Peacing Out With Insomnia (When Your Brain Just. Won't. Quit.)

It's not surprising that a lot of people who do brain-heavy work deal with regular insomnia. In this article, you'll learn some tricks to make you feel better.
The first and most important point is to get your head around this idea (I know this is going to freeze some of you up right away):

Insomnia is not a problem.
It's an opportunity.

True, if you have insomnia and you waste a lot of time wishing you were asleep, and you engage your awake time in fretting and worrying, insomnia can certainly contribute to ruining your productivity, making you cranky, giving you a headache, and making you sicker and ever sicker.
However, you can flip that around.
Use the tips in this article to develop a routine for yourself that uses those crazy o’clock awake hours to make you healthier, smarter, wealthier, and wiser, instead. Here’s how.
Contents
1 Why do we sleep?
2 Is it possible to sleep without sleeping?
3 How to Improve Your Life with Insomnia
4 Tools & Tricks
4.1 Your Breath
4.2 Diet
4.3 Stopping those Crazy Thoughts
4.4 Yoga nidra
4.5 Legs up the wall pose
4.6 Restorative twists
4.7 Forward Bends
4.8 Supported Child's Pose
4.9 Child's pose
4.10 Plow pose
5 References


Why do we sleep?
We sleep to rewire our brains.
Everything we've learned the day before gets to process and sort itself out while it's not active. So if you are not sleeping, and on top of that, you are feeding your brain circuits the same old pattern of worry, fret, and figure, then you're not rewiring your brain at all.
In fact, you're wearing out that brain highway that you've travelled down so often while you're awake, so eventually, when you want to think, you will not be able to. You'll be exhausted. Headachey. Brainless. The pathway’s worn out and closed for maintenance.
The way to avoid the pathway closing at inconvenient times is to close and rewire the pathway at convenient times.

• Middle-of-the-night worry rarely leads to productive problem solving.
• Better to use the middle-of-the-night time to relax and rewire your mind.
• And in fact, with a little learning and practice, you can do this even better awake than you can asleep.

Is it possible to sleep without sleeping?
I've heard people say things like "I just can't stop worrying."
Well, actually, you can. You can stop worrying.
There are tools available to us to calm our minds, to ease our bodies, and to change the biochemistry so that two things will change:
1) You will be able to sleep better.
2) While you are awake, that time will be just as good for your mind and body, and maybe even better, than sleep.
Note: If you are troubled by a lot of worry, take a peek at Dale Carnegie's excellent book "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living." I also highly recommend Louise Hay's "Receiving Prosperity," a life-changing one-hour talk available on iTunes or at Amazon.com as a CD.

How to Improve Your Life with Insomnia

1. Wake up at an inappropriate time. Like before.

          Perhaps different than before: do not fret.

1. Observe that you are awake.
2. Accept that you are awake.
3. Don't scoff at the above two steps as trivial. Observe. Accept. You're awake. Note that I did not say "judge." Don't judge it. It's not bad. It just is. In fact... it's good!
4. Now, rejoice! Woohoo! I'm awake. That means that I can do some awesome stuff for myself that I didn't have time to do before.

Also perhaps different from before: Do not look at the clock.
Do not calculate how many hours of sleep you are missing, or will get if you only get back to sleep by 3:45 a.m.... etc. Don't judge. (In fact, on an aside about the clock: if you often wake up and look at the clock, remove the clock from your bedroom. Big illuminated numbers on bedside clocks are one of the worst possible things for any hopes that insomniacs will ever get back to sleep. Ditch the illuminated clock.)

1. Hang on. Let's go back to observe and accept. There is a very high chance that you are thinking about something that is worrying you. Early morning is often "the worrying time." Perhaps that's why this time is also much vaunted as the absolutely perfect time for yoga, meditation, and making love (which is a fantastic meditation if it’s available... if it's not, well! what a lucky opportunity to learn about meditation and morning exercise). Clearing your mind at this time helps to rewire and realign your problem-solving pathways.

Tools & Tricks
There are a lot of tools and tricks to help you when you are awake and you don't particularly want to be.
One of the best things to toss into a late-night meditation mix is sound healing. If you google or youtube search "sound healing frequencies" you will get many results. If you have a laptop near your bed, use it to play some of these tracks on youtube.
If you have an iPhone, you can spend $20 and get an app called Holosync. (They have tracks free on youtube, too, and they have a website.) I heard about this from a youtube guru named Elliot Hulse just in passing as the reason to all his success. I have to admit that I think this application (some sound tracks, that's all) has definitely helped me turn my mind off and relax in some times of extreme stress lately. And it does sort of seem like some of the magic they promise has come to pass. I'm not dismissing it, that's for sure. Even if all I get from it is relaxation that's cool.
Basically, the way to use this state so that it's more beneficial than sleep is to let go of all thought. That takes several years for most people to get good at, but we'll take it step by step. While your thoughts are whirling quickly, guide them (force them, as required) to positivity.

Positive thoughts create positive things in your life. Simply choosing to think positively can be restorative to your health.

They're a good step along the path to deeper meditation.
Do not try to use this time for thinking. Use this time for resting your mind. Since you are not asleep, guide your mind into restfulness, positivity, and positive re-wiring for increased brilliance and better health.

Your Breath
The first guide into a peaceful and meditative state that will be healthy for your brain and body is to use your breath. When you truly learn to focus on the sound of your breath and its effects on your body, you will be able to to quiet your mind. Follow this link to an article on various types of breath:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/healthier-than-youve-ever-been-before-magic-tricks-you-christa-bedwin?trk=mp-reader-card
Diet
Both of the following chemicals will keep you awake. If you are suffering from frequent insomnia, avoid them.

1. Caffeine.
2. Alcohol.

Then there are a number of pervasive, hidden toxins that could be bothering you that you don’t know about.
Processed and packaged foods contain all kinds of nefarious chemicals that are approved by our governments, but which can be bad for many individuals. For example, red dye is fairly well known to cause trouble with ADD, but a lot of doctors won't mention that before they prescribe drugs.
So before you reach for the sleeping pills, try stripping down your diet.

I mean try it! What do you have to lose?

Eat only unprocessed, unrefined foods. Cut out canned and packaged foods, sugar, flour, dairy, eggs, soy, nuts, tomatoes. These are well-known allergens,  but the only way to really examine how they make you personally feel is to experiment. Google "elimination diet" to learn more, or check out this treasure trove of health advice: https://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/resources.html

Stopping those Crazy Thoughts
A friend of mine says:

My thoughts don't just go in circles,
they twist into crazy eights!

We've all been there. Often, simply breathing deeply and slowly is not enough to quiet a troubled mind, though breathing slowly and deeply will always be a healthy, wonderful thing to do for yourself.
When the thoughts won't stop despite all the strategies on this page, it's time to transform them rather than merely stopping them.
How? Replace each negative, worrying thought with a positive thought. It doesn't matter if you believe the positive thought. You can begin by thinking that it's more or less a lie. Say it anyway.
If you think "oh, that darn client is never going to come around to our way of thinking," and your body starts clenching and shooting adrenaline (a sure way to stay awake!), then replace the thought with a little chant. "I'll bet that fellow is going to come around any day now. He's going to see reason at some point."
And even better, after replacing the negative thought with the positive one, change the subject. Think of the sunshine on your skin, a lover, or burying your face in the fur of your pet or the sweet smell of a child. Thinking those good thoughts will stop the adrenaline and make your body feel better.
If you are scoffing and thinking "I can't replace the negative reality with a positive fantasy, I'm too much of a realist," or some such nonsense, I'm here to tell you:

nonsense.

The way to change a negative reality to a positive reality is to visualize it so. It has been proven over, and over, and over again that if you start to believe in the positive outcome, you can make the positive outcome happen.
If you persist to believe in the negative outcome, or "reality" as some people call it, then you've very little chance of improving things. And anyway, whether the situation changes or not in the "real world," your choice to halt the negative thoughts and turn them positive will improve lt the negative thoughts and turn them positive will improve your health now. You can choose to force your body can bear the brunt of all those negative thoughts, or you can decide to let them go, focus on something nice, or focus on nothing at all, and get healthier.
In the meantime, that space that you are thinking nothing, or thinking something shallow and sweet, you might find that your relaxed mind finds the solution that you were looking for -- the solution that would not come while you were stuck on the crazy eight track trying to worry and rationalize and think through a solution.
All geniuses know:

Some of the absolute best and most useful ideas come in the space between the thoughts.

So it’s actually more responsible of you to let go of the thoughts and relax, than to keep muscling through! That old Anglo-Saxon work ethic to keep trying, trying, trying may actually prevent the solution from coming.
Work smart, not hard.
Take a break and breathe.
Another magic tool for useful insomnia: Yoga nidra
Yoga nidra is a guided meditation where a beautiful calm voice will walk you through a tour of your body. Usually you don't move any muscles at all, just your consciousness. You can do an impromptu yoga nidra yourself while you're lying there, just meditating around your body, but it's easier to do that of course if you learn it first! Youtube offers plenty of yoga nidra sessions. Just pick one, lay yourself down, and off you go. Here are some suggestions:
American Female Voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whDLg6Q5jGc
Australian Female Voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs6UAJZ_kEo
You might find it convenient to buy a yoga nidra track from iTunes so that you don’t have to go to the internet in the middle of the night (which is certainly a good way to stay unhealthily awake randomly surfing interesting and uninteresting stuff that you might not remember in the morning anyway).
I find that it's easier to relax into yoga nidra when you don't have to think for yourself -- it's really delicious to listen to a beautiful voice guiding you. But if you're lying there anyway, and your brain won't turn off, sometimes giving a little body tour a try is a nice first step to a meditative morning -- it might even send you right back to sleep (with a smile on your face).
Legs up the wall pose
Okay. So you tried thinking your way around your body with a yoga nidra track from youtube, but you're still awake. It is very rejuvenating to simply wiggle your bum around so that your legs are up the wall (depending on circumstances, of course, you might want to move down to the floor instead). If you find it difficult to put your legs up the wall straight, then keep them slightly bent. You might also find it comfortable to position a pillow against the wall under your lower back. Breathe in. Breathe out. You're doing yoga.
Restorative twists
Twists are truly yoga magic. They wring all the lymph out of your system, which is great for your immunity. They also stretch our connective tissue and muscles in ways that we don't often stretch in our everyday movements. If you chronically suffer from insomnia or a tight back, I strongly suggest investing in a yoga bolster simply so that you can do this pose. It's life-changing. It's less than the cost of a massage and will probably do you more good.
A yoga bolster is a stiff cylindrical pillow about 6 inches in diameter x 24 inches long, for our American colleagues, and 15 cm in diameter, and 60 cm long, for everyone else.
Okay. So get yourself a yoga bolster, or make yourself one redneck style by duct-taping a regular pillow or some towels into a cylinder shape, dimensions as above. They look like this:
(Ack, google it yourself, for some reason the photo won't load.)
Sit on the floor or the bed and lay the bolster snuggled right up to your left hip (so that it's in line with both of your pelvis bones). Hold the bolster tight to your hip as you turn your chest toward it and slowly lie down with your chest on the bolster. Your legs should be in a 90 degree angle on the floor.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
If it is comfortable, slowly lift yourself a little and turn your head so that it is facing in the opposite direction from your legs.
Feel free to wiggle a little so that your chest is pressing the maximum amount on the bolster.
If you do not feel much of a twist, straighten your right leg.
If you still do not feel enough of a twist, the maximum expression of this pose for a very twisty and very practiced person would be for the left foot to bend and reach back to the left hand, and for the right leg to stretch forward to meet the right hand. However, there is absolutely no benefit to striving for that most-stretched pose if you are already feeling a deep, relaxing twist. As with all yoga, you’ll get the most benefit from maintaining a proper solid pose from the core and with good alignment, not trying to stretch farther to make it “look better.”
Nobody’s watching, remember? It’s crazy o’clock and this is between you and your body and nobody else.
The aim of this pose is to relax your whole body like butter into the bolster and the bed or floor where you are laying. If you are twisting, there is a high chance that this twist will have slowed and/or stopped the thoughts that were bothering you and keeping you awake. You may fall asleep in this blissful pose, in which case, you might also wake up a little stiff (or maybe not, you might just feel great). Don’t worry, the stiffness is just goougey stuff working itself out of your tissues. The aim is to rest in this pose for 5–7 minutes, to allow your fascia and muscles to relax and stretch.
Do the other side for an equal period of time, starting the setup by sitting with the bolster at your right hip and moving without hurry to rest your chest on the bolster.
If you fall asleep on one side or the other, so the times aren't equal, that's okay. Just try to even it out over time.
Forward Bends
Any poses that curl your body forward help your body to relax and get into a calmer sleep-ready state.
Beware of back-bending poses, which will wake you up!
Supported Child's Pose
Perfect for doing when you're awake and too groggy to get out of bed. Restorative, good for you, delicious.
Get on your knees and slide your bolster or pillow (or two pillows) under your body lengthwise. Lay down over the support, snuggle your pillow, and peace out.
This is very relaxing. You're still snuggled up to your pillow, and don't need to be too flexible.
http://www.yogajournal.com/basics/1452
Funny little practice warning: I fell asleep in this pose while pregnant once, and my legs were wicked asleep! :) But I had a great nap meanwhile.
Child's pose
Child's pose is considered one of the most comforting, introspective poses in yoga. Any pose that folds you forward naturally soothes your body, and child's pose is the grand-daddy of all soothing poses. Kneel, then let your body move forward. If you don't feel flexible to move all the way forward, that's okay. Find supports, or try a version with your hips way up and your chest down low. Do what feels good! That's how you get the benefits of this pose.
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/475
Plow pose
This pose is absolute magic for banishing insomnia. It may take a little flexibility, so you might have to work into it over time, but once you figure it out, it really feels great. Rather than type all about it, I’m going to link you to yogajournal.com:
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/479

References
Dale Carnegie How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
Louise Hay Receiving Prosperity (iTunes, 1 hour)
Holosync.

Thank you to my beautiful and accommodating neighbour Pam for posing for the photo. She is doing a restorative twist on a yoga bolster.