Today's blog is all about sleep. Yes that thing we need to do for 1/3 of our lives. The thing that does not always go so well for at least 30% of us gorgeous humans.
Not being able to sleep deeply, or keep waking up, or waking up super early, have so many routes personal to us all. Some reasons are internal and some external. All have a purpose in our lives and unconscious, even if really inconvenient for our sense of well-being and sleep.
Sleep challenges are really just a symptom and the most common reasons for not sleeping are day to day build up of stress, anxiety/mental rumination and daily habits that do not support our bodies to rest well at night.
I'm sharing workshops, courses and content about sleep as I've been through a lot of sleep challenges at different times in my life and found lots of helpful strategies to not suffer if I'm not sleeping.
My offerings are holistic and not linked to the medical model of diagnosis and treatment. I want to support people to get curious and interested in their sleep experience and daily habits to make deep lasting changes.
Let me first share some of my sleep experience to help shine a light on why on earth I would be blogging about sleep...
Back in my 30s, I had ME / chronic fatigue. I'd burnt out and felt pretty broken. This was my first extended period of sleeplessness, through physical, mental and emotional pain. Restless, achy, and worried about what had happened to my life and my future. Not working meant I could sleep in the day, if I had trouble sleeping at night which helped. I was pretty unaware at this time and was just discovering who I was and what had happened to me throughtout my life.
Fortunately, I recovered from ME /chronic fatigue. Interestingly this occurred when I moved from a really dark flat to an unbelievably bright flat. I would link my recovery partly due to this significant change in lighting; restoring my circadian rhythms and returning to work within nine months.
In my 50s I've experienced another significant period of ill health after a death, house move and redundancy iover a three month period. I had stress, anxiety and depression and sleep was completely awful. I mentally and emotionally beat myself up for not sleeping, worried extensively how I would cope the next day without enough sleep and I'd anticipate a terrible night way before going to bed. It got so bad I just had to find my own solutions.
I got curious and experimented with different things and found what worked best for me. Some of these were:
Accept not resist the times that I was awake and reframed the message ‘I can't sleep’ with ‘I'm resting right now’, or ‘my body is healing in this moment’.
I used self-soothing techniques to get deep into my nervous system if I couldn't sleep. I placed my hands on my face, my head, my heart, my tummy, to bring reassuring touch that if I couldn't sleep at least I felt good!
I did not look at the Clock if I woke up and didn’t use devices in the night, so that my brain still could keep that melatonin that that would be there, so that I could get back to sleep.
I would soothe and comfort my inner worries with kind self-parenting, of that kind inner voice. This really helped to de-escalate strong thoughts and calmed strong feelings.
So yes, I've been there too and am still use all my techniques if ever my monkey mind gets overactive in the night and the range I have, there is always one that works If I am patient and kind.
I've learned to ride the waves with love and love to help people ride their waves too.
Please do share you comments below, of what works and doesn't work for you with trying to get a really restful sleep? Your experiences will be sure to resonate and support someone else.
If you are interested in any support around your sleep, I will be running a 4 week Cultivating Restful Sleep Habits Course, starting 1st March 2021 and would love to support you with this. For more information go to https://www.soostrong.com/courses/cultivating-restful-sleep-habits
With warmest wishes,
Soo
© 2020 by Soo Strong