What Keeps You Awake?

What Keeps You Awake?

 

I ask clients who come to me with issues over anxiety and insomnia, ‘what keeps you awake’? It may take a few moments but most of you know what keeps you awake: that inner voice.

Quieting the self-talk is a condition you can overcome by understanding that being gentle with yourself and taking small steps toward eliminating negative loops is helpful.

Try this:

• Breathe in to the count of 8, hold for 8 and exhale to your internal count of 16.
• Repeat 3 times.
• Be prepared to write in your journal.
• Set a goal of taking 2 days and at the end of each day, writing down anything you can recall that you said to yourself which was unpleasant, mean, negative, unproductive or repetitious.
• You will probably have a loop of something you say to yourself.
• Stop the loop by saying to yourself: ‘Cancel, Cancel’…loudly.
• At first you might replace the negative loop with a pleasant thought that refers you to a past experience, but finally you must teach yourself to stop.
• Tell yourself: ‘That’s just my loop”, I can change it just as easily as I can change directions.
• With anxiety, it’s helpful to identify your triggers. If you have loops of self-talk that keep you in a trance of anxiety, apply the cancel, cancel mantra. But you also have to get moving.
• Anxiety stops when you move faster than it moves…you can do this by getting up from your desk and doing squats or you can use your imagination to see something moving quickly.

Let me know how you’re doing.