How to Get More Restful Sleep

I used to love the sound of music at 3am and people clinking their drinks outside my lower east side apartment. It was calming, it made me feel safe. I then moved to a much smaller more residential area of LA. And I didn’t have that same sense of safety.

I am a believer and I have always gone to prayer if I got scared, but for some reason, I couldn’t shake this feeling. It just kept coming up… was I “safe” in my own home by myself? Why did I feel the need to have people around? I then had a realization.

After a good talk with another coach friend of mine, he said: “there is a reason why you stay up late at night.” I thought, ‘well, yes. But I don’t know what that reason is.’ I realized I went through a ritual of talking myself to sleep at night. I had to LEARN (and with the help of God) how to get out of my own head. To be comfortable with a new and different environment.

Most of us know this, so let me go one step deeper. There really is a reason why things come up for us at night and not in the morning. Our thought garbage is filtered all throughout the day and it gets released at night so we have a barometer of junk that fills us by the end of the evening. Sexual addiction, porn, drugs, even the loud noises that calm us to sleep.

I was letting my PTSD for many years control my behavior. I woke up fine but then I would let my insecurities be fed throughout the day so, by the end of the evening, I was DONE. Like dunzo, nada, I am going to relax now. The problem was that I wouldn’t relax. UNTIL I realized how important it was for me to heal this problem in order to move forward into a better version of me.

Here are some tips for you:

• Change Your Language: Tell yourself ‘I GET to have a different experience.’ So whatever comes up for you, know that you have the ability to change it.
• Imagine Nothing: When you sleep imagine each vertebra slowly relaxing into a bed of sand or even the ocean. This is a calming exercise for your body. Spoiler: Water is the strongest element for calmness and tranquility.

This DOES and WILL change your mental health. Do it today.