Now I lay me down to sleep …
Regardless of what you believe or practice spiritually, you probably know the rest of that nightly prayer or mantra. It is interesting that we often teach children something to say each night, a way to say today is over, it has ended, let go and rest.
(But in some families in a scary way, sweet dreams honey but if you die, make sure you asked god to take you.)
At some point though we stop putting the day to rest, and having a closing statement or ritual. Fast forward to adulthood and we have adults that are not shutting off the brain at night, and not sleeping well. In fact they are tossing and turning replaying the day over and over again. In fact sometimes they are replaying weeks at a time, both past and present.
Our brain is a wonderful tool, and it is more than happy to help us problem solve and answer all of our questions. That is a good thing, BUT it can also be a bad thing. When we are moving into the time for our body to take a break and to rest, we need our brain to stop “problem solving” and instead to lead us into rest, sleep and dreams. You need that for your health, physical, mental and emotional.
So how do we allow our brain to help us and yet shut off? One of the easy steps is to let it know the day is done, complete, put to bed, closed, and now you are going to sleep. It sounds too simple, and it sounds too easy; and the natural inclination of many is to say “and what else?” because they want it to be harder.
I suggest that folks come up with a little nightly mantra or prayer that tells your spirit, your brain, your body that you are done for the night. It seems easier to have a little rhyme and keep it simple, you don’t have to look at it from a place of making a list of everything to turn off.
My day is complete.
It really can be that simple. Then there are two more parts, for even better success. If you have something else you need to work on, or you want to use the, “head start on your next day” energy, then turn it over to your belief system. For you it may be god, or your guides, or the universe, higher energies, or even the quantum field.
I give the work to ___ while I sleep.
Instead of work you may want to say the problems, the waking or day time, the questions, the test prep, what ever it is that makes sense in your life to shut off. Think of it as closing a file folder, and handing it to someone else to work on while you are at lunch.
The last step is in the morning when you wake up, to take back the parts that make sense, and move into your new day. Be honest there is a LOT of stuff that we bring forward, that really could have been left in the past. So a simple statement when you wake up of - Show me the solutions.
Try it for a week, I think you will be surprised with better rest, and success!
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