Although sleep is a normal behavior, sleep disturbance
is very common, especially when we become worried and have
intrusive thoughts. It is a common symptom when we feel stress, anxiety,
depression, or suffer from chronic pains, chronic ailment, or they are
just getting older. Sleep
disturbance has different manifestations such as, having difficulty
falling asleep, sleeping lightly, waking several times during the night,
or waking too early in the morning. The
fact that sleeping pills are one of the best selling drugs indicates the
widespread incidence of the phenomena. The problem may intensify when
we develop negative
expectations about the coming night. It becomes a self-fulfilling
prophesy. The more we worry about having some form of sleep disturbance,
the greater the level of stress
hormones in our bodies, the greater likelihood the problem will
intensify.
There is a common denominator among all the
psychological techniques aiming to improve sleep. There is a Hebrew
saying that
describes it very clearly: "The more you run after the sleep, the faster
it runs away from you." Life experience tells us that even if we sleep
very little for two or three nights
in a row, it is enough to sleep the following night for seven or eight
hours in order to feel OK. So why to worry if you sleep one or two
nights very little?
If it takes us too long to fall a sleep, we need to
apply a technique aiming to distract our thoughts. Some people play TV
or
the radio all night long, some play soft music or White Noise, some
meditate and some listen to a relaxation CD. A relaxation CD should
never be played while driving. It is
recommended to play it while lying in bed, in any comfortable position,
with closed eyes. When listening to the instructions, it is important
not to concentrate on every word
and every sentence. Often, thoughts wonder and the listener falls
asleep. It is also recommended to listen to the CD without earphones
since is not comfortable to sleep
with them. Listening to the CD helps stop intrusive thoughts and reduces
the level of stress hormones, as a result, the quality of the sleep
improves and nightmares are
extremely rear. If we get up in the middle of the night, and are having
trouble falling asleep again, or if we tend to wake up too early in the
morning, we can restart the CD
and it will help us to fall asleep again. Many people, who have trouble
maintaining their sleep, set the recording to play all night long, in a
very law volume.
I published four books in Hebrew each of them
included a CD of relaxation consisting of two 20 minute relaxation
sessions.
Since some of my books became best sellers, many Israelis were exposed
to my relaxation CDs. Many people sent me an e-mail, describing the
effect of the CD on them.
Most readers, who used the CD for the purpose of helping them to fall a
sleep faster, describe similar experiences. During the first few nights,
they had to listen to the
relaxation program once or twice before they would fall asleep.
Gradually, they fell asleep faster. After a week or two, most fell
asleep after listening to the first few
sentences. Those who tended to awaken in the middle of the night, or too
early in the morning, re-ran the CD and fell asleep very fast.
