'When was the last time you had a full, unbroken nights sleep?' A question asked of a client. Their answer, 'about 6 months ago'. The deterioration of someone's sleeping habits can be worrying and frustrating. Worrying about getting back off to sleep when waking during the night or when going to bed.It's an all too common theme. A big part of this puzzle is the frustration feeding the sleeplessness monster. The minutes tick by and the thought of 'why am I not asleep?' arrives. Aggh! tossing and turning and counting sheep and yet... despite best efforts, sleep still does not arrive. Feeling wide awake, a swirl of thoughts flows in, uninvited. Does this sound in any way a familiar pattern?
Accepting our body/ mind is trying to tell us something is the first step. Perhaps there is a physical reason (like sleep apnoea where someone stops breathing momentarily) or that the environment is not helping (for example the room is too light), or perhaps its caused by being worried about something?
If we have got something exciting or new that we are experiencing, our brains let us know we need to process this consciously. It will wake us up to make sense of things, particularly when during dream sleep we are unable to come up with solutions or are lacking past experience to guide us. It is a natural part of the brains' way of adapting to new situations - whether emotional, physical or environmental.
If it keeps happening, then there maybe underlying issues that need to be investigated. Sleep is extremely important for our state of mind as well as our health. The question is, what is enough sleep? There's lots of expert views on how long we need to sleep so we function at our best. There are those who seem to get by on just a few hours and others who feel they need more. How many hours unbroken sleep are you getting?
If you are having any difficulties with sleep, you could always pop in for a free consultation to find out how I can close the loop for you on that negative sleep cycle. Zzzzzzzzzz...... sweet dreams!
