Читать книгу Fast Asleep, Wide Awake: Discover the secrets of restorative sleep and vibrant energy - Dr Ramlakhan Nerina - Страница 10

Chapter 1

Getting Ready to ‘Be the Change’

‘If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.’

Albert Einstein

Possibly the hardest part of learning to sleep deeply and living vibrantly is acknowledging that something needs to change. You need to change. And change can be painful.

If you know anything about behaviour change you’ll already know that it takes a certain amount of time to break a habit and to form a new one – usually about 21 days. Cultivating the right frame of mind by being in a state of receptiveness enables that change to happen more easily and starts to take hold immediately. So before you embark on your mission, you may find the following helpful in preparing your body and mind to becoming the change you seek.

Slow Down and Prepare to Sleep

Slow down as you read. This is not an exercise in speed-reading. Every now and then put the book down and just allow the words to sink in, so that you start to integrate the techniques simply by reading them. This in itself will bring about the softening that is needed for deep sleep to take place.

Prepare to sleep even while you’re reading this book. By this I mean, lighten up, drop your shoulders and relax. So many sleep/energy problems are simply due to us trying so hard. To give you an example, when I demonstrate breathing techniques I often observe how – before even starting the exercise – the person will sit bolt upright with an intense look of concentration on their face, jaw clenched, shoulders hunched and, in one case recently, right on the edge of her chair while gripping the seat – as though she was just about to set off on a race!

Stop trying so hard. It is this same rigidity, and desperate bid to control, for perfection, to get it right … that often stops us sleeping in the first place.

Gentle Discipline

You may find that you’ll need to exercise some gentle discipline and give up old ways of being to restore your sleep–energy balance because I’ll be asking you to make some changes to your daily routine that may feel uncomfortable or unaccustomed.

Now if you were a teen coming to me with sleep problems, I might have something different to say. I might remove the word ‘gentle’ from the equation (sometimes I need to be a little tough in order to help bring about changes). I might have to crack the whip to get the electronic devices out of the bedroom in order to help them clean up their act and establish healthy, sleep-conducive routines and habits, as this is what is called for in this situation.

However, I can only ask that you find a balance between applying gentle discipline and strong willpower to make these powerful tools work for you. Are you the perfectionistic, driven, teeth-grinding control freak or a floppy teenager? Forgive the labels but I’m exaggerating for the purpose of illustration. My point is, find your own balance point.

If you decide that a gentler approach is needed, how do you go about this because this stance might be completely alien to you? Well, the first thing is to relax your grip on the goal. I understand that if you haven’t been sleeping and you’re exhausted, you’re desperate to see some results. You might tell yourself, ‘I hope this works.’ I recommend a subtle shift in mindset in which you become curious rather than goal-focused and you say to yourself, ‘I wonder what will happen if I do this?’ Do you see the difference? The latter is softer, more open to whatever happens – and that’s exactly what is needed to sleep.

Learning to Listen Deeply

For many people listening is a lost skill. In our noisy world we’ve become so used to living on the surface of life, talking but not really listening, watching but not really seeing, hearing but not really understanding, and because of this we stop feeling too.

When you slow down, you listen and feel what your body is telling you.

When you listen deeply you might start to discern that what you need is to get up and move, rather than have that cup of coffee, or to eat something nourishing, rather than continue sitting there staring at the computer screen. You might spot when your mind is producing a continuous stream of unhelpful thoughts, which are driving even more tension and rigidity into your body. This state usually only becomes apparent when you get into bed at night when you might start to think, ‘Where did that come from? I thought I was feeling fine a minute ago.’ You might start to notice that, even though you’ve been consumed and overwhelmed with the worries of your life, there are also a few (and actually maybe more than a few) gifts that you’d stopped noticing – that you’re taking for granted and have stopped seeing.

I realised a long time ago that one of the most important aspects of my job is really helping people to listen and notice deeply – to become more conscious. I emphasise the word ‘deeply’ because, if we can get to a place of deep listening and noticing, then a kind of magic starts to happen and we start making the right, the most intelligent, choices. I don’t mean exam-passing, credential-attaining intelligence but a more inward-focused body-mind intelligence that starts to steer us in the best possible direction – deeper sleep, more energy and better life choices.

Breathe Deeply

So right now I invite you to wake up your ability to listen deeply. This is the first, vital step to becoming more conscious.

1 Sit comfortably. Place both feet firmly on the floor. Straighten up and breathe deeply into your belly and exhale long and slow.

2 Imagine sending that exhalation out through the lower half of your body and out through your feet. Breathe back in feeling your belly expand outwards.

3 Repeat the first two steps, but this time with your eyes closed. And now feel into your body. Is there any tightness or any rigidity? Feel your body … listen to it … what does it want? What is it telling you?

I was surprised when I did this simple breathing exercise while writing these words. I took my hands off the keyboard and followed my own instructions. I found myself leaning back a little and stretching the front of my chest, and as I did so I heard a little click as tension was released from my breastbone. (I didn’t even know that was there.) I opened my arms, as if stretching my wings, and felt a blissful stretch in my shoulders and upper back. (I didn’t even know my shoulders and back were tense.) I found myself releasing a sigh, ‘AAAAHHH.’ Now that I’ve straightened up and opened my eyes, I find I can breathe slightly more deeply. And I’m feeling somewhat more focused and relaxed at the same time.

Maintain a Relaxed State of Focus

Keep doing this as you read. Keep working on the art of listening deeply and noticing. You will find that you start receiving more and more ‘data’ from your intelligent body. And you’ll begin to find that you are more able to understand exactly what this data is guiding you to do.

Beware of resistance and protest – you may read something and think, ‘This is something I’ve never done and could never do.’ Strangely, this might be the very thing that you do need to do.

Imagine yourself in a vision of what you want to create – see yourself getting into bed and melting gratefully, without resistance, into a deep, nourishing sleep. See yourself waking in the morning, again with gratitude for the sleep you’ve had. See yourself moving with energy to meet your day with open heart and mind.