We all used to party until late at night having only a handful of hours of sleep. We all have evenings when we work until late going to bed about midnight or even later. We all need some time off and relaxation with our friends and end up going to bed very late only to find ourselves dragging our feet the next day.
While it may not be immediately obvious as to why, good sleep is vitally important for the quality of your life. You can eat really healthy, exercise and drink clean water, but if you don’t sleep well especially for longer periods of time you’re just not going to function well at your optimal level.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah” you may say. “Cliche. I know all of that. I heard it before. I try to go to sleep at decent time, but I keep waking up in the early hours of the morning and my brain works overtime. I toss and turn and cannot sleep. Many times I just get out of bed, because just lying there drives me crazy. It is not that I do this on purpose, in fact the harder I try to sleep the less I manage. Now what?”
Researchers Rob van Overbruggen in the Netherlands, Richard Flook in Canada and Johannes Fisslinger in Germany, all our graduate NLP and Time Line Therapy® trainers, have successfully applied Time Line Therapy® in dealing with this problem.
It is not immediately obvious how stress (in effect the presence of Negative Emotions due to unresolved issues) lead to this pattern of waking up in the morning hours and inability to sleep.
Here Is How It Works
If something happens in your life, an event that takes you by surprise (and hey, all of us have plenty of these), and if this situation is not resolved to our satisfaction or not resolved at all, consciously but mostly unconsciously we are stressing about it. Consciously we may manage to put it out of our heads, to dissociate from it and that’s very important because otherwise we could not function. However at the Unconscious Level, this situation is still producing stress because it is not resolved to our satisfaction.
Take for example the breakup of a relationship. Many times a person simply moves on while the other remains shocked and un-consoled harboring Negative Emotions like sadness, grief, shock, confusion, and maybe even anger, rage or jealousy. (By the way, this article is not intended to offer counselling, diagnosis or medical advice for any of these emotional states if they become pathological. If you are in a situation like this, please consult a licensed medical professional.) But, the presence of the Negative Emotions, even if only at the Unconscious Level, can create a low level of stress which is enough to wake us up and keep us awake in the middle of the night. Consciously we may want to get rid of them, to move on with life, but if they persist (because the Unconscious Mind did not let them go) at the Unconscious Level, guess who wins? At night the Conscious Mind is asleep (literally asleep) but the Unconscious Mind is trying to handle everything that’s unresolved at Unconscious Level. Consequently it wakes us up and says “solve this” Negative Emotions are not good for you!
Do not beat your Unconscious Mind up! It is not evil or nasty. It just tells you that there are some Negative Emotions that damage your mind, body and spirit, and it asks you to pay attention to them and let them go.
Consequently, when we let them go, there is no more “stuff” unresolved and our sleep quality improves. Even if your sleep requirements change in time, doctors assure us that 8-9 hours of sleep every night are ideal. That said, sleep requirements are highly individual, and can change from one day to the next, depending on factors like stress, physical exertion, illness, pregnancy, and so on.
One more thing: Even if the duration of your sleep is the same, when the timing of your sleep (meaning the time you go to bed) is shifted, it’s not going to be as restorative. You can feel when you had a great night sleep by how drowsy or tired you feel. Do you need caffeine to keep you going?
“OK”, you’ll say. “OK. I will drink more coffee or other caffeine laded drinks and I’ll be just fine.”
The problem is that according to Dr Mercola
“If you were to measure objective measures of cognitive performance like reaction time, you would see that those would continue to get worse if you maintained an insufficient sleep pattern on a day-by-day basis. That’s one of the big problems in our society today. It’s that we basically accommodate feeling sleepy that that feeling starts to feel normal. But then we have continual impairment in how well our brain is performing.”
So in conclusion, your mind, and your overall ability to think clearly and solve problems you encounter decline. Your ability to focus your attention on one particular task seems to go down the drain. Things simply don’t work out well anymore. Your mind is too tired.
How to improve the quality of your sleep
While there are many different causes for poor sleep, if one of them is the presence of unresolved Negative Emotions at the Unconscious Level, there is something you can do right now. it is called Time Line Therapy®. Time Line Therapy® is an easy technique that allows you to let go of Negative Emotions and Limiting Decisions from the past (only from the past) so you can feel better in the moment.
Try it. get in touch with a well-trained Time Line Therapy® Practitioner and get rid of everything from the past that stresses you. If the cause of your waking up or not being able to sleep is stress, Time Line Therapy® can assist
Bottom Line
In our modern fast paced and super busy modern world enough restful sleep becomes a challenge we all face. But we need to remember that sleep benefits our health and performance in general. Therefore it is useful to learn how to get rid of everything which emotionally can prevent this from happening.
What do you think? Let me know. Post an answer below.
Be well.