Two Ways to Improve Sleep
One of the key ways to improve our day time energy levels is to improve our relationship with sleep, but in the recent seminar I attended with William Davies*, he explained that one of the very common mistakes people fall into is in where the emphasis is placed such as bargaining with the sleep to be a better sleep. He explained that the better point of entry in a vicious cycle of sleeplessness is to focus on increasing combined physical and mental activity which naturally supports the sleep drive. The vicious cycle goes something like this: I can’t sleep, which makes me more tired, which makes me try to sleep more but I can’t sleep. He stated that we are more effective at improving sleep in the long-term if we shift our focus towards increasing activity whilst accepting the short-term pain of feeling tired which leads to improved sleep.
TIP: Decide to accept the unpleasant tired feeling and do more anyway, William Davies recommends a good balance of physical AND mental activity. Resist the impulse to do less and sleep more for a while. Treat it as an experiment over the course of a few days and test the outcome.
Another point he makes is that there is a common over-emphasis on the mystical unbroken eight hours, and that there isn’t conclusive evidence that this is the way to go about things. Often the panic and anxiety associated with the belief of a right and wrong way can over-ride the relaxed state needed to support sleep, greater flexibility of mind tends to be more important than adherence to a fixed pattern of sleep. He gave examples of different historical and cultural approaches designed to suit different lifestyles; sometimes needs just must…
Sleep Struggles…
TIP: be aware of your mind telling you how bad the situation is and recognise that the act of the mind stating this, irrespective of the truth of the perspective or not, will increase the amount of stress hormones in your body and exacerbate poor sleep. It’s good to prepare in advance simple tasks to help shift your focus from the stressful thoughts, thus reducing the saturation of these ‘WAKE UP!’ hormones.
To support awareness of this, you can say out-loud something like
‘I notice my mind is saying to me… so I will shift my attention to…’
Simple tasks are yours for the making but here are a few examples:
William Davies recommend PG Woodhouse narrated by Steven Fry, I tried Steven Fry’s narration of Harry Potter once, but I found it too exciting.
Describe an enjoyable experience to yourself… I like remembering the sequence of what goes in my day-bag when preparing to walk down to the beach. Then I describe the walk down to the beach.
Play a simple relaxing song or songs on Spotify, focus on the lyrics and sing the songs.
*William Davies, Consultant Psychologist, thinker and author. Association for Psychological Therapies (APT)
