Yes, you may have had your soak in the scented bubble bath, removed all tech and TV from your bedroom, changed your bedroom colour scheme and lighting, avoided food and drink for a few hours before bedtime… but you still can’t get off to sleep, or you can’t get back to sleep when you wake in the early hours.
It’s time for B.E.E.R. © instead!
Remember this one thing…
YOU CAN’T SLEEP AND THINK AT THE SAME TIME!
There I said it…simple.
You see, to be in a sleep-state requires that our BRAINWAVES are running at a slow frequency… and thinking, worrying or recycling mental trivia and trash means that the brain is working much too fast for sleep to happen.
We have five principle brainwave frequencies —
High Beta frequency — 21–40 Hertz/cycles per second. The brainwave state of intense anxiety, phobias, hypervigilance for potential threat (as happens with Post-traumatic-stress-disorder), over-thinking, panic, fear and dread, paranoia, stress, nervousness, irritability and anger.
Beta frequency — 13–20 Hertz — relates to regular thinking, focusing, paying attention and conversation — including the one we are having with ourselves!
Alpha frequency— 8–12 Hertz — the calm, yet alert state associated with mediation, relaxation and creativity.
Theta frequency— 7–13 Hertz — The state of imagery, light sleep, creative insights, intuition, inspiration. The pre-sleep state.
Delta frequency— 1–4 Hertz — sleep state — whether dreaming or in recuperative sleep. The state of healing and rejuvenation.
As you can by now probably tell — there’s no way you can sleep if your brainwaves are too fast; and you can’t jump from High Beta to Delta without something to ‘knock you out’!
How can you slow down your brainwaves naturally?
With B.E.E.R. ©!
As you can guess that is an acronym NOT an alcoholic night-cap.
Follow this process and you’ll prepare your brain, mind and body to drift off to sleep:
B-Breath slowly and deeply — into the back of your throat, making a light snoring sound. This tricks your brain into thinking you are entering the sleep state
E-Eyes with closed eyelids and your eyes looking down level with the end of your nose. This is like the ‘off’ position for the brain. You will notice your eyes start looking upwards again if your mind grabs hold of something to play around with. When you notice that go back to the breathing and lower your eyes again
E-Empty your mind — trivia, trash and even useful stuff will push forwards to grab your attention.. so imaging it being blown away with each of your outgoing breaths… like leaves on a path being blown away by the wind. If something urgent pops up then stop this process and send yourself a text or e-mail about it to look at in the morning, and resume this process from the beginning again
R-Relax your body. Imagine you are either soaking in a hot bath or sunbathing in silence. Notice how your body yields and relaxes with the heat… you feel deeply relaxed with your slow breathing, lowered eyes, empty mind and relaxed body. Your brainwaves are now in Theta state and you will create images that will be the start of your first dreaming cycle.
Until you become accustomed to this process you may have to repeat this a few times to gain control of your active mind.
You must also remember to stop any twitching in your hands or feet which keep the brainwaves higher.
Your mind will gallop around until you learn how to stop it in its tracks, keep hold of the reins, calm it down and walk it slowly towards the sleep stable.
Maxine Harley (MSc Psychotherapy) MIND HEALER & MENTOR
www.maxineharley.com — for recovery from a troubled childhood and toxic parents; as well as lots of FREE resources to help you to improve your emotional state; and five self-help online courses
www.maxineharleymentoring.com — helping women to understand and manage their emotions, boundaries and behaviours — to FEEL better, so they can BE, DO, and HAVE better!
www.the-ripple-effect.co.uk — a series of 10 online self-help workshops of Psycho-Emotional-Education to help with a wide range of emotional and psychological problems
www.qpp.uk.com — a new method for changing the deeper sub-conscious belief system which uses Brainwave Entrainment, Psychotherapy, Energy Psychology and Quantum Science
Originally published at medium.com