Can your better sleep program really help me?

Hi, here is my problem.

I wake up in the middle of the night, almost always after just five hours, give or take an hour.
A nagging problem of not being able to sleep the night before any event, whether it be with friends, business, etc. Whatever it is, I struggle. I just have an anxiety about it and it is really tough to overcome.

Can your program help me with that?

This question was submitted by 'Mark'

Mark says...

Hi Mark and thanks for writing in.

It's pretty common to have mini-awakenings in the middle of the night, but oftentimes people don't become consciously aware of these awakenings and drift on back to sleep pretty fast. However, if we focus on, think about, or worry about sleep quality, then we are looking out for being awake and, of course, when it happens, the worry of "oh no, I'm awake" can act as the stimulant that keeps us awake. The more you use these moments of middle of the night lucidity to relax deeply, the more you will train your mind and body not to bother so much with these awakenings.

Worrying as a stimulant that prevents sleep onset or maintenance the night before some event is really common, of course. Some people claim that creativity can be enhanced for a while through not sleeping before some creative activity (presumably because REM suppression at night - no sleeping and thus no dreaming - leads to a need to tap into the creative brain during the day more). So, not sleeping before an event isn't necessarily a disadvantage. But I still recommend that people learn to switch off and sleep well the night before.

We can recover much of the benefit we lose through under-sleeping by relaxing deeply when we are awake. And, indeed, some people's sleep is less recuperative and relaxing than other people's waking time. The 'Insomnia Beater Pack' will help retrain your mind to sleep on through more and sleep the night before events or activities, but also relax deeply during waking time (for example, if you relax to the audio during, say, afternoons).

All best wishes,

Mark