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In yesterday's article I described a technique to help you sleep better and dream more vividly. Today I'll describe another technique that is also simple to practice, takes very little time, and can be done at night while lying in bed before you fall asleep.
This technique won't just help you sleep better. It also will reduce stress and will teach you how to view events in your life from a different and more productive perspective. The method is simple but the effect it can have on your outlook on life is quite profound.
There are two parts to this technique. The first part is easy. The second part is where you'll take things to a whole new level. It might be more difficult in practice than the first part but I can promise you it gets easier every day and it's the area where you'll reap the most reward.
Step 1
As you lie in bed at night before drifting off to sleep, think of something you're thankful for. It doesn't have to be something huge. Even the little things count. Being thankful for the comfortable bed you're about to fall asleep in is a good place to start.
Once you've come up with one thing you're thankful for, use that as a foundation and branch out to other things you're thankful for. If you're thankful for the bed you're lying in, you can extend that feeling into gratitude for your home or gratitude for the electricity that keeps so many things in your home running from day to day or gratitude that you live in a safe neighborhood or gratitude for your spouse/partner lying next to you in bed. As you can see, the possibilities are endless.
Keep branching out that gratitude to touch upon other things in your life. Your job, your family, your health, your freedom — all of these areas provide a wealth of things to be thankful for, and I'm sure you can come up with dozens of other aspects of your life to be thankful for.
Spend a few minutes thinking about all these things and letting that feeling of gratitude wash over you. Let it really soak in.
When you first use this method, you'll probably be practicing it not for the gratitude itself but for the other benefits I mentioned earlier in this article — the improved sleep, reduced stress, and more meaningful, vivid dreams — but after a few days you'll realize you're practicing it for the sake of the gratitude itself, not just for the extra perks that come with it. Pay attention to that subtle change in your approach. It's a good sign.
Step 2
You've spent a few minutes thinking of all the great things in your life, all the things that bring joy and prosperity and make you happy. You've probably built up a nice surplus of good cheer. You might even be thinking, "Wow, I really do have a lot to be thankful for."
This is where things get tricky.
Now it's time to think of something that …Continue reading
I'm always on the lookout for simple and practical methods to help people get a night of deep, restful sleep. When an easy technique accomplishes that much and also encourages vivid and interesting dreaming at the same time, it's definitely worth sharing.
These two tricks take very little time, can be done while lying in bed before falling asleep, and will work for just about everyone.
If you are already able to remember most of your dreams, or are at least able on most mornings to remember the last dream you had before waking up, you'll probably notice an almost immediate benefit in the form of more interesting and meaningful dreams. If you aren't yet able to remember your dreams, it might take longer for you to notice a difference in your dreams but in the meantime you'll probably notice a slight improvement in your dream recall. Regardless of whether or not you remember your dreams, the quality of your sleep will improve.
Technique #1 — The Daily Rewind
I very briefly touched on the concept of a Daily Rewind in a previous article titled How to Analyze Your Dreams More Effectively, but I'll go into it in more detail here and will provide some tips and suggestions to help you make the most of this technique.
A Daily Rewind is a swift and painless way to clear all the clutter out of your mind in preparation for sleep and dreaming. All that is involved in the technique is a quick mental replay of the events of your day. You can do this in one of three ways:
1. Start at the beginning of your day and mentally replay the events of the day until you reach the end.
2. Start at the end of your day and mentally replay the events backward until you reach the beginning of your day. You don't have to imagine everything moving backwards as if you're rewinding a video. Just start with the last event before bedtime and review it, then proceed to the event prior to that one and review it, and so forth.
3. Write about the events of the day in a journal.
As you mentally replay the day's events, you don't need to recall every little detail or replay every action or every conversation in a minute-by-minute recount of the day. Replay each event calmly and objectively and then move on to the next event. The entire process should take only a few minutes.
Also keep in mind the point is not to get caught up in regret about how the day went but instead to simply acknowledge each event that occurred throughout the day and release it. Don't get stuck replaying a situation over and over in your mind and thinking of all the things you could have done differently. As you replay your day, let go of any mental attachment, anxiety, or concern about the events. The goal is to perform a quick review of your day so you don't spend the night tossing and turning, dwelling on the "should haves" and "could haves". If you clear out the mental debris now, you'll sleep deeply and peacefully and your dreaming mind will be free to explore other things rather than rehashing trivial everyday events in symbolic form.
Use this time to relax your body as well. As you mentally replay the day, check your body for any tension associated with the memory of the events. Consciously release the tension and relax.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 of this article, which will describe the second technique for improving your sleep and your dreams.
Congratulations to Hatter, whose name was drawn as the winner of the personal development gift bundle!
Thank you to everyone who entered the contest. I'll be giving away other prizes in the coming months so stay tuned for more contests.
Over the past few decades personal development has become a huge industry, and in recent years the internet has fueled the surge of new products and programs devoted to self-improvement. Unfortunately, the tremendous growth in the industry has opened the door for scam artists hoping to make a bundle of cash before anyone realizes their products are useless.
These companies attempt to lull prospective customers into a false sense of security by littering their marketing copy with catchy phrases that sound high-tech or scientific, despite their so-called science being nothing more than made-up nonsense. You've all heard the buzzwords before. (Can anyone say "quantum"?) They fill their advertisements and web sites with pseudoscience and hope consumers will be hypnotized by the apparent magic of it all.
Yesterday someone sent me a link to a personal development web site so I could check out a video featured on the site's home page. In the video, the host explains how her company's system can release your subconscious fears and transform your life by "tapping into the quantum field", and their method is supposedly an effective cure for all your problems because "every single perception you've ever experienced is stored as images in the water molecules in the microtubules of your brain" and "those images are projecting onto the quantum field and reflecting back at you."
I'm sure neuroscientists around the world would cringe upon reading such claims. Quantum physicists probably would cringe right along with them.
Did you notice how in just a few brief sentences she managed to incorporate enough buzzwords to …Continue reading
In the spirit of the season, I'm holding a contest to give away a Personal Development Gift Bundle to one of my readers. The winner will receive these items:
How to Enter:
The contest will be open for entries until midnight (Eastern Time) on December 15th. To enter the contest, simply send me an email and type the word "CONTEST" in the contact form. Please be sure to enter a valid email address so I can contact you if you are selected as the winner.
On Sunday, December 16th, I'll select the winner via a random drawing. Good luck to everyone who enters the contest!
If your local cable television network offers the Discovery Health channel, keep an eye out for a new series called Dreamzone. The first episode is scheduled to air on December 22nd. Here is a description from the Discovery Health web site:
"Do you ever dream that you're flying? Or being chased? Your dreams be telling you something. Unravel the mysterious world of dreams on Dreamzone, premiering Saturday, December 22 at 9:00 pm.
This series examines, in some depth, but in a fast moving style, our inner universe as dreamers. Everybody dreams. Some people remember their dreams, some don't. But we all dream several times per night. And we are all fascinated by what they might mean. Are they the remains of the day? Could they be foretelling the future? Or could they be our subconscious helping us sort out life's problems? Dreams are a very mysterious, yet common everyday experience."
The Discovery Health site also features a section called the Sleep & Dreams Center, which includes information about sleep cycles, theories about why we sleep and why we dream, and a series of articles called "Sleep Expedition" chronicling journalist Vince Rause's quest to find a good night's sleep. Rause interviewed Stephen LaBerge, Jeremy Taylor, Gayle Delaney, Patricia Garfield, and several other prominent sleep/dream researchers, so his series is worth the read.
