What is your relationship with sleep?

What is your relationship with your sleep? Let's talk about that.....

I like to talk about sleep as if it were a person. Very often when I work with my clients, they have had such a strained relationship with sleep that you can really compare it to an old married couple. There are a lot of misunderstandings and it's just a very frustrated relationship. Both sides have expectations, but it just doesn't quite sit right.

What happens between you and sleep?

So, what happens to you and your sleep? If sleep were a person, it would have different expectations from you. It would think why don't you prepare for me? Why do you do so many different things with your body that make it so difficult for me to come and help you? In the end, sleep is a friend. It is someone who loves you very much and it is here to help you:

• make you feel better
• healthier
• to support
• help manage your stress
• help you with your dreams
• make it look better
• feel better
• get smarter 

all that sleep wants to do. Sometimes sleep just struggles with it, because our lifestyle makes it difficult. You are on the other side. You are so frustrated with sleep because it should be easy! It should help you, but it just doesn't happen. Every night you get so frustrated with it, it's a source of anxiety. You just know, tonight is not going to be anything!

"I get back in my bed, I can't sleep and I let my thoughts run wild. It gets super hard and the next day I'm super tired........ Why does it still not work out?"

Your relationship is on the rocks.

Both parties have that tension of a relationship on the rocks, and usually my job is to really look at why that miscommunication is happening. What can we do to make it harmonious again? There are several things. You can help your body get ready for sleep by making sure that;

• you have enough rest before you go to sleep
• your nutrition is fine
• how to get your hormones in balance
• balancing your thyroid gland
• you don't have inflammation in your body
• don't eat foods you are sensitive to

All of that can help you sleep better, so sleep can just do its job and help you relax. Also your mind begins to forgive and sees sleep not as your enemy, but as your buddy.

"I know you want to help me. I know you're my friend. I know you want to do the best you can. I'm just struggling right now, but I'm doing my best and I want to welcome you. You're not the enemy. You're not something I dislike!"

Welcome sleep!

Imagine if sleeping was a person. You would basically tell him to fuck off all the time! You would tell him to go away and not come back for the time being, because he is not welcome. You just hate him every night. How welcome would you feel? So, this relationship is just messed up sometimes. But if you understand sleep and rediscover him as your ally again; something that is beautiful and wonderful and can help you on so many levels, you can prepare for it. You can say:

"I actually really love you. I really do, and I know things aren't great right now, but we're both going to figure it out." 

Then you begin to relax again and you can take the various steps toward that amazing relationship with your sleep. Try to come to it from love, instead of fear, anger, stress and sometimes even hate. I have so many clients who tell me, "I hate my sleep. I hate the night. It's the worst time of the day because I already know it's going to ruin the next morning. I really believe it helps to change that perception, that whole motivation, that emotion around it. 

Sleep is your lover. Sleep is your friend. Sleep is your ally. It loves you a lot. It is struggling right now. It often feels unloved and you feel it has left you.....

So there are many things you can do, but changing that mindset; going from this angry place to an "I get it, I understand, let's do this together," is the first step!

This is a blog by our guest blogger Christine Hansen. Broring and Christine work together to provide the best sleep experience for our customers.

Christine Hansen
Sleep Expert to CEOs, Executives and Successful Entrepreneurs who want to sleep but can't, Sleep Like A Boss
https://sleeplikeaboss.com/