Lack of sleep

Imagine yourself counting sheep when you’re closing your eyes but you suffer from lack of sleep. What exactly do you see? I’m pretty sure you see sheep jumping over a fence while you try to keep count. If you think that this image can put anyone to sleep then you’re sadly mistaken. Numbers and hyperactive animals are not exactly sleep enticing, now are they?

What if you think instead of air pockets, air bubbles and each of them has a sleepy, meek sheep in it, looking lazily over to you? Heck, even reading this sentence puts me to sleep! See the difference? Activity, action never goes well with falling asleep. On the opposite side of action there is slowing down, so here is an exercise for you to try when you next time have a problem falling asleep:

When you notice some urgent, angry, stressed or otherwise active thought pass through your mind repeatedly just when you try to sleep, hold that thought. Take it slowly one word at a time and say it in your mind very slowly. So if your thought is ‘I have to finish that essay tomorrow’, think of it this way: ‘I’lll hhhaaaavvveeeeee ttoooo ffiiinnnishhhhh tttthhhattt esssssaayyy..’ see the difference? Your forcing your mind to slow down, to say it slower in your mind.

Once you get this down, then make it even slower. Drag those words and letters even more. Then do it once again, but this time pay attention to not say in your mind the whole sentence. So this will become:

I’ll have to finish that…
I’ll have to finish…
I’ll have to…
I’ll…

all this of course, in the slow down motion. For one, you will forget about the actual thought of having to action something tomorrow, and focus instead of slowing down your mind, on the little fun exercise. Second, this exercise will really slow down your mind, even without your control, which is exactly what we want to achieve. You might need to do this a few times in the beginning, until your mind gets used to this, but it shouldn’t take long until you really sleep like a baby

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