Sleep Science Academy founder and your guide to better sleep, Devin Burke, explains how you can overcome sleep anxiety by living in the moment.
You need to understand that when your life is more peaceful, your sleep is also more peaceful. Your day impacts your night, and your night impacts your day. Attempting to separate the two is virtually impossible, and I find it interesting that people don’t put this together.
When you can better manage anxiety throughout the day and determine where that anxiety originates, you can achieve better sleep. More restful sleep gives you the energy to deal with an anxious mind.
Here, we will go step-by-step through some specific tools for dealing with the anxiety in your life that keeps you up at night.
What Is VS What Should Be
Most of us try to change what is into what should or shouldn’t be.
Let me repeat: Most people try to deny what IS (the reality of the moment) for what we think should or should not be.
In other words, we resist our experience.
Often, anxiety is fear of the future, worrying about something that may or may not occur. Most people have anxiety because they constantly think about what might go wrong.
Accepting Reality
Once we can acknowledge the uncomfortable thoughts and sensations that arise when we think about the future and accept the present moment as it is, we can understand how to let go of the ideas that keep us up at night. Through this process, we can overcome perceptions that keep us locked in that fight-or-flight state which keeps us up at night.
This idea may sound paradoxical but truly accepting “what is” is the best way to change what is for the better. Because what we are experiencing at the moment is what is and all we have.
This concept may sound theoretical and paradoxical because we are not trained to live in the moment, to be present. We are conditioned to think about the past and worry about what could or may be the future. But when we bring ourselves back to the present, we put ourselves in a state of resourcefulness.
In this state of resourcefulness, our body has innate wisdom and intelligence to know what to do. This condition gives us our most significant opportunity to connect to reality which is all we have – right now and in the moment.
Achieving this state of resourcefulness takes practice because it does not come naturally. We are naturally conditioned to do quite the opposite, to should and shouldn’t all over ourselves, leading to unnecessary suffering, frustration, anger, and more anxiety.
All of this negativity and anxiety fosters more sleepless nights leading to the paradox and the vicious cycle of sleepless nights and troublesome days.
Make Insomnia Your Teacher
This simple shift, making insomnia your teacher instead of your enemy, is extremely powerful.
When you can take what you don’t want but what is as a teacher, viewing it as a message from your body that something is out of balance in your thoughts or actions, you put yourself in a better position to resolve and understand the anxiety and enter into the present moment.
I am not trying to be theoretical or spiritual in this, but I have helped thousands of people overcome chronic insomnia and decades of issues with their sleep. And when they get what I’m sharing with you in this video, things start to shift and begin to open up for them.
These results are just a taste of what we do for our clients at Sleep Science Academy at a much deeper level.
Practice, Practice
Hone in on what is instead of what you think it should be. Being present at the moment doesn’t come naturally, and it will take practice and rehearsal to make a successful shift in perspective. We are trained to resist what is and to constantly look for what’s not right, a survival mechanism which, unfortunately, keeps us in an anxious state leading to poor sleep and increased anxiety.
Summary
Take what you learn here this week and practice genuinely accepting what is, and take notice when you are not. Simply being aware when you slip into worrying about the future and what might happen and then choosing to accept the current situation and that you are having thoughts is a massive first step in resolving these issues.
FACT: When your life is more peaceful your sleep is more peaceful.
Step 1: STOP resisting “what is” with judgments, shoulds and shouldn’t’s
Step 2: WELCOME thoughts and body sensations vs resisting
Step 3: PRACTICE LETTING GO!!!
Step 4: Choose to no longer make insomnia an enemy. Try instead to get curious about it. What is this experiencing this sleeplessness or anxiety trying to teach me?
Step 5: PRACTICE truly accepting “what is.” Truly accepting “what is, is the best way to change “what is.”
Final Thoughts
If this video and information help resolve your anxieties and sleep challenges, please share it with others. And if you would like to gain even more insight and tools to achieve more restful sleep, the professional sleep coaches at Sleep Science Academy can guide you to the best rest of your life.
If a lifetime of peaceful sleep and more pleasant and productive daytimes sounds appealing, contact us today and schedule your complimentary sleep consultation with a professional sleep coach. You can learn more about our multipronged empowering program in this article about Dynamic Sleep Recalibration.