People have many sleep-related myths. This itself leads to many anxieties about sleep. Some myths include that having a perfect night’s sleep is about uninterrupted 8 to 9 hours of sleepin bed. This is, however, not true. Waking up in between several times is a usual occurrence. Not only this, we move regularly in cycles of sleep. NREM (Non-rapid eye movement) and REM (Rapid Eye movement) are two sleep cycles. However, within the NREM sleep cycle, there are three stages known as N1, N2 and N3. People spend about 75% of the time in the NREM cycle, and every 90 to 120 minutes, these cycles and stages transition. However, people have certain beliefs and myths about sleep and how a perfect sleep pattern must be, which can raise anxieties andharm one’s health. This is where mindfulness can be a helpful skill set to learn and follow.
The following blogs are a series of mindfulness exercises you can use during the day before going to sleep and when lying awake or unable to sleep. Let’s understand the principle of mindfulness. Most of our suffering occurs when we resist the problem presented to us. Resisting is not a problem-solving strategy. Instead, it makes us tense and anxious. The amygdala in our brain, which is the centre for responding to events, cannot differentiate between real physical threats and thoughts. The more our thoughts regarding sleep patterns are unhelpful, the worse our problems become. To resist less we need to accept more. To accept more, we have to reduce our expectations and judgements. We go along every day, holding judgements and responses to every input that comes our way. For example., when we hear a loud noise, the noise has no particular significance. However, we get irritated due to the judgment we place on that sound. Likewise, when we go through our day worrying about sleeplessness or setting an expectation that we must sleep, it can lead to more anxiety.
We need to learn to delay our responses to resist and respond less. The tool we can use for this is our breath. We stay in the moment by bringing our focus to the breath every time our mind moves to the future to worry or to the past, in present awareness. This is a vital aspect of mindfulness. The more we stay in the present, the more mindful we are. When, in the present state, we experience inputs either from outside or in the form of our thoughts, when we learn to resist less and accept more, it is the second most crucial aspect of being in the mindful state. For example, if you get a negative thought, “I am just useless”, observe the thought and repeat to yourself, “I have a thought that I am useless. This is a thought that I am having”. When you are in observation mode, you tend to judge less. When you tend to judge less, you are less critical of yourself. More acceptance will be in place. This way, the next time you get negative thoughts, you learn to defuse the thought by acting as an observer.
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