DRIFTING OFF TO SLEEP
by Mitch Meyerson 

The digital clock clicks again. A number appears. This time it's 2 am.
Mark's been watching since 11pm. He pounds his pillow quietly. He
doesn't want to wake his sleeping wife who drifted off four hours
earlier-- the moment she put her head on the pillow. An hour later
he glares at her. He feels frustration and envy. He thinks, "Why
should she have it so easy?" He coughs. He steals her blankets.

Maybe she'll get up. Sometimes she talks to him and that helps.
No such luck tonight. He counts backwards from one hundred,
gets to 75, starts thinking about the case he has to go to court
on tomorrow, and starts over. He's ready to suffocate himself
with a blanket, but it probably wouldn't matter. He'd only wake
up gasping. Tomorrow will be another day of exhaustion.

Ever since he was a child, all he has needed to do to experience
three hours of solid mental agitation was turn off a light. He's
chanted mantras. He turned his bed in line with the polar
gravitational fields after reading about it in a magazine article
and remained stone faced while his wife laughed. Now he's a
partner in a successful law firm. He doesn't need this. He
has managed to excel at nearly everything he has tried except
one simple thing--falling asleep.

For millions of people bedtime is an invitation to hours of worry.
Small annoyances like a truck driving by, a humidifier that turns
on and off create major reasons why one can't sleep.
Thoughts turn obsessive, "Did I pay the gas bill, or didn't I?"
as we endlessly replay the day, until we get so frustrated we
watch reruns of Green Acres

Sleep is intended to repair us. It's our birthright; a natural
passage into deep relaxation and rejuvenation. Yet sleep
difficulties are more prevalent than ever. Why is it so hard to
just turn over and drift off?

The age we live in is a blessing and a curse. It has provided
us with so much information so quickly that our minds are in
a perpetual state of motion from the moment we wake up to
the moment we go to sleep.  Our minds are conditioned toward
constant activity. 

If you would like to fall asleep more easily, here are some
tips that will help.

1. Develop an attitude of not caring. Trying to fall asleep is
a paradox. The harder you try, the more difficult sleep will
become. Sleep is about letting go. Say to yourself, "It really
doesn't matter if I fall asleep. My body will get enough
rest just lying still." And it's true.

2. Wake up at the same time each day. The best way to
fall asleep is to get up early and consistently. If you can't
 fall asleep, the antidote isn't getting more sleep in the
morning to make up for the lack. Reset your internal clock
by getting up even earlier. You will feel tired for awhile,
but you will see the payoff as you more quickly fall asleep.

3. Avoid weekend jet lag. Perhaps the most common
mistake people make is to sleep late on the weekends.
This is like flying across time zones. You unconsciously
reset your internal clock making Sunday night a nightmare
for falling asleep.

4. Avoid hidden caffeine . Everyone knows not to drink
coffee before bedtime, but did you know that chocolate,
coke, Excedrin and many common foods and beverages
contain significant quantities of caffeine? Read the labels
before you get an unexpected surprise. Watch alcoholic
beverages before bed. They may help you to fall asleep,
but disturb the quality of your sleep and wake you up at
3am.

5. Take time to practice letting go during the day. Just as
the mind can become conditioned to stimulation, it can
become conditioned to relaxation. Take time each day to
breathe deeply. Do five minutes of stretching exercises.
Learn to meditate

6. Stop the nighttime drama. Never take your laptop into
bed and do your work if you're having trouble sleeping.
Avoid stimulating movies, books etc., while laying in bed.
Condition your mind to see your bed as a place where you
sleep, not where you figure out your business problems.
Get up when you can't sleep and go to another room.

7. Exercise during the day or early evening. It doesn't have
to be an hour of killer aerobics. Take a walk. Get fresh air.

8. Avoid a heavy dinner. When you're going through a phase
of having trouble sleeping, make your largest meal of the
day lunch. Don't add digestion to your nightly tasks.

9. Develop a sleep ritual. There should be something you
do every evening before sleeping that's regular and comforting.
Maybe it's a hot bath. Maybe it's a few stretches. Make a
routine for yourself that never varies.
And keep your room cool (60-65 degrees). Let the blankets
provide the warmth.

10. Be realistic about sleep. Many people wake up during the
night two or three times. This doesn't necessarily mean you
have a sleep disorder. But, if you wake up and agonize,
"It took me so long to fall asleep, now I'll never get to sleep
again," you've got trouble. The anticipation of not being able
to fall back asleep keeps more people up than any other
single factor.

11. Learn how to relax. Yes, you've read about relaxation
techniques. Reading is passive. Being active means you see
a specialist who demonstrates these techniques in front of
you and makes you do them. There's a highly effective
relaxation exercise that can be taught to you in forty-five
minutes. You relax and constrict muscles in a prescribed order.
It feels good and you can practice it to the extent that you can
go through the whole regimen in five or ten minutes and
benefit from it whenever you feel tense. Reading about
it isn't the same as getting a coach who will teach you how
to do it right.

12. Deal with what's keeping you awake. Sometimes sleep
problems are seasonal. They have to do with the absence
of light during the day--a fact of life during winter--
and some people find the months around the time changes
particularly difficult. But most often there's something on one's
 mind that makes it difficult to let go. There's a pattern of living
life in one's head rather than experiencing emotions or being
in tune with one's body. Are you logical, driven, perfectionistic,
feeling it's never enough? If this describes you, your sleep
problems may be signaling more than the fact that the traffic
outside your window is noisy. You've gotten out of touch with
your body and its signals. You are fighting your real feelings
all day and the battle is heating up at night. What's unresolved
is difficult to let go. You aren't alone. Accept it. Get help with it.
You deserve a good night's sleep.

(Feel Free to reprint this article with this resource box intact)

Mitch Meyerson is a personal and professional coach, consultant
and author. He can be reached at: mitch@gmarketingcoach.com
Or visit: http://www.breakingfree.com or
http://www.gmarketingcoach.com