I love to sleep. But if sleep loves me, it’s fickle. When I had chronic insomnia, sleep ran off around 3 a.m. most nights, doing who knows what. Meanwhile I rearranged pillows, wrote down troubles, tried a dozen cures, answered e-mails, or hoped to force sleep by aerobic resting.

Needless to say, nothing worked—until I learned to accept myself and my insomnia.

Instead of fighting insomnia, I looked at how to make use of those waking hours. Not “making use” in the usual productive ways: I was too tired to fold laundry or formulate spreadsheets. Instead I made use of the sleepless hours in the ways of the night, connecting to my body, dreaminess, and self-healing.

As I journeyed through ways to accept myself, I discovered the gift of how to accept insomnia. I learned that certain connections to my thoughts, emotions, environment, spirit, and body made me more awake—others led me to deep rest.

Night after night, I discovered how to mimic the benefits of sleep to greet the mornings refreshed. It’s true it was not as good as a full eight hours. But still, I was productive, alert, and could live with my insomnia. As friends and coaching clients wanted to know my secret, I began teaching classes in my program, Restful Insomnia™.

I learned about many types and causes of insomnia from my students, sleep doctors, and my own experience. And I developed many ways to change the suffering. They cover five basic areas:

1. Create a soothing night environment (i.e. creating a Night Nest™ of goodies by your bed)
2. Befriend the body (noticing how your physical sensations change)
3. Diminish the thinking mind (singing or humming to yourself to change thought patterns)
4. Release the hold of emotions (tapping on acupressure points— Energy Psychology—to release emotional charge)
5. Tap into the natural or spiritual self (noticing you’re part of and moved by something bigger than your mind)

Details and many other methods are in my book, Restful Insomnia: How to Get the Benefits of Sleep, Even When You Can’t(Conari Press, 2010), or on my website www.restfulinsomnia.com.

Do these ideas work for others? My students use them to create their path to soothing wakeful nights. As one lawyer said after one of my classes, “I learned a new perspective on sleep, so I can spend my awake time in a soothing, relaxed way—I’m actually getting the rest I need.”

Enjoy your nights!

This post was written by guest blogger Sondra Kornblatt. She is the author of, Restful Insomnia, and, A Better Brain at Any Age.

Michael Jackson's autograph

Today, Michael Jackson is laid to rest after his untimely death on June 25, 2009.

I, for one, hope he can rest in peace. His magnificent career as an entertainer earned him the title of King of Pop – in fact, his innovation and creativity catapulted an entire industry to new heights.

I also hope the fact that he popped pills – and worse – doesn’t give insomniacs any bright ideas about outrageous methods of self-treatment.

The Michael Jackson tragedy shines a light on use of the I.V. anesthetic drug Diprivan as a treatment for insomnia. The drug is not approved for use in treating sleep disorders – my goodness, it can actually render a person unconscious, to undergo surgery. Doctors watch the patient constantly, monitoring their breathing.

Read the writing on the autograph, people. The King of Pop is dead. Long live the King.

His creative mind may have considered a dangerous solution for alleviating his insomnia. If you can’t sleep, use your own creativity to find an effective – and safe – way of getting a good night’s rest.

Photo Credit:  Alan Light

Blog Note: Some of you have asked about the schedule to update this blog and its frequency. My plan is to post blog updates twice a week; generally on Tuesday and Thursday.

My father, the pharmacist, always insisted that we kids take our daily B-12 vitamin daily. When I would ask why, my mom would say that it was good for our brains.

It’s well-known that vitamin B-12 helps with the production of red blood cells and helps regulate the immune system. As we age, our bodies lose the ability to absorb B-12. As we live, we may not be getting enough of it from our daily meals.

It’s a constant maintenance issue-producing enough vitamin B-12 to stay healthy. Not only that, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola, founder of the Natural Health Center in Illinois, B-12 can help you sleep.

“B-12 plays a vital role in melatonin production,” he says. “Melatonin has been called ‘the sleep hormone’ because it is responsible for letting you get a good night’s sleep.”

Just another reason why I tend to take my father’s advice.

[youtube 1FT2Rpnv2K0]

Try Vitamin B12 to Boost Energy

Janet Muniz

Jan Sadler, author of “Peaceful Sleep,” is now offering a new edition of the book called “A Good Night’s Sleep.” For those interested in a drug-free solution to getting some shut-eye, this book helps you learn how to use visualization, breathwork, and meditation to break your pattern of insomnia.

The book’s description says it “explains how to retrain the body to sleep solidly,” whatever that means, and offers an audio CD of guided visualizations and relation techniques that you can use to promote healthy sleep. You can even sample this audio program online if you’d like.

I’ve had much success with audio meditation tapes at bedtime because the combination of soothing music and breathing technique calms the mind enough to create and inner environment for sleep to come naturally, with no stress. And no drugs. Check it out.

Inner Traditions and Bear & Company is a publishing house offering a plethora of publications ranging in subject matter from art to philosophy, sexuality to healing, ethnic music to mediation and more. If you can’t sleep, perhaps you can read one of their books!

Janet Muniz

(photo credit: just.luc)

It’s a brain imbalance. That’s what a recent study concludes about why some adults suffer from primary insomnia, meaning that the insomnia is the patient’s primary complaint.

Insomniacs suffering for at least six months have 30 percent less gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a chemical that slows overall activity in many brain areas, the report says. Other may call it a “racing mind.” They say approximately a quarter of people with insomnia suffer from primary insomnia. Lower brain GABA levels also have been found in people with major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders.

So if you can’t sleep because your mind can’t slow down at bedtime, and your insomnia isn’t related to the medications you’re taking, or other conditions, you may have primary insomnia. And the best way to find out it to see your doctor.

Janet Muniz

(photo credit: brendanlim)