Quieting The Mind For Sleeping
It all first began when my cousin told me it took her hours to get to sleep. She explained she couldn’t stop thinking about all her many serious problems. She would lay wide awake for hours, repeating over and over again all her problems, concerns and worrying about what she was going to do tomorrow.
While this is bad enough during the day, it becomes impossible at night time. So, I sat down with her and told her what I do to get to sleep within about 30 minutes, every night.
3-STEP PROCESS
OK, this is a 3-step process to quiet your mind. It begins before you go to bed, 1 to 3 hours before. Nothing electronic, no TV, no computer and no cell phone. Pleasant conversation, meditation, reading a pleasant book, and/or taking a warm bath.
The second step involves before you go to bed (or any time during the day), take some time to review all your concerns and problems. Take each situation individually, and put it into a category - such as important, not important, can be postponed without any consequences, easily solved, difficult to solve, don’t understand everything about a problem, don't understand why others think it is a problem, it's actually someones else’s problem, not your problem, or maybe it is not even a problem, but turns out to actually be something useful or good.
At this point, some of your so-called “problems” will probably become dissolved and disappear before you even get into bed.
You immediately stop worrying about those problems that are not immediately pertinent, and already your mind begins to relax just a little. You can temporarily dismiss those “problems”. Then dismiss those that can be postponed without any consequences. The ones that are easy to solve, just create your plan on how to solve them and when you expect to implement that plan.
Then, you will notice that particular “problem” immediately disappears from your mind, because it has been “solved”, put away in a corner to be resolved later and at this moment requires no additional thoughts.
Those “problems” that are actually someone else’s will disappear once you identify them as not your problem. And those that turn out to not be a problem when other information about them becomes known, will immediately disappear from your mind.
You want to get your problems all solved, or at least have a plan of how and when you will take care of those problems. You can even put some of your “problems” out of your mind by deciding you have time over the next few days to work on them. At that point, they immediately disappear from your mind.
Then, since all your “problems” will have either been solved or parked in a space to be looked at later (next day, week or month) you can relax in peace.
I told my cousin the most common overactive thinking while trying to go to sleep is resolving how to deal with all your problems before you go to bed. Then, your mind will be quiet.
Or will it be quiet? Maybe and maybe not. Another possibility is worrying about something that happened in the past, or a fear of something that has not yet happened, but might.
Perhaps you are analyzing something from the past. Why it happened, how you could have made it better or prevented something unpleasant from happening?
I asked my cousin if she sometimes thought about the past or worried about the future while trying to go to sleep? She said yes, she sometimes also worries about her boyfriend, why her girlfriend said something, or that her mother scolded her for something.
Of course, these are all things that commonly occur throughout a day, and typically they are resolved or dealt with at the time they occur. But sometimes you review them later (perhaps inappropriately while trying to go to sleep). You want to figure out if you had responded differently would there have been a better outcome.
Of course, you will never know, yet your mind keeps reviewing these over and over and over again. Since you are not being distracted with various tasks to perform while you are trying to go to sleep, your mind is taking advantage of this “down” quiet-time to ramp up by continuing to keep thinking about and not relaxing and quieting down.
My cousin said yes, but then asked how she could get her mind to quiet down so she could get to sleep. So I said OK, let’s start with her boyfriend. Remember, you can influence him but not make him do anything he does not want to do. Trust that your higher self will automatically always have you say and do the right things - then no matter what the outcome, he stays or leaves, - you will always be better off, either way.
If it is not going to work out it is best to find out now rather than later, so don’t fight it, just let it happen. Either way, you will be better off, and grateful. So now you have just relieved your mind of dealing with it. You will be fine either way, so your mind will not think about it when you go to sleep.
Next, why her girlfriend said something. Likely, it is something you did not feel comfortable with, or it would not still be on your mind. Perhaps you are wondering why she said it, it is actually true, or can you learn from it. Best to think about this before you get into bed, preferably before dinner or earlier.
You can resolve the next time to speak to her, to ask her a few gentle loving questions to have her clarify what she said so you can learn something useful, helpful and productive from it. Remember, it is to be a discussion, never an argument. A discussion is to learn more. An argument is about who is right and who is wrong. An argument should always be avoided. Remember, it takes two to tango.
And next, what about her mother scolding her? Of course, we start with knowing her mother loves her more than anything, would never hurt her and will always protect her no matter what! I reminded my cousin that her mother likely scolded her in an attempt to help her. Perhaps it was clumsy.
But it was clearly well meaning. Yet, my cousin felt hurt or stung by it. Ok. Look carefully at what her mother meant to convey to her. What was her mother trying to protect her from? Perhaps her mother was warning her about something she was not aware of. If you don’t understand what was behind the comment, ask her to clarify it more. Ask her point blank how what she was saying would help her. It might just need to be rephrased.
And number 3, meditate either just before getting into bed, or immediately after getting into bed. This always clears and quiets your mind, quickly putting you to sleep.
Now, my cousin reported the next day she went right to sleep, and her mind immediately quieted down! Mission Accomplished!