TSHP138: How to Beat Insomnia

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Nothing beats some good, solid sack time does it? For some, sleep is the easiest thing in the world – deep in sleep minutes after their heads hit the pillow. For some, however, sleep is no fun at all. Anxiety or depression during the day can lead to worse at night as they struggle for sleep – and so a vicious cycle begins. So how can we crack insomnia? Let’s find out…

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Struggling with Insomnia?

When you go to sleep at night you enter a deep sleep cycle known as non rapid eye movement or NREM. This is followed by a dream cycle known as rapid eye movement or REM. The time between going to sleep to the end of the dream cycle varies between 1.5 to 2 hours depending on the individual.

These cycles continue throughout the night so that most people will get between three and four cycles. The first cycle is mainly deep sleep with a little bit of dream and the last cycle is mainly dream. It is assumed that the deep sleep is about body rest and repair and the dream cycle is about emotional rest and repair.

When people become emotionally disturbed the dream cycle eats into the deep sleep cycle. In the extreme people get no rest because they are continually dreaming. The result is that you feel more tired when you wake than when you went to sleep. This often leads to an increasing sleep pattern so that people may end up sleeping for sixteen hours or more each, but getting more and more tired.

This is the most common symptom in all depressive illnesses. For some the sleep state is difficult to enter and although fatiguing it is safe. However some forms of sleep deprivation or insomnia can become life threatening.

Fatal insomnia
The condition occurs when proteins called prions in the brain become misshapen. Similar to CJD they damage the thalamus in the brain. This is the part of the brain that alters systems in the body that induce sleep

The thalamus is linked to the body’s sympathetic nervous system, which controls unconscious actions. It regulates the body’s unconscious actions, including hormone levels, temperature, blood pressure and heart rate. In healthy people, at night, hormone levels alter and blood pressure is dropped to induce slumber. But for those with fatal insomnia, these actions don’t happen and so they remain awake, in a permanent pre-sleep state.

Dream Sleep
If following an emotional disturbance dreams become very vivid and technicolor our rest is lost. When the dreams take over our sleep pattern we are discharged from sleep in the dream cycle and we do not get the rest from the deep sleep that we need. Although we may not remember what we were dreaming about, they still wake us, and unless we quickly write it down they are lost.

The difference between deep sleep and dream sleep is that if we wake in deep sleep we are groggy and may not know who we are or where we are until we orient ourselves. However in this state it is easy to go back to sleep. When we wake in dream sleep we are wide awake as though someone has switched the light on and we find it difficult to go back to sleep.

In this weeks podcast Ed and I talked about insomnia and sleep disturbance and suggest resources that may be of help. Improving and maintaining, your sleep pattern is fundamental to your emotional wellbeing.

Some ways to improve your sleep pattern are…

Do not eat of drink for two hours before you go to bed. Only go to bed to sleep not to read or watch or listen to anything. This creates an emotional association with the bed that it is solely for sleep. Avoid any drinks that include high levels of caffeine or tannin. Get at least half an hour exercise everyday, that means making your heart beat at an exercise rate appropriate to you age and health. Develop deep relaxation or self-hypnosis techniques. Mediate every day for at least twenty minutes. If possible take a siesta or a power nap.

Research suggests, people who have a siesta for about an hour have higher levels of serotonin, the well being endorphin, after their siesta than before. This is also true of the shorter power nap. We now question the emphasis on the Mediterranean diet as to the reason why people there live longer; it may be the effect of siesta as well as the diet.

One last thing using sleeping pills, draughts or drugs serve only to treat the symptom and not the cause. If your sleep disturbance is due to emotional disturbance the most effective cure is psychotherapy.

Take care, live in the present

Sean x

TSHP137: Satisfaction. Why do we want more?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Remember when Oliver Twist had the audacity to ask for more? Who could blame is. Today, many of us seem constantly dissatisfied despite our relative immense wealth (if you’re reading this message, odds are that you’re in the top 10% richest people in the world). So why do we always want more and how can we learn to be happy with what we have?

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Why do we crave more?

This week Ed and I were talking about the seemingly endless need that human beings have to always have more. This seems to become extreme at festive time like Christmas and Easter when we see people in the supermarket with trollies stacked high with food and other goods. It’s as though we are all preparing for a segue. Actually the shops are only closed for a day.

There is a sense in which the world has gradually got larger. Certainly with food we have gone from regular size, to family packs, jumbo packs and super size. The packs we buy and the people that we are, just get bigger. Then sadly we read the statistic that over 30% of the food that we buy ends up in the bin.

Not only size but also quantity. Just how many shoes, shirts, coats, bags, and so on do we each need. Ed and I renamed Christmas “Stuffmas” as we each have to find new places to store all the stuff that will be given to us on Christmas Day. So I say “if I can’t eat it or drink it, then I don’t want it” and now I have enough food, drink, biscuit and sweets to feed an army.

It is difficult because the things that are given are done so with love and it is important to learn how to receive as well as to give. I notice that each year more people tell me that they are not buying gifts or sending cards and that they are donating those funds to a project for the poor and needy somewhere in the world.

The need to have, buy, own, give and receive has become embedded in our social psyche. The increase of need and therefore production is the basis of a capitalist economy. Such economies see growth as their aim but they only grow when demand continues to rise. If you listen to the financial news the messages are things like…

“China’s economic growth has slowed last year to only 7%. This has suppressed the price of oil, which has dropped for $100 dollars to $30 a barrel. this means that people are now losing jobs in Aberdeen, Scotland due to the slow down in demand”.

In our system unless there is a growing population the existing population has to buy more to sustain the growth. In Britain we have a population decline. So the financial markets, some time ago, came up with a cunning plan to sustain the systems need for growth. This is called credit.

In the past the economy was stable and grew very slowly if at all. The price of a product remained the same year after year and so wages also stayed the same. Before credit generations of people saved up for what they needed and did not get it, or have it, before they could afford it. Credit allows us to have the future in the present, to live the future in the present, in the now.

Why do we Want to buy more and more all the time?

Buddha’s answer to overcoming the pain of ‘wanting’ is to let go of the future. Indeed to let go of anything that isn’t right here, right now. Credit stops us living in the present. With credit we always have one foot in the future.

I suspect that what we are looking at is an evolutionary need for more.

Imagine that you are part of a hunter gatherer family. The man is out hunting for meat and the woman at home in the cave looking after the kids and the in-laws and going down to the bush to gather nuts and berries and to the water source to fill the pots and pans.

While in the wood the woman sees a large nut tree ready for harvest. Does she only take what she needs to feed her family for that day? Or, does she take more than she needs so that on a day when there isn’t that much food around they can still all eat? This situation also creates a social dilemma. Is she takes more than she needs there will be less for other woman’s families in her community. However, it also means that other families will take all the nuts and there may be none left for her family when she next needs to gather.

This dilemma has several effects.

It creates a need in us to hoard, just like people at Christmas with trollies piled high, but also the food that is wasted, like our 30% that goes in the bin. It also becomes the beginning of commerce as the canny woman takes more than she needs and then sells it, or barters it, to other woman who do not want to, or can’t be bothered to go down to the bush themselves, this is like our shops and supermarkets.

Of course there will be the day when someone has nothing to barter so they give you a signed note saying that they owe you a hen or a bag of nuts. This eventually becomes money. When the barter becomes longer and I have to wait for the returned barter to next harvest, this becomes credit. And if my compensation for waiting so long for my repayment is that you pay me more than you owe me this is called interest and suddenly we have a banking system, a loan system and maybe even loan sharks demanding even higher rates of interest.

The same is just as true for the man getting more meat than his family needs, or having more skins to trade than he needs.

If you look at the need of groups to hoard, be they families, communities, countries and so on, it explains why there are people starving in the world and there are the have’s and have not’s in society. The bottom line is that when we share, when we look after each other, there is enough to go around enough for all and everyone’s needs are met.

The problem, as I see it, is that from the point of view of social evolution we are still back in the mentality of the hunter-gatherer hoarders. It is only when we see others as our self that we look after their needs as well as our own. As long as they remain “them” and not a part of “us” we will take what we need to not taking into account the needs of others.

Be happy and share what you have

Take care

Sean X

TSHP136: The Power of Introversion

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What’s Coming This Episode?

We live in a world that celebrates the extroverts. Selfies, X Factor, Instagram and more. You’ve gotta be out there! You’ve got sing to the world! The truth is that not all of us (in fact a LOT of us) aren’t programmed that way and would much rather take a back seat. Let’s hear it for the introverts.

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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The Power of Introversion

The Universal Balance

The whole of creation is a duality of energy that forms a balance, two halves of a whole. This energy is expressed in many ways:

Male – Female
Yang – Yin
Sun – Moon
Day – Night
Pursha – Praktitti
Consciousness – Unconsciousness
Positive – Negative
Light – Dark
Active – Passive
Introvert – Extrovert
IQ – EQ

This list of universal opposites is endless because this principle is in all aspects of creation, therefore it is in all things, science, philosophy, psychology, everywhere you look.

In western society we place predominance on the importance of extroversion. Many westerners see the doers, the go-getters, as the model to aspire to. The life and soul of the party the socialites and the celebrities are on the front pages and on the TV in Big Brother and Get me out of here. People use Facebook and other social media to express themselves as extroverts to a greater, often world audience as they live their lives out on-line.

Programmes such as Come Dine With Me and Four In a Bed, caters for that extrovert need for a little fame, to be “that person” who was on the telly.

Along with this is the extrovert expressions of fashion and wealth. Having the right house, car, handbag or accessory. This seems closely followed by the need to change body appearance with hair dyes, piercing, lip fillers, Botox and boob jobs. The self-adornment of visible tattoos, like all adornments, is shouting out “look at me”.

If extroversion is seen as so important then how do we view the introvert?

Extrovertion is the active energy that goes out and does things. Introvertion is the energy that is the passive, solid foundation of society. Often these opposites work together. “Behind every great man is a great woman”. Take the gender out and it means behind every great extrovert is a great introvert. It works all the time, Chief exec = extrovert PA = introvert.

When the extroverts have finished beating each other to death the Introverts go onto the battle field to attend to the wounded and clear up the mess.

The confident introvert
We should not confuse introvertion with lack of confidence or a passivity with lack of action. Consider the cocktail party. One person comes into the room, the extrovert, in a big way, loud and maybe brash. The sound behind their actions is “I am here, I am important, pay me attention, show me that you care about me”. On the other side of the room a person sits quietly observing and hating to others. This is the introvert. The sound behind their actions is, “I do not need to display who I am to gain the attention of others, I am comfortable with my self”. Extroverts need to get their validation from the ‘outside in’ and introverts get their validation from the ‘inside out’, they don’t need others to tell them that they are ok.

There will be extroverts who aren’t confident and introverts that are, but you get the point?

The two paths of Buddhism
I have seen this is in Buddhism but also in other disciplines. There is the school of thought that lives the extrovert life out in the world working with others and the introvert path of prayer meditation and often isolation. To the western mind the active path of working with others seems to make sense. While the inner path of contemplation can be seen as non-productive. If you have read ‘The Secret’ or have looked at quantum physics, mindfulness or neurological psychology you will already have realised that consciousness through thought and intent can directly effect the physical matter around us, including our bodies. It is not simply a genetic issue. Those that appear younger than their years do so because their thoughts are still young, they are open to learn. This is the living example of “thoughts become things”. Quantum physics also suggest that our thoughts and feelings are directly effecting the thoughts and feelings of others both positively or negatively. If you spend your day working in a negative environment you will eventually become negative yourself.

The consciousness mind bank
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the father of Transcendental Meditation (TM) maintained that if six million people would all meditate at the same time the effect of their positive mind bank would be strong enough to effect the destiny of human consciousness and the state of the world.

Six million is a lot of introverts having an active effect.

Like most things they work best in balance. We are composed of both qualities and we are balanced when we use both appropriately. We need enough extrovertion to do what we need to do actively and enough introvertion to feed our inner being.

Be balanced and be happy

Sean X

Struggling for Willpower? This might help…

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

According to JW von Goethe if you never start what needs to be one you will never finish if. An evident truth that we often avoid through distraction and displacement.

New Years resolutions require that we let go of all the emotional baggage that we are carrying from last year, to enable us to move forward into the New Year and our new achievements.

Once you decide on your resolutions your goals will become within your reach. In fact once you know where you want to go and what you wish to achieve then achieving them is a simple process. It just requires commitment and action on your behalf. The following steps might help you on your way…

1: Have clear goals – be sure about what it is that you specifically want to achieve.

2: Write it down – when you write something down you are reinforcing your intention to achieve in your conscious mind.

3: Focus on one thing at a time – don’t allow yourself to become confused and overloaded, or distracted.

4: Pick your tasks logically – make a plan and stick to it.

5: Ensure that your actions serve you well – Ask your self “What can I do right now that will bring me one step closer to my desired goal?” as often in the day as you can.

6: Educate yourself – Make sure you develop the knowledge and skills required to complete your goal.

7: Keep it simple – start with simple tasks, worry about the difficult ones once you have started.

8: Ask advice from and listen to other people – Anything else that you need to know can be learnt on the way.

Start now – don’t leave it until tomorrow

Review and adjust – check if you are making progress? If not review what you are doing and adapt it.

Be persistent and consistent – until the goal is completed.

Any one can achieve anything if they approach it in the right way and remain persistent and consistent in their efforts.

Happy New Year
Enjoy your achievements

Sean. x

TSHP135: Struggling for willpower? Start here…

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What’s Coming This Episode?

We celebrated a new year last week and discussed the ins and outs of resolutions. If you are undertaking a challenge then there’s one thing you’ll need: willpower. Easier said than done however, so let’s have a chat about how you can give yourself a fighting chance…

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

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