Episode 52
Why can’t I sleep? #1 reason you Cannot Fall Asleep!
In this podcast you will uncover the number one reason you can’t fall asleep. Additionally, I will share a few more common reasons you may experience insomnia.
Link to the full article Why can’t I fall asleep? – #1 Reason you cannot fall asleep! Which is a bonus has My brand-new story meditation: The Log Cabin: Deep Sleep Meditation
Transcript
So welcome to stillness in the storms.
Speaker:I wanted to talk to you about why can't I fall asleep.
Speaker:And it's really interested in this one is because I had a problem with
Speaker:sleeping for a long time myself.
Speaker:And I just want to share with you what I learned about that, and then
Speaker:go over some hints and tips and.
Speaker:Really it's celebrating my log cabin, deep sleep meditation.
Speaker:My other meditation had been released.
Speaker:I don't know about five years ago now.
Speaker:And at the time I never realized I had a talent of putting people to sleep.
Speaker:But apparently I have my voice.
Speaker:But hopefully this podcast will not be asleep.
Speaker:Hopefully it'll give you some hints and tips.
Speaker:So tonight when you go to bed, you will fall asleep really quickly.
Speaker:And mainly I'm going to go over.
Speaker:The one thing that stops us falling asleep.
Speaker:And that's really important.
Speaker:We often go to bed and we put our head down on the pillow and.
Speaker:We just hope we fall asleep.
Speaker:Very often we don't and the mind starts racing . The heart starts speeding
Speaker:even more and we don't fall asleep.
Speaker:And then we end up getting.
Speaker:Teaser and teaser.
Speaker:So , that's what I'm going to share on today's podcast.
Speaker:So listen to the end for the three affirmations that are guarantee
Speaker:to put you to sleep tonight.
Speaker:I'm Steven Webb, your host and this podcast helps you to have some more
Speaker:inner peace in life when you have at least, and you need it most.
Speaker:And why am I talking about sleep?
Speaker:Well, In my 5 simple practices for more inner peace.
Speaker:One of those is sleep.
Speaker:It should be the first one, the main one.
Speaker:Because if we haven't got our sleep sorted, whereas no way we're
Speaker:going to sort anything else out.
Speaker:You know, sleep is the most important thing for the body.
Speaker:It's the most important thing for the mind.
Speaker:And unless we can have.
Speaker:At least seven, eight hours sleep.
Speaker:Average most nights then your body's not going to function
Speaker:that brilliantly during the day.
Speaker:It's it's sleep that we need to repair the body.
Speaker:But why, why did I study sleep?
Speaker:You know, I'm an inner peace teacher, but meditation and mindfulness teacher.
Speaker:And why am I bringing up sleep on this podcast?
Speaker:Well, when I hit my rock bottom when I was 40.
Speaker:The biggest problem I had at the time was I was lacking sleep.
Speaker:And no matter what I did when I went to bed, I could not shut my mind down.
Speaker:And because I was unable to shut my mind down.
Speaker:I was ending up.
Speaker:In this spiral of less sleep.
Speaker:My health was going downhill.
Speaker:I couldn't function.
Speaker:I couldn't think straight.
Speaker:And it was this vicious cycle and I ended up drinking.
Speaker:I ended up drinking more and more Southern Comfort each night.
Speaker:And because I'm paralyzed.
Speaker:I had to ask my carers for a drink and it was becoming embarrassing.
Speaker:And it's okay.
Speaker:Just saying, and I wasn't a drinker.
Speaker:So you imagine this, I didn't really drink in front of my carers at all.
Speaker:And suddenly here I was, I knew I was suffering.
Speaker:They knew I was pretty much.
Speaker:Going through a terrible time.
Speaker:And I started to drink every night.
Speaker:And one drink led to two drinks, led to three drinks.
Speaker:And eventually it got to the stage where even three drinks
Speaker:wouldn't allow me to go to sleep.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I realized I had to do something about it.
Speaker:And I started reading books on my iPad and read in was really difficult for me.
Speaker:So I had to just find a way of going to sleep.
Speaker:So I started reading books about sleep.
Speaker:And I got loads in those of hints and tips, and I learned
Speaker:techniques of going to sleep.
Speaker:And the main thing I learned is sleep is a skill.
Speaker:Something that you can learn to do.
Speaker:We very often just go to bed and we put our head down and we hope we fall asleep.
Speaker:You know, we're completely tired.
Speaker:We're completely knackered at the end of the day and we go to bed
Speaker:and we just hope the circumstances are perfect for going to sleep.
Speaker:Very often they're not.
Speaker:But our mind is racing.
Speaker:We have something on our mind all the time.
Speaker:So what's the number one reason.
Speaker:That we.
Speaker:Are unable to fall asleep.
Speaker:And I didn't read this in any books.
Speaker:I've just realized that over the last few years, And mainly when I'm
Speaker:lying in bed, not able to sleep, I think, why can't I fall asleep.
Speaker:And I realized one thing.
Speaker:And that is because I didn't feel safe and comfortable to go to sleep.
Speaker:And if you think about that, that's perfectly logical.
Speaker:Because for millions of years we've slept in caves.
Speaker:We've slept in forest.
Speaker:And these weren't central to heated lockable homes.
Speaker:So we had to make sure that we couldn't fall asleep until we were.
Speaker:Not only completely inaccurate, maybe, but would override the survival mechanism,
Speaker:but we wouldn't fall asleep until we were.
Speaker:Or until the mind and the body felt completely safe and relaxed.
Speaker:Is that good for him to sleep and then some kind of bear or a
Speaker:saber tooth tiger wanders into the cave and starts to fight us.
Speaker:It starts to.
Speaker:Nibble on my feet or whatever.
Speaker:So we had to feel safe, and in today's age, we, the overzealous fear in us.
Speaker:The overactive mind.
Speaker:Doesn't allow us to feel safe because we're thinking that, Oh, we got to buy
Speaker:someone, something for their birthday.
Speaker:We're thinking we got to order this thing, or we got to.
Speaker:Reply to this email where we got to say this to the boss,
Speaker:or we need to pay this bill.
Speaker:None of those things are threatening our lives right in this minute.
Speaker:However, the mind is active on them.
Speaker:So therefore it's preventing us from going to sleep.
Speaker:So we lie there trying to force our minds to shut down, trying
Speaker:to force our bodies to relax.
Speaker:Meanwhile, the body and the mind is fighting against us.
Speaker:Is going no dont asleep, whatever you do, don't go sleep because that
Speaker:may be something going wrong here.
Speaker:There may be some bad things happening here.
Speaker:And therefore you actually, you're trying to go sleep while your
Speaker:body is trying to stay awake.
Speaker:So the one thing we can do.
Speaker:To help us to go sleep is make sure we got a comfortable environment to go sleep.
Speaker:A comfortable and safe environment.
Speaker:That's what I want to help you with now.
Speaker:On to two things ready.
Speaker:Firstly, how do we prepare for sleep?
Speaker:And I'll give you a couple of hints in a couple of tips there.
Speaker:And then I'll talk to you about what you do when you get in bed.
Speaker:And part of this is taken from Navy seals.
Speaker:If you think of a Navy seal, they don't know when they're
Speaker:going to get their next sleep.
Speaker:They don't know when and how long they're going to sleep for next.
Speaker:So they have to sleep in the most dire circumstances.
Speaker:And they have to do it, whether theyre tired or not, they have to
Speaker:catch a two, three hours sleep.
Speaker:When it's available, not when it's convenient to go sleep at.
Speaker:10 o'clock at night.
Speaker:And they learn to go sleep.
Speaker:They learn it as a skill is part of the training.
Speaker:So I'm going to take you through that process of what they do
Speaker:at the end of this podcast.
Speaker:But just before that, how can you prepare your room and prepare your evening for.
Speaker:The best chance of a good night's sleep.
Speaker:First of all, think of your bedroom as the cave and the way
Speaker:it was for millions of years.
Speaker:So that's what we want to create.
Speaker:So we want to create that cave.
Speaker:And also to make it safe.
Speaker:So the first thing you can do is reduce the temperature of the room.
Speaker:Reduce it down to about 16, 17 degrees.
Speaker:I'm not sure where that is in Fahrenheit, but I'm sure you can work it out.
Speaker:Remove any LEDs in the room.
Speaker:Any lights you want to as dark as possible.
Speaker:Put your notepad and pencil next to the bed.
Speaker:And the reason why I say put notepad and pencil is because if you have something on
Speaker:your mind, You can then just quickly pick it up, jot it down, and then it's done.
Speaker:And the mind thinks his doubts with.
Speaker:So therefore that will leave the mine on.
Speaker:You're no longer be worrying or stressing about it.
Speaker:And you might have two or three things come up, but
Speaker:eventually a mind will go okay.
Speaker:I don't need to worry about all those things now.
Speaker:Which is pretty awesome.
Speaker:And stay away from your mobiles or your TV or anything like that because they just
Speaker:wake the mind up that light, the lights.
Speaker:It's like the morning coming in the sun coming in the morning.
Speaker:It just, tells your brain to produce more chemicals to keep you awake.
Speaker:You know, we also know not to drink coffee in any stimulants after the mid-afternoon.
Speaker:On the contrary to popular belief, alcohol does not help you sleep.
Speaker:It might help you to fall asleep, but you don't stay asleep.
Speaker:Or you don't have a good night's sleep, but how was your body?
Speaker:Hence you have a hangover.
Speaker:Especially as we get older, it's harder for the body to deal with.
Speaker:The alcohol poisoning overnight.
Speaker:So you wake up in the next morning, your body might have dealt with alcohol, but
Speaker:it hasn't done any repairing for the body.
Speaker:And this is why sleep is so important is because it helps you to repair your body.
Speaker:It helps you too.
Speaker:The path, the day's thoughts, the nuance in your mind.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm not really a biologist, but I know certainly if more of the books
Speaker:I've read and from my experience,
Speaker:Have taken note is how I feel when the morning.
Speaker:Sleep definitely helps to repair the body.
Speaker:It doesn't do as much during the day because it's keeping you awake and keeping
Speaker:you doing the things you want to do.
Speaker:Your exercise and your thinking and your seeing and all of those things.
Speaker:The other thing is go to bed when you are ready to go to sleep.
Speaker:Not before, don't go lie in bed for two hours watching telly.
Speaker:You know, your sleep really does need to happen.
Speaker:The moment you get in bed and that's intimacy, of course.
Speaker:But this can be a great way to aid insomnia.
Speaker:Anyway, that's a different story.
Speaker:That's a whole different podcast.
Speaker:That one is.
Speaker:I'm prepare a few things in for the morning.
Speaker:So you don't have to think about them.
Speaker:When you finish your evening mail, don't go and sit down for
Speaker:two hours and then get happened.
Speaker:Get everything, sorted, sort, everything.
Speaker:And then sit down and relax because we tend to sit down for the evening just
Speaker:before going back, we get up and then we start sorting the stuff for the morning.
Speaker:Which really just wakes the mind up.
Speaker:So the final step, and this is how you will fall asleep.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:If you come here to get a good night's sleep or to fall asleep.
Speaker:This is exactly what you come here for.
Speaker:And hopefully let me know in the comments, whether this works and.
Speaker:But this is what you do.
Speaker:You might want to write down or take note of this.
Speaker:But here goes the first thing you need to do.
Speaker:Is just when you're lying in bed, just tense your body.
Speaker:So tense your toes.
Speaker:And then the release.
Speaker:Tense your body and let it release.
Speaker:Tense your arms.
Speaker:Let it release.
Speaker:This tells your muscles.
Speaker:That it's okay to relax that this moment is okay.
Speaker:This moment is perfectly fine the way it is, and it doesn't need to worry.
Speaker:And then do the whole body.
Speaker:Every single part of the body, including your face, don't
Speaker:worry about what you look like.
Speaker:No one's watching.
Speaker:No one's watching.
Speaker:Hopefully that was watching you.
Speaker:But honestly just screw up your face.
Speaker:Your And if not that, and then just allow your whole body to relax.
Speaker:And then just take a few deep, slow breaths, take an in-breath
Speaker:normal and breathe out slowly.
Speaker:And do that for three breaths.
Speaker:And imagine your body going to sleep.
Speaker:And not worried about the mind at the moment.
Speaker:We're just where we're just thinking about the body.
Speaker:Go into sleep.
Speaker:And then the next thing you can do.
Speaker:Is over the next 10, 15 breaths or so just breathing normally.
Speaker:And then breathe out slowly.
Speaker:And as you breathe out slowly, You can say these three affirmations.
Speaker:So you breathe in and then breathe out slowly, say I am
Speaker:safe and falling to sleep.
Speaker:I am safe and falling to sleep.
Speaker:I am relaxed and falling to sleep.
Speaker:I am comfortable and falling to sleep.
Speaker:What these do is just allow your mind to stay focused on something.
Speaker:It allows your mind to.
Speaker:Slowly relaxed and keep active of something.
Speaker:But not too active to stay awake.
Speaker:And it stops it worrying about the daily things.
Speaker:Cause they've always.
Speaker:That's when.
Speaker:It won't fall asleep.
Speaker:Now then if that doesn't work.
Speaker:Just, this is the cream of the crop.
Speaker:This is the one thing that is almost guaranteed to be asleep.
Speaker:And that's Canberra from 300 in multiples of three or seven.
Speaker:You might find 700 that were difficult.
Speaker:I do.
Speaker:So I do it in threes.
Speaker:But if you find three's really simple.
Speaker:Do it in sevens.
Speaker:And just take a, a breath normally and then breathe out slowly.
Speaker:300.
Speaker:Take a breath in slowly.
Speaker:I'll take a breath in normally.
Speaker:And prove out slowly.
Speaker:293.
Speaker:And just continue.
Speaker:If you lose count, start again.
Speaker:There's no competition.
Speaker:There's no, like, can I get to zero or something?
Speaker:It's just a matter of keeping your mind busy enough.
Speaker:So you will fall asleep.
Speaker:So hopefully that's helped, hopefully that helps you.
Speaker:To get a good night's sleep tonight.
Speaker:Let me know in the review.
Speaker:You can always head over to my website, Stevenwebb.com and download the five
Speaker:simple practices for inner peace.
Speaker:Hopefully you'll have some nuggets and some wisdom from this.
Speaker:Thank you for joining me.
Speaker:This is Steven Webb and this was stillness in the storms.
Speaker:Take care.
