The conversations in my life with my friends, colleagues and clients seems to end up talking about ‘lack of sleep’. Sleep is such an important repair process both physically and cognitively. I wonder whether Margaret Thatcher’s Alzheimer’s was accelerated by her only having 5 hours sleep a night, when it is recommended that we need 7 – 8 hours.

Research has shown that toxic plaques develop in the brain through sleep deprivation, and that this plaques also builds up around the heart valve that can lead to cardiovascular problems. Also simple issues like weight gain can be caused by not getting enough sleep because insulin is produced in the middle of the night to help digest food.

 Shift work has long been recognised to increase the likelihood of developing cancer because at night the hormone melatonin is released that suppresses tumor development and if you do not sleep during the night hours the body does not produce it.

There are many things that help you get a good nights sleep including spending time in natural light in the morning without sunglasses as the circadian rhythm is able to kick in making the body clock ready for sleep at night.

When I am trying to go to sleep  I say to myself “ if I was going to fall asleep how would my body feel ( heavy and relaxed, so what would that feel like now ) how would the bed feel, how would my pillow, what would it be like if I was able to really enjoy the sensations and expand this ” ? It does work most times as I find my body drifts off to peaceful slumber.

There are some areas that no matter what self relaxation techniques are used sleep is not possible, especially around hormone fluctuations. For many women going through peri-menopause and menopause, sleeplessness is part of the symptoms because of the progesterone fluctuations.

Many times I look at my beautiful sleeping cats and hope that my nights rest will be as easy as theirs seems to be, so wishing everyone a restful sleep tonight.

 

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The start of 2012 gives us all the opportunity to be look at our behaviour and our level of generosity. A workshop I attended years ago had an impact on me because it taught that being generous to others is essential to us being happy and was coined ‘Mitzvah Therapy’.

It is based on being helpful to others and that this inadvertently leads us down a path to become enriched and fulfilled ourselves. It also has the added benefit of  lowering anxiety and depression, as well as improving our over all happiness. I call this ‘being generous of spirit’, just doing things for others out of the goodness of our heart. Even marriages and relationships benefit from this approach with couples reporting they were five times more likely to say the marriage was “very happy”, because of high amounts of generosity.

There is research that believes that this altruism has a foundation in human evolution and is wired into our survival.

Perhaps it would be helpful to imagine the person we have decided to be generous to, is actually a close relative. I do know that the more ‘generous of spirit’ I have become the happier I am as a person. I am interested in other peoples experiences, so please let me know what priority ‘Mitzvah Therapy’ is going to play for you in 2012.

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