THE SECRET OF EFFORTLESS SLEEP: Part 1
WHAT GETS IN THE WAY
Today I’m going to tell you the secret of effortless sleep. I warn you, it’s going to sound ridiculously simple.
Ready? Here it is:
Let go of control.
I warned you it would sound absurdly simple, outrageously glib. And what the heck does it even mean — let go of controlling what?
Let’s take a look at our experience over the course of a typical day.
The Control Mode of Your Brain
If you take a moment to observe yourself — any time during the day — I think you’ll find that, in one way or another, trying to control what’s happening in, to you, or around you.
Take a quick look at your experience right now. Stop reading for a moment and just sit quietly for around 10 seconds and see if you can notice what your mind is doing.
Was it empty, quiet, peaceful — or was it roaming around to thoughts like what you’ll have for dinner, what so-and-so said or did, didn’t say or didn’t do, how to solve a problem you’re dealing with at work, at home, or with someone you know . . . ?
The Brain’s Default Mode — Mind Wandering
Neuroscientists tell us that when we’re not fully immersed in something we’re doing, our minds tend to default to what we call “mind-wandering mode.” Most of us are painfully aware of the tendency of the mind to wander all over the place. And if you pay attention to your thoughts, you’ll probably see that more often than not — and whether you like it or not — they’re drawn to negative stuff — things that have already gone wrong or that we’re concerned might go wrong in the future.
Or your mind might get caught up in figuring out ways to control people or circumstances to avoid something unpleasant or prevent something you wouldn’t want to happen from happening. Or it might be strategizing about how to fix an unpleasantness or right a wrong that occurred in the past.
One way or another, our thoughts are being driven by a desire for pleasure and an avoidance of pain — and they tend to bounce back and forth between the past and the future. This is the normal, untrained state of the human mind. We all know this experience — and it doesn’t feel good. And after a while, it can give us a headache, drain our energy, and/or bore us to death.
Controlling the Out-of-Control Mind
So what do we tend to do to try to get away from the stress of our busily negative thoughts? You guessed it — we try to control them — we may try to stop thinking altogether or we may try to make ourselves think about things that feel good. But most of us can’t do that for very long (and I mean more than a few seconds!) before they start up all over again.
Escape Mode
So then what? Enter the whole world of distractions — we may turn to Netflix, ice cream, alcohol, shopping, drugs, sex — whatever our addiction of choice may be. But we can’t do that forever and eventually the cycle of control starts all over again.
That may sound hopeless — but don’t worry — there is an alternative which I’ll tell you in a moment!
But, hey, what does all this have to do with sleep?
An Alternative to Control Mode
Now we’re back to where I started this post: the very essence of falling sleep is letting go of control. Having spent a day in various forms of control mode, is it any wonder that we have trouble letting go of it when it’s time for bed?
Happily, our brain comes equipped with a very different mode — one we refer to as “experiential mode”
When you’re in experiential mode, sleep comes easily and naturally.
In the next article I’ll tell you all about experiential mode and how you can learn to access it. Meanwhile, just for fun, you might try spending a couple of minutes a day just noticing the activity of your mind.
Knowing it’s simply the normal default mode of your brain, there’s no need to judge it as wrong or bad — just see if you can simply observe it with a kind and knowing smile (and without trying to control it!) Just sit back and relax and enjoy watching the parade of thoughts as if it were a movie.
In the video below, I’ll guide you through getting an experiential taste of the different forms of control mode.
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Jan (my wife and co-course creator) and I hope you will enjoy and find these articles to be beneficial. But please keep in mind that the practices — although wonderful on their own — become far more effective and powerful when they are part of a structured program that has been specially designed to support you in developing your natural capacity to shift from control mode to experiential mode . . . and from that state of ease, calm and contentment, to drift effortlessly into a deeply restorative sleep.
As a licensed clinical psychologist, I have two certifications in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) and over three decades of practicing and teaching effortless mindfulness and yog anidra. In our online course,“From Restless Nights to Effortless Sleep Jan and I have integrated the three modalities that extensive research has shown to be the most highly effective for curing insomnia, improving the depth and quality of sleep, and providing more energy throughout the day. They are:
· Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)
· Effortless Mindfulness
· Yoga Nidra (Non-Sleep Deep Rest).
In addition to the effectiveness of these modalities, I will be there every day in the Sleep Course-Community Conversation Lounge to answer your questions and help you tailor the practices to your individual needs. And equally, or perhaps even more importantly, you will have a supportive community of fellow learners to motivate and encourage you along the way.
You can learn more about the online sleep course here https://effortless-living.mn.co/spaces/11968534/page