Monday, June 29, 2015

Treating Insomnia

. There are few things more frustrating, or debilitating, than functioning on not enough sleep. You're not just tired, but out of sorts, irritable, low energy, less competent at your job and even judgement becomes poor or unreliable. You drag yourself around.
. There are a few causes for sleep disorders, but chief among them is central nervous system high tone. In other words, the body is suffering from some form of anxiety, nervousness or overload. You may not even feel particularly afraid, but the physiological process of being overwhelmed or overcharged is identical to the fight or flight response. The nervous system does not differentiate stress and worry from life or death survival - one is merely more intense than the other.
. Key to turning this picture around is reducing tone in the nervous system, and we do this by separating the things which stress you from those which are physically dangerous. You need your fight or flight response for traffic incidents or wild animals, if you live near any. In this work you take on responsibility for non-life-threatening problems consciously, and relieve the body of trying to deal with them unconsciously. Most likely, that is what's keeping you up.
. I would love to hear a story about a time when you felt great even though you were in a potentially stressful situation.

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