MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin

I Used to have this problem a lot.

Used to take me several hours to get to sleep, tossing and turning, ...and end up having horrible dreams to boot.

The solution was a brief time doing Meditation.
You learn and eventually excel at focusing and controling your thoughts, emotions, and mind.

Now I can get to sleep in a few minutes. When I wake, Im in the same position I started out in.

A simple exercise and example of forced mind control:

Lay down. Take 5 slow deep breaths, focusing on the feel and control of them. Then, start to Think of anything Red that pops into your mind. A Red hat, brick..ect. Do this for 2min. Then move on to the next color in the Spectrum: Red,Orange,Yellow,Green,Blue,Violet or Purple,Finishing with White (Thats 14 minutes total. It goes by painlessly)

Remember, Take at least 5 very deep breaths in and out before you start. Try not to move any muscles all through. If you can hold out, not moving the body for about 8 min, it will get heavy, and sleep... even with the mind mildly awake. The mind, being 'Forced' to think about things that are not conductive to any real emotion or deep thoughts... will slow to a nearly, or full sleep state.

The more you do the exercise, the less time it will take, the easier it will be, and the more benefit you will see from it.

This is just an introduction of course, to proper meditation, which yields even greater results. However, a lot of ppl have a hard time jumping right into the discipline of the real deal, without something basic and easy like this first.

In a month of doing this every night, you will find amazing difference, and it lasts a lifetime, even if you stop the exercises / meditations.

Edit:

A few other tips:

1) Dont eat or drink 1hr (or more) before you intend to sleep. Food and non-water drinks will fire the body back up, making it much harder to get to sleep.

2) Obviously stay away from things with Caffeine, Energy drinks, high sugar content, for as long 'before' sleep as possible. Dont use Alcohol. It doesnt work as well as you would think... and it will have many negative consequences.

3) Try to Confront things in waking life as best as possible when they happen. If you bury things, the sub-conscious mind will start to un-earth them as soon as you are trying to get to sleep... and in the form of nightmares, when you are not able to hold them back.

4) Learn to be able to let certain things go. There was a saying: "Let go and let god". You dont have to be Religious to get the idea/benefit from this. Some things cant be changed.. and over-thinking things (stressing) wont usually help anything anyways.

5) Realize the greatest thing of importance to your Happiness & Well-Being, is your internal situation. Given All the money, time, and resources in the world, and you still could be completely Miserable inside. If there are things you know you need to work on, make the efforts. Every step is progress. And progress internally, can give you a better life experience.

Edited by xiaou2 (08/19/11 04:58 AM)