night, when all was quiet,  get up and do something. In hotter climates, it is normal to stay up late and take a siesta in the middle of the day. No other animal than the human, insists in taking all their sleep needs in one big lump. maybe this belief in the need for eight solid hours of sleep is not serving us.

How can we help ourselves get better sleep?

1. Stop calculating how many hours’ sleep you’ve had. Be flexible. Take short naps when you can. Let go of the false ideal of eight hours’ sleep. Often it’s the thoughts  about lack of sleep and tiredness that exhaust us.
2. Spend time doing “nothing”. Gaze out of the window, look at the sky, watch the clouds. Go to a gallery. Listen to music. Get out in Nature, even it’s a city park.
3. Switch off  and step away from all digital devices an hour before bedtime.  Get to bed by 10.30pm.
4. Establish a pre-bed routine that slows you down: bath, book, hot drink (caffeine free!), and cosy clothes.
5. Eat supper early in the evening. Our bodies do not want to be working hard digesting food late at night.
6. Give yourself regular breaks during the day. Once an hour, stop, get up, stretch, take a few deep breaths  and look out the window.
7. Practise mindfulness, tai chi or another skill that allows you to slow down, see your thoughts rather than get caught up with them, and get a sense of being grounded in your body.
8. Make sure you are eating a well balanced nutritious diet full of naturally colourful fresh food. Avoid sugar and cut out caffeine.
9. Take extra magnesium and a high quality  B vitamin supplement. Make sure there is plenty of omega 3 oil in your diet.
10. Practice breathing deeply into the lower part of your tummy. Take 4 deep breaths into your lower tummy: count to 4 slowly on the in breath, and four on the out breath. Do this four times. Really focus all your attention on your breathing. Let the thoughts be. Release tension in your body where you find it and allow you thoughts to settle on an awareness of your breathing.
11. Be kind to yourself.  Have it be ok to take time out and time off. Make sure you book this in to your routine. Prioritise looking after you.