When sleep hygiene is not enough. Then what?

If you’ve ever struggled with sleep, I am sure you’ve heard some advice from well meaning friends and family members go something like this.

• Just go to bed earlier.
• Don’t have coffee after lunch.
• Unwind before bed by having a hot bath or drinking chamomile tea.
• Put your phone away before bed time.

As much as I agreed that all those things are important in order to promote good sleep, many times that is not enough.

In this blog, I will not talk about sleep hygiene.  If you want to learn more here is is an article from the sleep foundation https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/sleep-hygiene

Today I want to talk to you about what to do when you’ve tried all the tips and tricks you’ve gotten from everyone and you still can’t sleep. 

Do you feel completely exhausted and alone in your sleep struggles?  Feeling like no one can understand you because they can sleep so easily while you lay there getting more and more frustrated that it’s one more night without sleep.

Is that you?

It was me a few years ago.  Well, ok, maybe I didn’t follow exactly all the steps listed in the article, but I tried a lot of them. And nothing worked.

Why not?

Because my nervous system was activated beyond the point where I could control it to bring it back into a calm state.  I was under a lot of stress.  Living in what they call “the fight or flight” response all day and all night.  I didn’t have any coping skills to release this stress from my body. And when I would go to bed at night, I had not processed all my emotions from the day because I was too busy “doing” stuff and not enough time taking care of myself.

My words during this difficult time in my life were:  “If I just had an off switch for my brain, then I could sleep”. 

Sleep hygiene did not give me that “off switch” I needed in order to be able to calm my nervous system enough to go to sleep.  

I needed to find something, anything that would help me “switch off” my brain for the night and find sleep again.

And then I discovered tapping.  This tool changed my sleep, helped me “switch off” my brain and then my whole life changed in extraordinary ways.

Tapping, at its core, is known as a stress reduction technique.  It seeks to address imbalances within the person’s energy system, as well as the energetic influences of thoughts, beliefs, and emotions in the body.

When we add tapping to our daily routine, we can start retraining our nervous system to cope with the stress as it is happening in the moment.  Training our nervous system to be in a more calm and relaxed state. What is known as the “rest and digest” state.

By acknowledging and creating awareness around the truth we are currently living (for me the extreme stress I was under every single day), we give ourselves permission to feel those emotions, thoughts, and beliefs and start shifting them into a more positive energy.  We are learning how to turn the switch off when needed.

We are so busy being “Human DOINGS” with our to do list.  Never taking the time to acknowledge our emotions.  We live life on autopilot.  I encourage you to start being a “Human BEING” and take a few minutes each day to sit with your emotions and release them, using tapping.

You will see how your life can change.

And if you need more information on how to do that, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. https://tappingintosleep.com/

I’ve also written a blog on how to use tapping to help you get a better night’s sleep.

Until next time, Sleep tight!