Posted By Health Moderator

Have you ever been in a hospital sleeping soundly when suddenly the Nurse awakens you and says, ‘It’s time for your sleeping pill.’ It seems that everyone acknowledges that a good night’s sleep is essential. I have often said if I was going to be tortured, lack of sleep would probably force me to confess to anything.

Research tells us that we all need light sleep, deep sleep and dreaming sleep to feel refreshed when we wake up. Of course everyone’s sleeping patterns are different. Some of us need eight hours sleep and others get away with four or five hours and function just as well.

Every now and then we all have a bad sleep. We can usually put it down to a stressful day or a particularly hot humid night. In the morning we wake up a little grumpy and not very well rested. Problems only arise when we fall into a pattern where this happens regularly.

I remember as a small child lying in bed and hearing the grandfather clock striking hour after hour. No matter how hard I tried, sleep was elusive. I realize now that when I have those times I need to get up and do something else, until I’m ready to try again.

I didn’t know it at the time but I was suffering from insomnia, a very common sleep disorder where people have difficulty falling asleep or wake up too often during the night and then have trouble going back to sleep. Or it can mean waking up too early in the morning and finding that you aren’t feeling refreshed or rested.

Reasons for not being able to sleep vary; they can range from:

• Losing your job
• A change in your circumstances
• Experiencing loss and grief when someone close to you has died
• Illness, for instance, a bad case of the flu
• Having a health condition such as depression, asthma or arthritis, causing physical pain
• Prescribed medication for another ailment

As you would expect, many people who suffer from insomnia are normally frustrated or annoyed by it. Paradoxically, it’s this emotional state that may contribute to keep them awake. It actually helps to stop demanding a set amount of sleep for yourself every night, because having less sleep than you’d like doesn’t actually cause any harm. In situations like this you need to be able to allow yourself to fall short of the ideal without getting anxious about it. Sometimes the key to that great night’s sleep is to just relax, be patient and let the sleep you dream of come to you.
Reference: www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au.

The more you worry about not sleeping, the more you worry about going to bed and the more likely you are to continue to experience insomnia. While you might fall asleep watching TV, when you go to bed your mind races and you are wide awake. Unreasonable expectations about what constitutes a good night’s sleep may also contribute to this vicious cycle. Be aware how unhelpful thoughts about sleep can make you feel more worried and concerned about your sleep resulting in even more pressure as you try harder to sleep.

At times when I can’t fall asleep I meditate on the verse ‘Be still and know that I am God’. I take the verse apart by concentrating on each word and its meaning and in no time I fall asleep.

Glennys Williams http://glenniah.blogspot.com

Its never too late to be the you, you might have been (George Eliot)