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Mental relaxation techniques can help you get rid of unwanted
thoughts that rush through your head and keep you from relaxing or falling
asleep. The exercises below are all helpful for inducing sleep. To reduce anxiety and stress, focus on
the first three (visualization, floating, and progressive muscle
relaxation).
Visualization
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Think of an object that you find simple and
pleasing. Study every line of it in your mind, appreciating its grace and
texture.
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Imagine a color shifting into beautiful
patterns and hues, blending and changing.
·
Picture a quiet setting—maybe a winter
scene with snowflakes softly falling or a spring day in the country, with
cows and horses grazing in a meadow, or of children playing on the
beach.
Be sure to feel the picture by engaging all of
your senses. When you imagine the beach, feel the sun on your face, your
toes squishing in the sand, the breeze caressing your skin. Smell the clean
ocean air. Imagine you are filming a
silent movie of the scene.
Floating
Another way to relax is to imagine you’re being
suspended by something other than your mattress. Picture yourself floating
slowly downward like a leaf in the air. Or you’re descending a very
gradual staircase. Or you’re gliding down a long escalator. The lower
you float, the calmer you are. Or be like a raft on the sea, bobbing gently
up and down.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Slowly tense and relax each of your muscles one by one,
starting with your head and neck and progressing down your arms and onward
to your feet. Tense each muscle for
a slow count to five, then release it.
Counting
Close your eyes and relax. Count backward slowly from
100 to zero. As you do, visualize the numerals in some beautiful way. Maybe
you see them being written slowly and carefully by a calligrapher. Or maybe
you see them on a staircase, each step holding a number lower than the step
above. Or try seeing the numbers being skywritten
across a clear blue sky. Make each number as large and sweeping as
possible. Continue until sleep overtakes you.
Thought-stopping
In thought-stopping, you willfully force your mind to
think the very thoughts that keep you awake. For example, think about your
boss chewing you out tomorrow. Mull it over, every detail of it. Then,
suddenly, order yourself to “Stop!” If the thought creeps back,
yell to yourself again, “Stop!” Keep
interrupting your unpleasant thought with unpleasant commands to yourself.
There are two explanations why thought-stopping works:
1.
The word “Stop!” forces an immediate shifting of our attention,
which will lead us away from preoccupying thoughts.
2.
Thought-stopping proves to us that we do have power
over ourselves—more than we think. That awareness can lead us to
thinking more self-assuring, self-accepting thoughts—thoughts that
are more conducive to sleep.
Reverse psychology
Believing that you must sleep can cause
performance anxiety that actually keeps you awake. A way to combat this is to tell yourself
not that you must fall asleep, but that you must stay awake,
and for as long as possible. Now you are in a win-win situation, whatever happens. In other words, by forcing yourself to stay
awake as long as possible, you may naturally become sleepy without putting
yourself under pressure.
Remember there is a positive
side to not sleeping: it will increase your chances of sleeping better the
next night (as long as you don’t sleep in and avoid daytime naps).
Sighing
Sometimes we need to blow off steam, literally. We do
this by sighing: Inhale deeply through your nose. Then pucker your lips,
and exhale slowly through them. Make breathing out last as long as it feels
comfortable. As you hear the air leaving your body, imagine the sighing
sound is tension draining from your body.
Updated 11/18/4 by Chris Aiken,
M.D.
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