Help for Sleep problems

I had a client start with me today.  She was very upset because she hadn’t slept in days and didn’t want to take medicine her doctor had recommended.  The problem of not being able to fall asleep was causing her to worry all day about whether she would be able to get to sleep in the evening.  As we talked she could see how she was doing a lot of “what if” thinking.  It went something like this:  “What if I can’t fall asleep again and I have to take medicine.  What if I get addicted to the medicine.  What if the medicine cause other medical issues. And on and on the “what if” thinking went, causing more stress and adding to the problems falling asleep.  All day long she was convincing herself that  she wouldn’t be able to sleep,  that prediction caused her more stress,  and added to the mind to racing with fearful thoughts.

The good new is that there is help for sleep issues.  There are ways to get the mind and body back into alignment so sleep will once again come naturally.

If you are toss­ing, turn­ing, watch­ing the clock for hours — and the harder you try to sleep, the more elu­sive it becomes. If you’ve tried every­thing and are still awake.  If you are frus­trated because you really want a rest­ful night’s sleep and are being to fear going to bed.

There is hope!  There are mind-body techniques you can learn for restful sleep.  A few of the Anxiety Control Center’s techniques are listed below:

10. “Tips For a More Relaxed Sleep”- will give you real strate­gies to use tonight for falling asleep.

11. The “Won­der­ful 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 All-Purpose Relaxer” — is one of the sim­plest skills to learn. It uses a three-layer approach to cre­ate a pro­found sense of total relax­ation. This tech­nique pro­vides an excel­lent way to help you fall asleep.  Use it again if you wake up dur­ing the night.

12. The “Sooth­ing White Light” — is used to pro­mote heal­ing and calm through visu­al­iza­tion using all the bod­ies’ senses.

13. “Pas­sive Pro­gres­sive Relax­ation” — is a great men­tal exer­cise that, among other things, sharp­ens prob­lem solv­ing and cre­ative think­ing skills by using the mind to relax the body physically.

“When I began ther­apy, the main rea­son was panic attacks. I had all sorts of health prob­lems that I never knew were related. Thanks to the tech­niques I learned, the health prob­lems are gone. I’m still amazed that Audrey was some­how able to teach me to end the debil­i­tat­ing cramps and nausea asso­ci­ated with my men­strual cycle. As far as the attacks are con­cerned, I’m no longer fear­ful that I may have one. I know that I am in con­trol of my mind, not the other way around.” TD

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