RELIEF OF PARTICULAR SYMPTOMS SELF-MANAGEMENT OF ANXIETY: INSOMNIA
Some degree of sleeplessness is a fairly constance feature of anxiety conditions. The main problem is that insomnia is such a disturbing symptom that we turn to sleeping tablets far too quickly. Most people can learn to use this relaxing technique to put themselves to sleep I have recently been treating a doctor with chronic anxiety who had been taking sleeping capsules every night for twenty-five years. He learned the relaxing method of putting himself to sleep in three or four sessions, and since then has taken no sedative at night at all. But it does not come quite as easily as this to everyone. Give yourself a little time to get into the swing of it, and be patient when it does not all come at once.
When you have mastered the relaxing mental exercises, it is quite a simple matter to put yourself to sleep. You will have been practising the exercises in relatively uncomfortable positions. Now do them when you go to bed, and with the added warmth and comfort they will seem very easy indeed. Just lie flat on your back and proceed with the exercises in the ordinary way:
Relaxed.
Legs are relaxed.
Utterly relaxed.
All I feel of them is their weight on the bed.
Heavy relaxation.
Heavy drowsy relaxation.
It comes all through me.
Heavy, drowsy, sleepy.
It is in my face.
Eyelids are heavy with it.
So drowsy, so sleepy.
It is all through me.
When you really feel the heaviness, and the sleepiness, and weight in your eyelids, you just turn over on to your side into a sleeping position and you are asleep.
If you wake during the night, you just repeat the same procedure. It is important to do it systematically and in a relaxed fashion. Do not allow yourself to get restless or irritable with yourself. Do it systematically and you will soon be off to sleep again.
A feature of this approach is that it is effective not only with insomnia which is caused by anxiety, but with insomnia resulting from almost any cause. Those who are kept awake by pain find it very effective. Elderly persons can use the method with success provided their mind does not wander too much during the exercises.
Improvement in sleep is the general rule for anxious persons once they start to practise the exercises.
A rather outstanding example was a professional man who had been taking sleeping capsules every night for more than twenty years, since he was a student. He came seeking help for general anxiety, and his difficulty in sleeping was hardly mentioned, as he had assumed he would be taking sleeping capsules for the rest of his life. It was only afterward that he told me he had been so impressed with his calmer state of mind that he had experimented, and had gone to bed without his usual capsule, and was surprised to find that he could sleep quite well. He said that he felt that his sleep was lighter but at the same time more refreshing.
I can give a further example from my personal experience. The incident occurred just recently, after my first submission of this manuscript to the publishers. I developed an abscess on a tooth. My face was swollen right up to the eyes. In spite of the pain I found I could put myself to sleep in two or three minutes by the relaxing exercises. However, in about half an hour, when I was deeply asleep and off guard, the pain woke me. But I was able to put myself asleep again quite quickly only to be awakened by the pain again in half an hour or so. This sequence was repeated several times during the night, so that I actually had a reasonable amount of sleep. Next morning I had the tooth extracted without anaesthetic and without discomfort.
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