chapter 1

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Table of ContentsChapter 1 A Good Night’s Sleep ........................4

Chapter 2 How Well Do You Sleep? ....................14

Chapter 3 Sleep + Health ....................................20

Chapter 4 Stress + Sleep ....................................30

Chapter 5 What To Eat To Sleep ..........................40

Chapter 6 The Art of Balance: Exercise + Rest ....51

Chapter 7 Renewal + Change ..............................59

Chapter 8 Creating A Restful Bedroom ...............73

Chapter 9 Viewpoints For Sleep .........................82

Chapter 10 Dreams + Sleep ...................................91

Chapter 11 And So To Bed ....................................100

Chapter 12 Waking Up .........................................109

Appendix ............................................126


Chapter 1 A Good Night’s SleepThe best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep.

– E.JosephCossman

The Importance of Sleepany people no longer know what a good night’s sleep really feels like.You awaken slowly and gently at the right time, feeling renewed, alert,and ready for the day. As you stretch yourself awake, your skin glowswith life, your mind remembers the amazing dreams of the night as

gifts to be unwrapped, and you face the day with confidence, excitementand a positive mindset. As the day goes on you eat well, exercise effort-lessly and enjoy every moment. As the night falls, you wind down naturallyand look forward to going to bed and falling easily into a refreshing slumber.

By contrast, a sleep-deprived person struggles to awaken, feels groggy anddepressed, looks disheveled and feels unready for the day. During the day,they tend to feel tired, and may even nod off to sleep. To perk up energylevels, they snack on junk food and drink lots of coffee, while worryingabout sleeping that night. They may even resort to sleeping pills or alcoholto try to fall asleep. Their sleep, when it does come, is fractured, disturbedand of poor quality.

You have a choice. You don’t have to put up with poor quality sleep – theremedy for improving it is in front of you. Literally, in front of you, becauseyou are reading this book.

© 2011 Stewart Consultants, LLC 44 www.SleepSoDeep.com

M

Many of our problems with sleep come from the demands and conven-iences of modern life. We have destroyed the sleeping patterns that haveserved humanity since the dawn of time. In the past, before electricity, mostpeople rose with the dawn and went to bed soon after the sun went down.There was no television or Internet, and little light, and so sleeping was themost obvious thing to do. With our current 24 hours-a-day culture, constantnews, and consequent blurring of day and night, plus the stress of modernlife, it’s not surprising that many of us have developed poor sleeping habits.But the good news is that, whatever your pattern (and most of us will fallsomewhere between the two extremes noted above), you can change itand improve the whole quality of your life.

Sleep is a state that takes up approximately a third of our lives. It repairsus, rests us and renews us physically. While replenishing the energy spentduring the day, it also renews us emotionally, creating the possibilities offresh starts, and changes of moods. We often say, I’ll sleep on it, and trustthe wisdom of the unconscious hours to bring us the answers we need.

The quality of our sleep reflects our physical and emotional health and absence of sleep creates health problems. Sleep is as important as foodand water. Deprived of sleep for more than three or four days, most peoplebegin to hallucinate, seeing and hearing things that are not there. So with-out the refreshment of sleep, we cannot even know what is real and what is not. So it’s not surprising that insomnia and poor quality sleep have an effect on the way our brains work. Even after one night of poor sleep, men-tal sharpness and performance diminish considerably. Recent research indicates that both verbal reasoning and judgment are affected by lack ofsleep. A recent study by the American Automobile Association (AAA) re-vealed that 2 out of 5 Americans drive drowsy and about 1 in 6 fatal acci-dents are caused by a dozing driver. So sleep is tremendously important forgood brain functioning as well as your physical well being. Now that youare reading this book, congratulate yourself! You’re already taking the firststep toward claiming healthy sleep for yourself.


The Quality of Your SleepLet’s first of all assess how severe your pattern of poor sleep or insomnia,really is. There are degrees of it, and it can get worse at times of stress, illness and often, pregnancy. Age also seems to play a role in diminishingthe need and quality of sleep. However, if you establish good sleep habitsnow, you will be able to ride through the changes in your life with greater ease.

Here’s a quick questionnaire to assess your quality of sleep.


Do you ......... OftenScore 4

SometimesScore 3

RarelyScore 2

NeverScore 1

Have difficulty falling asleep – thinking about this and that

Wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and can’t get back to sleep again

Wake up several times in the night and feel tired in the morning

Feel anxious about sleeping, especially when away from home

Doze off during the day or feel tired during the day and/or hungry

Have a partner who disrupts your sleep i.e. snoring, shift work, keeping different hours

If you have scored 20 - 30You have severe insomnia and need to make improving your sleep a priority, otherwise your general health may suffer.

If you have scored 13 - 19You have a moderate problem. If you take steps now to improve your sleep,you will enjoy a better quality of life.

If you have scored 12 - 6You have a mild problem, but could improve your sleep, so that your insomnia doesn’t worsen.

If you have scored 5 or lessYou have a minor problem, which is good news. But it’s worth reading thisbook and becoming sleep-wise as sleeplessness can increase with ageand stress.

The Phases of SleepBrain waves reflect our state of mind. Concentrating on a difficult problem,feeling calm or entering deep sleep all activate different brain waves. Aneasy way to understand your brain states is to think of music.

Beta – a march, with regular beat and pace. This is the brainwave of concentration and anxiety.

Alpha – more relaxed melodic piece of music that goes up and down.This is the brain wave we tend to have when we relax.


Theta – a lullaby, slow and languorous. This is a brainwave we havewhen we sleep, and in some, though not all, states of meditation.

Delta – a natural sound like waves rumbling on a distant shore. This isthe brainwave of deep sleep.

These are the phases of sleep and the brainwaves that are associated with each phase:

Stage 1This is where you feel you are drifting in and out of sleep and you caneasily be awakened. Sometimes you experience jerky movements inyour muscles or a startling sound in your brain as part of the process.Your brain is drifting from alpha to theta.

Stage 2In this stage of sleep, your brain waves become slower. There are occasional brief bursts of rapid brain activity. Eye movements stop. It accounts for about 50% of your sleeping time. This is the best stage for napping because you don’t go too deep. Now you are in theta.

Stage 3This is the first stage of deep sleep. Your brain waves are a combinationof slow, delta waves, interspersed with slightly faster, theta waves. Youcan feel very disoriented if you are awakened during this stage.

Stage 4This is the second stage of deep sleep. It’s like Stage 3 except it’sdeeper because the brain is creating slow, long delta waves all the time.It’s absolutely important to have enough of both stage 3 and stage 4 inorder to wake up feeling refreshed.


Stage 5This is the stage of REM Sleep (Rapid Eye Movement), in which youdream. We spend about one fifth of our nights in REM sleep and dreamscome from this state. It usually begins about 70 – 90 minutes after youfall asleep. Your breathing becomes fast and shallow, heart rate andblood pressure increase and men tend to develop erections. If you havea cat or a dog, you can often detect when they go into REM sleep astheir paws and whiskers twitch and eyelids flutter. As the night wears on,the time spent in REM sleep increases and the deep sleep stages de-crease. We do not fully understand REM sleep but it does seem neces-sary for the creation of memories and health generally.

You can see from this that if you wake up during the night and start thinkingabout your problems, you will most likely be in the beta brainwave state. It’sa long way from beta to delta! Try listening to some gentle music to calmyourself down and ease into those more relaxed brain waves. And make itan absolute rule not to try solving your problems at night.

Sleep’s Amazing Repair SystemSleep is vital for maintaining our physical and mental health. Your body isactive during the day, digesting food and moving around. During sleep, farless energy is expended on either of these activities. That energy can bediverted to repairing and cleaning your body at the cellular level. Think ofmillions of sleep workers bustling though your cells, carrying out mainte-nance work and removing the trash. So when you wake up in the morning,the house has been dusted and swept and everything is fresh and clean.But without this, blood vessels can become clogged, organs can becomeinflamed, and your body can become stressed.


Short length of sleep and poor quality of sleep has been linked to the following conditions:

Heart Attacks and StrokesLack of sleep has been associated with higher blood pressure andhigher levels of bad cholesterol, all risk factors for heart disease andstroke. Your heart will be healthier if you get between 7 and 9 hours ofsleep each night.

StressWhen your body doesn’t get enough sleep, or enough good qualitysleep, it is stressed. Your blood pressure increases and your heart rategoes up. This is like the stress your car engine would undergo if youdrove in first gear all the time. It would quickly wear out. Frequently relaxing and calming our brain waves aides in keeping our bodies in optimum condition.

InflammationStress hormones raise the level of inflammation in your body. This putsyou more at risk for heart problems and associated conditions as well ascancer and diabetes. Inflammation is probably responsible for the nega-tive effects of aging.

FibromyalgiaFibromyalgia is a painful condition caused by a multiplicity of factors. Itcauses joint and muscle pain, fatigue, morning stiffness, depression andanxiety. Disturbed sleep seems to be an important cause.

ObesityObesity is a serious medical condition which often shortens life as wellas making it less enjoyable. Researchers have found that people whosleep less than 7 hours a night are more likely to be obese or over-weight. It is believed that the hormones controlling appetite are disruptedby lack of sleep.


Why Natural Sleep is Important According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) a behavioral approach is more effective than any other for improving sleep habits, including takingmedicine. This is because sleeping pills:

Often provide poorer quality of sleep than natural sleep. Dreaming anddeep delta can be affected.

Have side effects, which can include drowsiness the following day, aswell as dry mouth, stomach upset or constipation.

Build up tolerance, which means that the more often you take them, thegreater the dose you will require for the same effect. That could lead tomore side effects.

Create dependence, which means that you could become psychologi-cally addicted to them and feel that you cannot sleep without them. Thisis why they are controlled substances available by prescription only.

Can cause drug interactions - if you are taking other medications, suchas painkillers or certain prescription medications, you may create a potentially life-threatening drug interaction.

Could mask an underlying medical problem. Some serious illnessescause insomnia, which is an important early warning sign. Early diagnosis always improves chances of successful recovery.

This does not mean that you should never take sleeping pills. Sometimes,short-term use of sleeping pills is necessary. But, in the longer term, relyingon them will not solve your sleeping problems. It’s useful to know that sales


from sleeping pills accounts for about $4.5 billion dollars annually. So drugcompanies have a great deal invested in marketing these to the public. Forexample, a large company named Lunesta has spent over $1 million a DAYon advertising! The good news is that, by becoming sleep wise, you willtake back the power of creating natural sleep for yourself.

Natural Cures for SleepThe best remedies for sleep are natural – changing your lifestyle and usingthe power of your brain and body to create sleep. Throughout this book, wewill be discussing many natural behavioral cures for sleep.

Resetting Your Sleep PatternsThe whole of this book is really about ways you can reset your sleep patterns and create the sleep you want and deserve to have.

Here’s a useful technique that you can use both day and night to gentlyturn your mind from beta to alpha. Although this is a technique to help yousleep, it also assists you during the day when you encounter obstacles.Some things cannot be solved by thinking alone, they require a greater perspective than the beta state allows. Use this technique to help you slowdown your rational mind and allow your intuition to open new pathways anduncover fresh solutions.


Remember that alpha is the gateway to sleep, as it means you’re muchcalmer than beta’s more logical activity. You can’t will yourself logically fromone state to another, but you can create bodily circumstances that will favora switch from beta to alpha. If your mind is very active, for example, think-ing things through logically, making judgments and creating arguments, youare unlikely to be able to fall asleep naturally without switching your brainstate. As we relax, we go from beta, which is about solving problems toalpha, which is a more relaxed and calm mindset. Only then can we getinto the deeper brain states, theta and delta and fall into deep sleep.

Sleep Resetting Exercise

Find a comfortable place to recline and let your body rest comfortablythere. Become aware of the feeling of your breath as it passes by the verytip of your nose. Rather than doing anything about your breathing, just ob-serve its flow in and out. . . in and out. Do not try to adjust your breathing atall. As you inhale say to yourself, “Inhaling,” and as you exhale say to your-self “Exhaling.” If your mind ever starts to wander away from your breath,gently encourage yourself to return to the awareness of feeling your breathpassing by the tip of your nose. With practice, you may notice the men-tal/physical change that takes place when you shift from beta to alpha.

Proceed like this for 5-20 minutes and enjoy the deep sense of relaxation thataccompanies this style of breathing. Be easy with yourself and use no forcewhatsoever with your breathing and you soon may find yourself falling asleep.


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