The average person spends one third of their entire life ASLEEP. They are numbers that send shivers down my spine. Not only that but even sleeping this much, most people don’t have the energy and vigor to be able to take on the day as enthusiastically as they would like. There are many kinds of sleeping problems but perhaps the most common is simply not getting a high enough quality rest no matter how long we have our heads on the pillow.
Hands up if you have experienced this: You get to bed at night and you lie in bed for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour before you actually fall asleep. Of course we all have, some people more often than others. Really this is a wasted hour because your body is not resting or recovering since you aren’t asleep and yet you can’t get anything of value done in that time.
The major reason for this is that you need to be in a certain state before your body will shut down and go to sleep. Your brain waves need to be fluctuating at a certain frequency and your heart rate needs to have dropped to a certain level. Depending on what time of the day we get into bed relative to what we have been doing throughout the day, it can take a long time for our bodies to move into this state. Even on good nights most of us will take at least 20 minutes or so to nod off.
Here’s a question: What if you could fall asleep almost as soon as you hit the pillow?
What would happen is you would fall into your sleeping state sooner and hence get more sleep. No more tossing or turning in bed, no more wrestling with your pillow. Just deep sleep from the second you hit the hay. You get a more restful sleep, feel more energetic in the morning and have more energy with which to start the day.
Not only that but think of this: Let’s say normally you sleep from 11pm until 7am, 8 hours of sleep. If you normally spend 20 minutes, half an hour, or an hour TRYING to get to sleep. (assuming it’s an hour) That means you only get 7 hours of actual sleep anyway, but you need that first hour because it’s what GET’S you to sleep for that period.
What if you could fall asleep instantly? Theoretically (and if you wanted to) you could stay up for another hour longer doing something productive. It might not seem like a lot but an extra hour a day will lead to you having lived an extra 2 weeks of life within just a year.
The point of this article is that YOU CAN fall asleep instantly, with a simple little exercise courtesy of NLP.
As we know, NLP recognizes that any behavior (including sleeping) is the result of a particular emotional state. Tiredness is one such emotional state. By creating the state of tiredness and using what’s called an ‘anchor’ we can learn to achieve the state of tiredness (so we will fall instantly asleep) at a moments notice!
What we want to do is first create a state that is best for us to visualize things, so we can create a mental image that is particularly clear. This is called an alpha state, named after the type of brainwaves we experience when we are in one. Our mind has slowed right down and we are quite relaxed. Once we are in that state, we will anchor a certain mental picture or movie to the emotion of feeling tired so that we can flick a switch and recreate the tiredness.
Here’s what to do:
First you have to make yourself tired. Do what it takes so that you can perform this exercise. Stay up an extra few hours, go for a run earlier in the day, whatever you have to do so that you can get to a state of feeling tired, the more tired the better.
Now go to your bedroom and lie down on your bed. We will have already produced the alpha state so it’s prime time to do some visualizing.
Count backwards from 50 to 1, nice and slowly, making sure your breathing stays slow too. Imagine you are getting more and more tired with each number that you count. Feel and picture each of your limbs getting heavier and see yourself slowly sinking into your mattress.
By the time you get to three you should be very tired, but not at the point where you are losing control and about to nod off. When you get to the number 3 you will start visualizing. After you count 3, picture yourself drawing the number in big bright red paint on the wall of your room. See this movie clearly, imagine exactly where you are drawing it, make sure you can see it in first person (as though you are looking through your own eyes) and make the details as vivid as you can in your tired state. When you are finished, count the number two and continue your mental movie by painting a big blue TWO on another wall of your room following the same procedure, trying to see the details very clearly. Finally repeat the same thing as you count one, drawing a big number 1 in yellow, somewhere in your room.
The idea is to have this state of extreme tiredness linked in your head to the movie of you drawing the numbers on the wall.
If you have done it correctly you should now be able to start viewing the movie of you painting the things on the wall at any time of the day and start to feel a bit droopy.
You can perform the exercise in a few nights in a row to strengthen the association if you wish. You might find it takes a few times for the movie and the state of tiredness to become totally connected. Just make sure you view the movie exactly the same each time, using the same walls and the same numbers and colors.
You have now created an anchor. When you are ready to go to sleep each night, simply run your little movie of you painting the numbers in color on your walls and you will gently drift off to a very deep sleep as soon as your head hits the pillow!
This is just one of the many practical applications of NLP you will find around this site. Feel free to scroll through to pick out more.
You will now have an extra hour each day with which to do something productive, and more energy when you wake up in the morning to charge mercilessly forth in pursuit of your dreams.
Enjoy! There are currently no posts in this category.
