Other names: Fludac, Rapiflux, Sarafem
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DEALING WITH THE CAUSE OF INSOMNIA: YOUR SLEEP AND OTHER PEOPLE
As I mentioned earlier, some sleep experts believe that anger and resentment are more common causes of night-time churning than anxiety or depression. If that’s the case with you, it’s important to drop them, for the sake of your sleep. It is possible!
If you’re angry about a current situation, either accept it or do something about it; otherwise all that negative energy (and there’s a lot of energy in anger) will go on keeping you awake.
Many people fear confrontations, but it is possible to say what you feel about a situation without having a violent explosion. Telling the person or people concerned calmly how you feel about their behaviour, without blaming or accusing them, can often open up better communications.
If you can’t confront the person, or if the anger-making situation is in the past, whether it’s last week or several years ago, tell yourself that whatever anybody else has said or done, however unfair, cruel, snide, or dishonest, it’s over now. While you are brooding, going over the scene or scenes, rehearsing the remarks you could have made, or intend to make in the future, the other person may well have forgotten the whole thing. The only person who’s making you angry now is you, every time you mentally relive those scenes.
In addition, if you accept the suggestion that thought is energy, consider this: what we think comes back to us. It is generally accepted in healing and spiritual groups that when we send thoughts of healing and kindness to other people, not only will those people benefit but so will we. Thoughts of resentment and vengeance may not affect other people at all, unless it’s to make them even more unpleasant; but they most certainly will boomerang back at us.
A young woman was persuaded by a friend to take the Silva Method course, though she wasn’t too keen. She had been going through a bad time. She hadn’t been able to sleep without pills since a car accident, and she was also full of vengeance towards her ex-husband. When her friend told her her vengeful thoughts would attract negativity to herself, she dismissed the idea as rubbish. However, during the course, she began to understand the sense of it. After regularly practising the techniques, including forgiving her husband, her life has become happier, she sleeps well without pills, and is amazed at the happy relationship she has with her ex-husband; she has also developed powers of healing.
There are other considerations in storing anger. You are not only keeping yourself awake. Firstly, you are setting yourself up for physical problems: high blood pressure, heart problems and arthritis are among the side-effects of long-harboured anger. Secondly, when you let someone else’s behaviour rule your thoughts, emotions and sleep, you are making the person responsible for your peace of mind, handing over to them your personal autonomy.
So, anger and resentment and all those feelings of ‘it’s not fair’ are best dropped. I know that’s easier said than done. But once you really see that they’re doing you no good, you can at least decide to let them go. This decision is the first step towards freedom; it will set your thoughts moving in a different direction.
Resentment is often a deeply ingrained habit, but it’s one we may have been taught by others. Small children are naturally forgiving; I suspect that some of us learn to be resentful from our elders. It’s an unhealthy habit, and once you’ve given it up you will feel better all round.
Do try to get it physically out of your system, during the day. Anger creates the tense muscles that give you headaches and shoulder pain, as well as stimulating the release of stress hormones, all of which can contribute to your insomnia.
One way is the famous pillow-bashing technique, which really does work. Find a time and a place where you can be alone, and make a pillow the focus of your anger. Don’t think of it as the person you are angry with: you are not trying to hurt anyone else but to heal yourself. Start thumping. Yell at the same time. Really let go, and keep shouting and thumping until you are exhausted, drained of your angry feelings, and with your shoulders and arms released of all that tension.
If punching pillows is not your scene, there are other options, like driving to a lonely spot and shouting at the top of your voice. Or write a letter to the person who’s bugging you and then tear it up and burn it. Get all the exercise you can, particularly exercise which uses your arm muscles.
The next stage is to forgive the person or people in question. That can be a hard one, but the important thing is your willingness to forgive. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you condone bad behaviour, or that you have to let anyone continue to treat you badly; it means that you are wiping your own slate clean and getting the past out of your system.
Visualization techniques can be helpful here. In a relaxed state you can visualize the other person, possibly attached to you by cords that your thoughts and feelings have created. See yourself cutting through those cords and burning them, freeing you both. Or imagine a conversation in which you tell the person that you’re releasing them from your thoughts. It may help to imagine them apologizing to you!
Another approach is to imagine your mind as a beautiful room, in which you have the right to entertain the guests of your choice. At the moment it’s full of these cross, grumbling people, reminding you you’ve been hard done by. Tell them you don’t enjoy their company, and show them the door. If they’re reluctant to leave, sweep them out with a broom! Your room is now empty and clean, and there is space in it for more welcome visitors, including peace of mind, serenity and better sleep. Show them in and make them at home.
Anti-DepressantA lot of depressed people suffer from guilt and anger towards themselves, quite often for no good reason. If you belong to this group, do be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself as you would forgive anyone else. Use visualization to let go of those feelings and start afresh, reminding yourself of all the good things about you.
Sometimes anger and resentment are so deeply rooted that people need help in sorting them out Ђ” if their parents neglected or ill-treated them in childhood, for instance. In that case, do get some professional counselling. Of course, it’s usually easier to forgive someone who’s not around than the person playing records upstairs all night Ђ” or snoring beside you in bed.
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