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Why can’t I sleep? #1 reason you Cannot Fall Asleep!
Episode 526th March 2021 • Stillness in the Storms • Steven Webb
00:00:00 00:14:39

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In this podcast you will uncover the number one reason you can’t fall asleep. Additionally, I will share a few more common reasons you may experience insomnia.

Link to the full article Why can’t I fall asleep? – #1 Reason you cannot fall asleep! Which is a bonus has My brand-new story meditation: The Log Cabin: Deep Sleep Meditation

Transcripts

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So welcome to stillness in the storms.

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I wanted to talk to you about why can't I fall asleep.

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And it's really interested in this one is because I had a problem with

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sleeping for a long time myself.

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And I just want to share with you what I learned about that, and then

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go over some hints and tips and.

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Really it's celebrating my log cabin, deep sleep meditation.

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My other meditation had been released.

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I don't know about five years ago now.

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And at the time I never realized I had a talent of putting people to sleep.

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But apparently I have my voice.

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But hopefully this podcast will not be asleep.

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Hopefully it'll give you some hints and tips.

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So tonight when you go to bed, you will fall asleep really quickly.

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And mainly I'm going to go over.

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The one thing that stops us falling asleep.

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And that's really important.

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We often go to bed and we put our head down on the pillow and.

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We just hope we fall asleep.

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Very often we don't and the mind starts racing . The heart starts speeding

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even more and we don't fall asleep.

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And then we end up getting.

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Teaser and teaser.

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So , that's what I'm going to share on today's podcast.

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So listen to the end for the three affirmations that are guarantee

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to put you to sleep tonight.

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I'm Steven Webb, your host and this podcast helps you to have some more

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inner peace in life when you have at least, and you need it most.

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And why am I talking about sleep?

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Well, In my 5 simple practices for more inner peace.

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One of those is sleep.

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It should be the first one, the main one.

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Because if we haven't got our sleep sorted, whereas no way we're

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going to sort anything else out.

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You know, sleep is the most important thing for the body.

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It's the most important thing for the mind.

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And unless we can have.

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At least seven, eight hours sleep.

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Average most nights then your body's not going to function

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that brilliantly during the day.

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It's it's sleep that we need to repair the body.

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But why, why did I study sleep?

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You know, I'm an inner peace teacher, but meditation and mindfulness teacher.

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And why am I bringing up sleep on this podcast?

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Well, when I hit my rock bottom when I was 40.

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The biggest problem I had at the time was I was lacking sleep.

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And no matter what I did when I went to bed, I could not shut my mind down.

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And because I was unable to shut my mind down.

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I was ending up.

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In this spiral of less sleep.

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My health was going downhill.

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I couldn't function.

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I couldn't think straight.

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And it was this vicious cycle and I ended up drinking.

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I ended up drinking more and more Southern Comfort each night.

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And because I'm paralyzed.

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I had to ask my carers for a drink and it was becoming embarrassing.

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And it's okay.

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Just saying, and I wasn't a drinker.

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So you imagine this, I didn't really drink in front of my carers at all.

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And suddenly here I was, I knew I was suffering.

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They knew I was pretty much.

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Going through a terrible time.

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And I started to drink every night.

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And one drink led to two drinks, led to three drinks.

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And eventually it got to the stage where even three drinks

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wouldn't allow me to go to sleep.

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So.

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I realized I had to do something about it.

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And I started reading books on my iPad and read in was really difficult for me.

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So I had to just find a way of going to sleep.

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So I started reading books about sleep.

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And I got loads in those of hints and tips, and I learned

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techniques of going to sleep.

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And the main thing I learned is sleep is a skill.

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Something that you can learn to do.

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We very often just go to bed and we put our head down and we hope we fall asleep.

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You know, we're completely tired.

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We're completely knackered at the end of the day and we go to bed

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and we just hope the circumstances are perfect for going to sleep.

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Very often they're not.

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But our mind is racing.

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We have something on our mind all the time.

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So what's the number one reason.

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That we.

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Are unable to fall asleep.

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And I didn't read this in any books.

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I've just realized that over the last few years, And mainly when I'm

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lying in bed, not able to sleep, I think, why can't I fall asleep.

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And I realized one thing.

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And that is because I didn't feel safe and comfortable to go to sleep.

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And if you think about that, that's perfectly logical.

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Because for millions of years we've slept in caves.

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We've slept in forest.

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And these weren't central to heated lockable homes.

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So we had to make sure that we couldn't fall asleep until we were.

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Not only completely inaccurate, maybe, but would override the survival mechanism,

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but we wouldn't fall asleep until we were.

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Or until the mind and the body felt completely safe and relaxed.

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Is that good for him to sleep and then some kind of bear or a

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saber tooth tiger wanders into the cave and starts to fight us.

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It starts to.

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Nibble on my feet or whatever.

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So we had to feel safe, and in today's age, we, the overzealous fear in us.

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The overactive mind.

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Doesn't allow us to feel safe because we're thinking that, Oh, we got to buy

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someone, something for their birthday.

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We're thinking we got to order this thing, or we got to.

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Reply to this email where we got to say this to the boss,

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or we need to pay this bill.

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None of those things are threatening our lives right in this minute.

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However, the mind is active on them.

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So therefore it's preventing us from going to sleep.

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So we lie there trying to force our minds to shut down, trying

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to force our bodies to relax.

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Meanwhile, the body and the mind is fighting against us.

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Is going no dont asleep, whatever you do, don't go sleep because that

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may be something going wrong here.

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There may be some bad things happening here.

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And therefore you actually, you're trying to go sleep while your

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body is trying to stay awake.

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So the one thing we can do.

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To help us to go sleep is make sure we got a comfortable environment to go sleep.

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A comfortable and safe environment.

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That's what I want to help you with now.

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On to two things ready.

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Firstly, how do we prepare for sleep?

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And I'll give you a couple of hints in a couple of tips there.

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And then I'll talk to you about what you do when you get in bed.

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And part of this is taken from Navy seals.

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If you think of a Navy seal, they don't know when they're

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going to get their next sleep.

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They don't know when and how long they're going to sleep for next.

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So they have to sleep in the most dire circumstances.

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And they have to do it, whether theyre tired or not, they have to

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catch a two, three hours sleep.

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When it's available, not when it's convenient to go sleep at.

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10 o'clock at night.

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And they learn to go sleep.

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They learn it as a skill is part of the training.

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So I'm going to take you through that process of what they do

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at the end of this podcast.

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But just before that, how can you prepare your room and prepare your evening for.

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The best chance of a good night's sleep.

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First of all, think of your bedroom as the cave and the way

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it was for millions of years.

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So that's what we want to create.

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So we want to create that cave.

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And also to make it safe.

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So the first thing you can do is reduce the temperature of the room.

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Reduce it down to about 16, 17 degrees.

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I'm not sure where that is in Fahrenheit, but I'm sure you can work it out.

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Remove any LEDs in the room.

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Any lights you want to as dark as possible.

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Put your notepad and pencil next to the bed.

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And the reason why I say put notepad and pencil is because if you have something on

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your mind, You can then just quickly pick it up, jot it down, and then it's done.

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And the mind thinks his doubts with.

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So therefore that will leave the mine on.

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You're no longer be worrying or stressing about it.

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And you might have two or three things come up, but

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eventually a mind will go okay.

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I don't need to worry about all those things now.

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Which is pretty awesome.

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And stay away from your mobiles or your TV or anything like that because they just

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wake the mind up that light, the lights.

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It's like the morning coming in the sun coming in the morning.

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It just, tells your brain to produce more chemicals to keep you awake.

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You know, we also know not to drink coffee in any stimulants after the mid-afternoon.

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On the contrary to popular belief, alcohol does not help you sleep.

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It might help you to fall asleep, but you don't stay asleep.

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Or you don't have a good night's sleep, but how was your body?

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Hence you have a hangover.

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Especially as we get older, it's harder for the body to deal with.

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The alcohol poisoning overnight.

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So you wake up in the next morning, your body might have dealt with alcohol, but

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it hasn't done any repairing for the body.

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And this is why sleep is so important is because it helps you to repair your body.

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It helps you too.

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The path, the day's thoughts, the nuance in your mind.

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And.

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Yeah, I'm not really a biologist, but I know certainly if more of the books

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I've read and from my experience,

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Have taken note is how I feel when the morning.

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Sleep definitely helps to repair the body.

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It doesn't do as much during the day because it's keeping you awake and keeping

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you doing the things you want to do.

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Your exercise and your thinking and your seeing and all of those things.

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The other thing is go to bed when you are ready to go to sleep.

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Not before, don't go lie in bed for two hours watching telly.

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You know, your sleep really does need to happen.

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The moment you get in bed and that's intimacy, of course.

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But this can be a great way to aid insomnia.

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Anyway, that's a different story.

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That's a whole different podcast.

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That one is.

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I'm prepare a few things in for the morning.

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So you don't have to think about them.

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When you finish your evening mail, don't go and sit down for

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two hours and then get happened.

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Get everything, sorted, sort, everything.

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And then sit down and relax because we tend to sit down for the evening just

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before going back, we get up and then we start sorting the stuff for the morning.

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Which really just wakes the mind up.

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So the final step, and this is how you will fall asleep.

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And.

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If you come here to get a good night's sleep or to fall asleep.

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This is exactly what you come here for.

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And hopefully let me know in the comments, whether this works and.

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But this is what you do.

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You might want to write down or take note of this.

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But here goes the first thing you need to do.

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Is just when you're lying in bed, just tense your body.

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So tense your toes.

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And then the release.

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Tense your body and let it release.

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Tense your arms.

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Let it release.

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This tells your muscles.

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That it's okay to relax that this moment is okay.

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This moment is perfectly fine the way it is, and it doesn't need to worry.

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And then do the whole body.

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Every single part of the body, including your face, don't

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worry about what you look like.

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No one's watching.

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No one's watching.

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Hopefully that was watching you.

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But honestly just screw up your face.

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Your And if not that, and then just allow your whole body to relax.

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And then just take a few deep, slow breaths, take an in-breath

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normal and breathe out slowly.

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And do that for three breaths.

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And imagine your body going to sleep.

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And not worried about the mind at the moment.

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We're just where we're just thinking about the body.

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Go into sleep.

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And then the next thing you can do.

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Is over the next 10, 15 breaths or so just breathing normally.

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And then breathe out slowly.

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And as you breathe out slowly, You can say these three affirmations.

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So you breathe in and then breathe out slowly, say I am

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safe and falling to sleep.

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I am safe and falling to sleep.

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I am relaxed and falling to sleep.

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I am comfortable and falling to sleep.

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What these do is just allow your mind to stay focused on something.

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It allows your mind to.

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Slowly relaxed and keep active of something.

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But not too active to stay awake.

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And it stops it worrying about the daily things.

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Cause they've always.

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That's when.

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It won't fall asleep.

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Now then if that doesn't work.

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Just, this is the cream of the crop.

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This is the one thing that is almost guaranteed to be asleep.

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And that's Canberra from 300 in multiples of three or seven.

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You might find 700 that were difficult.

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I do.

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So I do it in threes.

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But if you find three's really simple.

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Do it in sevens.

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And just take a, a breath normally and then breathe out slowly.

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300.

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Take a breath in slowly.

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I'll take a breath in normally.

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And prove out slowly.

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293.

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And just continue.

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If you lose count, start again.

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There's no competition.

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There's no, like, can I get to zero or something?

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It's just a matter of keeping your mind busy enough.

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So you will fall asleep.

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So hopefully that's helped, hopefully that helps you.

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To get a good night's sleep tonight.

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Let me know in the review.

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You can always head over to my website, Stevenwebb.com and download the five

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simple practices for inner peace.

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Hopefully you'll have some nuggets and some wisdom from this.

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Thank you for joining me.

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This is Steven Webb and this was stillness in the storms.

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Take care.

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