Restful Insomnia

How to Get the Benefits of Sleep Even When You Can't

Sondra Kornblatt

• Publisher: Conari Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781609250959
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Medicina del sueño

"Filled with insightful ways of bringing peace to insomnia. It re-visions insomnia as a journey of the spirit... the book to read when you can't sleep." —Donna Eden, author of Energy Medicine If you've suffered from countless nights of sleep deprivation, then this book is essential to helping you thrive in the night. Sondra Kornblatt highlights many techniques that will help insomniacs gain the benefits of sleep without ever having to sleep. If you can't fall asleep, then this is the book for you! Meditate for a second, take a deep breath... and know that you are not alone! There are over seventy million people in America who have trouble sleeping. Moving through everyday life without proper sleep can be frustrating and alarming but with this book you will learn how to properly function from your lack of sleep. If you can't fall asleep, Sondra teaches the importance of an evening ritual to create internal rest. Restful Insomnia teaches you how to:

• Bring rest to the body with a unique form of night yoga
• Quiet the mind through guided meditation
• Quell the soul's worries through night writing

Instead of leaving your bed worn out by sleeplessness, you will leave your bed refreshed and ready to conquer the day. Restful Insomnia gives you tools to thrive while functioning on little to no sleep. "Wonderfully creative solutions for the hopeless insomniac, transforming worry and sleepless nights into deep eazzzzzzze." —Deanna Minich, PhD, author of The Rainbow Diet

Chapter 1

The Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind—Who's Driving the Van?

It is the mind that makes the body.

—Sojourner Truth

MY CLIENT TOM BRUSHED HIS TEETH, put on his red plaid flannel PJs, and snuggled under the comforter next to his sleeping wife. He was definitely ready for bed after a long day at his insurance business. He tried to read Master and Commander, which he loved when he was younger, but he was too sleepy to get through the first chapter. It'll be a good weekend read, he thought as he turned off the lamp.

Tom's eyes closed as he listened to Linda's breathing. Quiet, dark, restful . . . Terrific, I'm falling asleep. His thoughts drifted to gardening, his next surfing adventure, his upcoming anniversary as he settled into the bed.

Shoot! He forgot to call the landlord to renegotiate the lease. The payment for quarterly taxes was due tomorrow. They had a teacher conference for their daughter at three fifteen, right before his team meeting at four.

Needless to say, Tom's eyes were no longer closed. He was too tired to turn the lamp back on, and there was really nothing to do tonight about anything. So he lay in bed and wondered whether the negotiation strategies on his desk covered all the bases, if they should talk to the teacher about that girl bullying their daughter, and if he needed to transfer money from his savings for the taxes.

His body wanted to sleep, but his mind had taken over. Actually, it was his Conscious Mind that took over, focused on getting things done, just like it did during the day.

Letting Go of the Restless Mind

You probably know that your mind can keep you from rest at night—especially if you've been kept awake by the “restless mind” touted in pharmaceutical ads. However, with Restful Insomnia you have more options than medicine to let you and your mind rest.

This book is about those options, about how to step aside from the Conscious Mind at night and focus instead The Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind on the restful dreaminess of the Unconscious Mind. Unfortunately, there is no on-off mind switch (other than sleep or anesthesia). However, you can invite this shift of focus; it just takes practice.

This chapter clarifies my definition of the Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind. It also talks about how the Conscious Mind takes charge during the day while the Unconscious Mind takes over at night—and how that affects the body.

The Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind

You listen to your chattering mind all day and many restless nights. It chatters off orders, concerns, plans, and analyses even if your body's pooped: “You didn't finish the bills today; You should decide this quarter's strategy after you read the marketing report; Go to sleep already!”

That chattering mind is your Conscious Mind. It thrives on being productive and in charge. It has goals, connects us with our community, and follows and creates rules.

The Conscious Mind is convinced that it's the boss, the head honcho, the one-and-only chief. This is especially true during insomnia, when it ignores the other side: the wisdom of the Unconscious Mind.

The Unconscious Mind is a storehouse that holds your experiences, memories, beliefs, and desires. It communicates in images, sounds, dialogues, smells, textures, and sensations. The Unconscious Mind generates dreams, creativity, and intuition as well as automatic body processes, such as blinking and breathing. It shapes your perception of reality and underlies your beliefs about life and yourself.

Imagine life with just the Conscious Mind: we're robots without creativity or a heart. Imagine life with just the Unconscious Mind: we're lost, like Alzheimer's patients. There's a natural balance between the Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind, and between the cycles of day and night.

During the day, the Conscious Mind holds court. I see the Conscious Mind driving a minivan—full of kids, a briefcase, dry cleaning, groceries, sports equipment, and a to-do list trailing out the window.

The Conscious Mind doesn't drive alone, though. Sitting in the passenger seat is the Unconscious Mind—navigating. It suggests paths to follow, connects the tasks to a bigger picture, and may create obstacles (if the plan doesn't meet familiar beliefs). The Unconscious Mind is actually guiding the van—but let's keep that a secret from the Conscious Mind.

At night, the balance changes: the Conscious Mind rests, and the Unconscious Mind leads. The Unconscious Mind leaves the minivan behind to guide a sturdy raft through moonlit water. It tells stories of the day to the sleepy Conscious Mind—odd stories filled with experiences from the day and from years before, images from movies and emotions, and perhaps possibilities for the future.

The raft floats to islands where it drops off old baggage and gathers new information. The night journey cleans the slate and then prepares the Conscious Mind for tomorrow.

In sleep we transform from the minivan to the raft, from to-do tension to dreamy relaxation. But in insomnia, we don't let go. The Conscious Mind—the restless mind—demands order and organization, just as it does during the day.

Restful Insomnia techniques help your Conscious Mind rest so you can follow the dreamy and creative Unconscious Mind. You're mimicking the natural pathway from day to night, allowing the mind and body to balance and renew.

Balance of the Minds

Here's how I discovered the mind-body balance during my many sleepless hours

I explored the body's perspective on insomnia. I started with the different body sensations that resulted from physical stimuli (caffeine, hormones, or too long a nap during the day). Next I explored where I experienced emotional states (anger in the jaw, fear in the stomach, sadness in the chest). Then I explored how different mental states changed my body as well.

Here's an example. My husband and I were quarrelling, except he was asleep and I had the full-blown quarrel in my head. I kept going over the argument again and again, on a quest to find the perfect zinger. One where he'd say, “You're right, I'm sorry. I'll change.” Unfortunately, the husband in my head kept defeating my zingers with new responses, and there I was: awake in the mental pinball machine of impossible resolution. (You can learn more about situations like this one in chapter 9, “Change Your Mind.”)

Then I heard acceptance whisper, “Your mind is stuck. Focus on your body.”

Hell, no. I wanted to fix my husband, not me. Still, I hated being awake. All right, I'll try. To change direction was like steering a semitruck after the front tires blew out.

My body . . . I know I have one. Inhale. I noticed how my stomach clenched, my teeth locked, my hands curled. Exhale. The tension around my heart loosened a millimeter . . . a little space around the rage. My body sensations kept shifting and moving. I felt like I was watching an anger aquarium in my body. Look, a spitting-mad tetra . . . the not-my-fault carp . . . the you-forget-stuff-too hatchet fish.

I rested into dreamy odd sensations and let my body experience the anger without trying to fix it. I think I'm falling asleep.

My mental alarm clock went off. Now I'm not falling asleep. I was so close. . . . I should just get up and answer my old e-mail or pay the bills.

What was the reaction to my buzzing mind? I felt my head, like it was buzzing, like the sensation you get after you rub your palms briskly together. My brain was charged like a halogen bulb on high.

Weird and curious. Did thinking I'm falling asleep make my head buzz and wake me up? In that moment, I realized that insomnia was being driven by my thoughts, and Restful Insomnia started by my thoughts and paying attention to my body.

I had a lot of time to explore how the Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind work. Like how the Conscious Mind can chase the connection to sleep away. Or how to step aside from the Conscious Mind. I discovered that altering the relationship with one's mind is a key to soothing the body at night. I could see it in my husband.

The Minds of Restful Insomnia

My husband was great at letting go of the Conscious Mind at night. If something bugged him, he'd just figure that the problem would get resolved in some way, somehow, someday—and fall asleep.

However, for me, and for many of my clients, the Conscious Mind is too active at night to just stop thinking, worrying, and planning. It needs something to replace its manic anxiety and help it fall back behind the Unconscious Mind. The Restful Insomnia techniques use the environment, the body, emotions, spiritual views, and new mental perspectives to change the mind in the middle of the night.

Here are some examples of these techniques, described fully later in the book:

• Distract the Conscious Mind by counting sheep—or blessings.
• Do a relaxation exercise, but not to fall asleep. Instead, relax to appreciate the body at night.
• Create a soothing stash of items with a Night Nest. (See chapter 4, “Creating a Night Nest.”)
• Develop a body-focused Evening Ritual—a habit to help your body remember the dusk. (See chapter 5, “Evening Rituals.”)

The Conscious Mind may resist at first—remember, its job is to be in charge and plan, worry, and think. Over time, though, it will find that the Unconscious Mind really helps it solve problems, change, and accept the unexpected.

Your Conscious Mind Learns

When my client Tom started looking for techniques to help him bring his Unconscious Mind to the fore, his Conscious Mind said, “H...