Getting a Better Nights Sleep - The 3 Week Challenge: Principle Three

Welcome to Week Three of the challenge to improve the quality and regularity of your sleep. By this stage, many of my clients report that they have noticed positive changes to their sleep. Often they also report feeling more in control of the things that usually stressed them out. The key was not being a slave to the challenges, rather they promised themselves that they would apply them as often as possible; around 80% of the time. 

The 80% Rule

We are not robots! We are fallible human beings and we cannot expect ourselves to behave and think in predictable ways all of the time. So often people will 'fall off the wagon' of their diet, exercise programme or combatting that annoying habit because they had a moment of 'weakness'. It isn't weak. It is the human condition and once we stop striving for most of the time (80%) we achieve what we set out, without the other 20% making any difference.  Following something, most of the time is more sustainable than all of the time. 

 By this stage, you will have become quite adept at catching and challenging those thoughts about your sleeping behaviour which have the potential to be negative suggestions for your unconscious.  You probably have spotted a few in conversation with others.

Avoid the Word Try

Consider this... the word try is a suggestion in itself. By inference, it is an implication of failure. If someone says:

"I'm going to try and lose weight"

or

"I'm going to try and not have a drink this weekend"


What does it really imply? It's a kind of language scapegoat and can enforce an expectation that something is not going to happen. Catch the word 'try' and remove it. Turn to the sentence in your mind into a statement of what is going to happen.

"Tonight, I will enjoy a deep, sound sleep"


Hopefully, you will experiment with adding some time to relax into your day-to-day life too. Remember it doesn't have to be connected with sleeping, it needs to be something which helps you take time away from the stresses and anxieties of the day.

So now time for Principle Three...

The 3 Better Sleep Principles

Pre-existing Conditions

Task: Are there other reasons you might struggle to sleep and seek help?

It is easy to become frustrated, particularly when you are sleep deprived, so it is important to take a moment to review other reasons your sleep is disturbed. Sometimes, I notice, clients have not thought about the logical reasons for their sleep problem which can be an obstacle to their efforts.

When a person is suffering with chronic pain, on-going mental health conditions and even the menopause, there is quite often a reasonable explanation for their sleeping problem. Seeking advice from your doctor is a proactive step.

In some cases Hypnotherapy can help manage the situation and support you to better sleep. You are being proactive to review your situation and seek out the assistance you need.

Key Point: You may still benefit from principals one and two, but results may differ because of those pre-existing conditions. The key it to be proactive: apply the principles and review the results, ask for help where required rather than stopping altogether. Believe that you can benefit from challenging unhelpful expectations around sleep. Take control of the progress you make and take control of asking for support when it would help.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting a Better Nights Sleep - The 3 Week Challenge: Principle One

Image
It all began a month or so before lockdown when I noticed how many sleep aids there were in the chemist.  That same week I had four people contact me for help with sleep problems.  This made me ask myself: “What does psychological research and Hypnotherapy tell us about getting a good nights sleep?” A positive psychological approach focuses on what makes people healthy rather than unhealthy. Instead of looking at the behaviour of someone who is struggling to get a good nights sleep, we should focus on the person who frequently sleeps well. How is the behaviour different? Can we copy it? I began teaching people to use these psychological techniques alongside Hypnosis to nudge their sleep pattern. I was pleased to see the differences that could be made…but more people are needed to really see how effective it could be. Fancy a challenge? You need to apply the principles for the next three weeks and review the changes to your to sleep.  Each principle usually takes on
Read more

Hypnosis Explained

Image
    If you are hoping to read that Hypnosis is a magical, mystical, controlling power that can make people behave in ways they choose not to, then you are certainly going to be disappointed. Any assumption that a person is asleep or unconscious is also not the case.  So have you ever experienced Hypnosis? Think back over the last 24 hours…. When you woke up this morning, do you remember that half-awake half-asleep feeling? On that commute to work, perhaps you drifted into auto-pilot and as you were driving along? Perhaps your mind drifted to the things you had to do.  You could be forgiven for thinking that you were daydreaming. Tonight, just as you drift off to sleep you are very likely to experience that same half-awake half-asleep feeling. Every one of those experiences could be given the name Hypnosis. Hypnosis is a natural state we all experience many times throughout the day. It is as much part of our lives as breathing. The idea of being under the control of another or being un
Read more

Imposter Syndrome: Do you sometimes feeling like a fraud?

Image
  One behaviour people experience from one time or another is being an imposter; the feeling that they might get ‘caught’ out for not being as good at what they do as people assume they are. Imposter syndrome is where an individual doubts their accomplishments and abilities and these are converted into a fear of being exposed as a fraud. Interestingly, this still happens when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.  What do you attribute your successes to? Unjustified feelings of being an imposter are an attribution bias. It is a tendency to attribute successes to luck or poor judgment on the part of others’. In a self-deprecating way, the assumption is that they are ‘just getting by’ and if others saw the real them then they would less than impressed. When we feel this kind of imposter syndrome, we failing to have any internal acknowledgment of our own achievements, something which is characteristic of those suffering from anxiety, and unsurprisingly, low self-esteem. Of c
Read more