Sleep specialists often talk about proper “sleep hygiene.” This is simply a series of techniques that try to help us to reinstate our own natural cycles of sleep.

Establish and keep a regular schedule for sleep. Select a standard wake-up time and stick to it every day regardless of how much sleep you have actually gotten.  It doesn’t matter so much when you go to bed and when you get up, as long as it is consistent and as long as it is your ‘natural’ cycle – some people just naturally tend to stay up later, some to rise earlier. If your work or other obligations prevent you from adhering to what’s natural for you, consistency is still important.

Take a walk. When beginning to reset your sleep/wake cycle, it can be very helpful to get up at your chosen wake time, throw on some sweats, and take a 5 –15 minute walk outside. The activity and daylight, even if it’s overcast, will help reset your biological clock.
It can also be helpful to take a walk after dinner.

Have a ‘power down’ time before going to bed. Turn off TVs, computers and smartphones an hour or two before its time for sleep. Dim the household lights.

Make sure your bedroom is dark, cool, and quiet. Beware of clocks or other electronics with bright displays in the bedroom. A good sleeping temperature for a bedroom is 65 degrees  fahrenheit.

Bed should be only for sleep or sex. Do not read, eat, watch TV, use the phone, or do other things that require you to be awake in bed.

Get up if you can’t sleep. Many sleep specialists  advise never staying in bed if you are tossing and turning. If you find yourself awake for 20 or more minutes and you do not feel as though you are about to go to sleep, get up, go to another room, and return to bed only when you are sleepy. While up, sometimes some very gentle, restorative yoga can help you prepare again for sleep.

Make a list. If anxious thoughts keep you awake,  it may help to make a list of worries on one side of piece of paper and  possible ways to address them. Do this 2-3 hours before bedtime, not just before you get into bed. This is a form of self-help cognitive therapy. Sometimes getting things down on  paper frees our minds to let go of them.

 Go to bed when you are sleepy, but not before your regular bedtime.

Watch out for caffeinated foods and beverages. Do not consume caffeine in the late afternoon or evening.

Limit alcohol. Some people use alcohol as a sleep aid, but it is not a good one. Alcohol can help you fall asleep more easily, but it disrupts sleep cycles and causes less refreshing sleep.

Exercise regularly. I generally recommend aerobic exercise in which you break a sweat at least 4-5 days per week as a minimum to effect sleep and mood. But avoid exercise very late in the evening. Some say the ideal time for exercise to assist with sleep is between 5 and 7 p.m.

Take a warm bath before bed. This will warm your core temperature, which will then drop when you get out of the bath. A dropping core body temperature will help you to feel drowsy. A warm shower doesn’t warm the core temperature enough to have the same effect. (An icy cold bath will also drop your core temperature and make you drowsy, but I don’t know anyone who would enjoy that.)

Reading before bed can help you get ready for sleep. But don’t read in bed. (Remember, you want to train your brain that bed is just for sleep or sex.) And also make sure your reading material is not an exciting page turner could also keep you up. Things you should have read in school can be a good choice.

Think twice about allowing pets to sleep with you. Usually your pet has a fine sleep cycle, but it doesn’t coincide with yours and your pet is likely to disturb your sleep at night.

When using resource tapping you are imagining or remembering good qualities and experiences, real or imagined, and then adding bilateral stimulation through left-right tapping to strngthen your associations with these qualities or memories. You can do this for yourself, or you can do it for someone else by guiding them through the exercises and then doing the tapping for them. When using this technique it’s important to remember or imagine good things with enough sensory detail to get a felt sense in your body and/or your emotions.  Details can include how it feels in your body, what you see, hear, smell, taste, etc.

The Basic Technique for  Resource Tapping

1. Find a comfortable place to sit or lie, where you will not be disturbed. Close your eyes. Take several long, slow breaths, fill the belly, and exhale slowly. Let yourself relax.
2. Bring up the imagined resource or positive memory. Bring it up with as much sensory detail as possible: sights, sounds, smells, sensations, and the emotional feeling that goes along with it.
3. When you have a sense of the resource, begin to tap on your knees or shoulders right-left, right-left. The taps can be quick or slow, just find a speed that feels best to you. Do this 6 to 12 times (tapping both right and left equals one time).  If you’re tapping your knees, tap with the left fingers on the left knee and with the right fingers on the right knee. If you’re tapping your shoulders, cross your arms over each other in front of your body as though you’re hugging yourself. Then tap with the left fingers on the right shoulder and the right fingers on the left shoulder.
4. Pause and check in with yourself and see how you’re feeling.You may keep tapping as long as it feels good and positive, but usually not more than 15 taps on each side.

The whole process may take only a few minutes. Repeat as often as you like. You can find demonstrations of this technique on YouTube. Just search for: “Laurel Parnell, Resource Tapping.”

Using Resource Tapping for Anxiety. You can use this technique to reduce anxiety by “tapping in” memories, images, places, or people that that bring you an inner sense of comfort peace and calm. As you bring up these memories or images, be sure to imagine them in as much detail as you can, including what it feels like in your body. Here are some examples of memories and images you might use to help reduce anxiety:

• Imagine those you you love and who love you. Imagine them one by one or all together in a “circle of love.”

• Recall times when you felt really strong, powerful, or in control.  Remember times when you felt your own inner strength and courage. Remember times when you were able to set boundaries. Imagine figures or people that symbolize strength and confidence to you.

• Imagine spiritual resources, a spiritual figure, or a wise being.

•Imagine something that gives you a feeling of inspiration, expansion or uplift.  It might be an inspirational person or place. For example, I remember hiking deep into the Grand Canyon and the feeling of awe I felt in that environment.

•Make a list of things you feel grateful for in your life and use resource tapping as you review your list.

Further Reading

•”Tapping In” by Laurel Parnell

•”Awakening Joy” by James Baraz

It is very important to be able to learn how to take a break. A break can be a kind of a refuge. It is something like the spaces between words and paragraphs and chapters in a book. It helps to make things coherent and gives them meaning. It allows us to make contact with a different parts of ourselves, those parts that are not concerned with productivity and jumping from activity to activity.

What could we do if we weren’t so busy?  We could make connections. meet with a close friend, or explore our creativity. Writing  a poem, dancing, looking closely  at something in nature, cooking a meal , or doing absolutely nothing can all be ways of taking a break. All of these things can help to reconnect us with a sense of aliveness, peace, meaning, and beauty.

A break is a space and time that needs to be set aside and protected. It is a time to unplug and explore what it is like to slow down and shift focus and attention.  It takes a strong  commitment to not be swept away by the urgings of the mind and the demands of life. You have to make time to do this and protect this valuable  time.

What can you let go of to make the time for a meaningful break? An hour of TV news? An hour of mindless web browsing or compulsively checking your email?  What are you willing to NOT do every day to open up your life.

Endless busyness does not fill us up. What do you want your life to be? Author Ann Lamont says that  what really nourishes us inside  is “real, sweet, dopey, funny life.” Every day you need at least half an hour of quiet time to yourself, unless you are incredibly busy. Then you need at least an hour.

Ways to Slow Down   (From “The One Who Is Not Busy” by Darlene Cohen)

• Look up from your desk and gaze out the window. Really look up and really  pay attention — notice the colors, the shapes, and the play of sunlight and shadow.
• Do five minutes of movement for every hour on the computer. Stretch your body. Pay attention to the stretch and to your body.
• Take a day off for unstructured time every week.
• Go on  a yearly vacation to some relaxing place.
• Schedule regular three-day weekend getaways.
• Take a long hot bath. Pay attention to each part your body as you bathe it. Appreciate your body, and thank it for serving you.
• Enjoy some form of play, like  dancing or playing volleyball.
• Ring a mindfulness bell. This is a bell rung in some monasteries to signal everyone to stop what they are doing and just be present for a moment. There are several programs applications available for your smart phone to intermittently ring a mindfulness bell for you.
• Take a sensory stroll, a walk with no other purpose to than to be receptive to what you see, hear, smell and touch.
• Do a walking meditation. This is a slow walk in which attention is placed fully on the specifics of walking, paying close attention to each step.
• Eat a meal in mindfulness, a meal in which eating itself is slowed down and becomes the focus of attention – biting, chewing, tasting and swallowing

Using the Breath to Help Us Slow Down

Breathing consciously from time to time can help us to find more joy, peace, ease and serenity. Here is a gatha, or mindfulness verse, from Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. Recite it silently to yourself at any time while following the breath to help you to find a place of inner calm.

Breathing in, I calm my body.  

Breathing out, I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment,

I know this is the only moment!

Walking MIndfully To Slow Down 

Thich Nyat Hanh says that the purpose of walking meditation is really to enjoy the walking – walking not in order to arrive, but walking just for walking. The purpose is to be in the present moment and enjoy each step. Here is one of his verses for walking meditation:

The mind can go in a thousand directions.

But on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.

With each step, a gentle wind blows.

With each step, a flower blooms.

Coping Strategies

• Invent your own traditions that work for you and your loved ones. Think about what’s most important and make that your focus. There are other ways of showing your love than giving expensive presents. Set your focus and intention, and keep oriented to it throughout the season. Some examples: generosity, kindness, connecting, or peace of mind.
• Re-think family obligations. Some people, acting out of  a sense of guilt and what’s expected of them, continue to subject themselves to holiday traditions that leave them depressed , shut down, or angry. Ask yourself: Does it really have to be this way? If I was truly free, how would I respond to this situation? For example, if visiting family out-of-state, it may be possible to stay at a nearby motel, have a rental car at hand, and spend only the amount of time with them that works for you. You get to do it your way.
• Take care of yourself physically. Don’t let the holidays become an excuse to abandon good habits of healthy eating and exercise. Eat healthy, light meals. Get enough exercise. Get fresh air. Stay active. Take a class that helps you to stretch and relax, like Yoga, Pilates,  or Tai Chi.
• Be realistic. Even with the scaled back holidays in a recession, society sets up many unrealistic expectations for us. Life is how it is. Your feelings are what they are. There are pleasures and pains in every moment of living. Perfection is not possible.
• Take care of yourself emotionally. Abandon passivity. Reach out for the support of other people and groups.   Learn to say no and not over-extend yourself. Be aware of your triggers. Give yourself room to feel your emotions but not be hijacked by them. One way of being hijacked is to have a negative emotion and then make up a story of how it’s always this way or will never be different or it’s all your own fault. Remember instead that emotions, thoughts and reality are in a constant state of change. This pain or hurt is not who you are at your core.

The holidays can be a source of stress, frustration, depression and anxiety for many. Don’t get caught up in unreasonable expectations, pay attention to your own needs and values, and don’t abandon taking good care of yourself. And. if needed, seek out professional help.

Anxiety tricks us by making us think that we need to respond to an internal cue (“What if something bad happens?”) as though it were actual, physical danger in the world. And what works with real danger in the real world (run from it, fight it, fix it) actually makes us feel worse when we are dealing with an internal psychological event (worrying about something bad that might happen in the future).

The sympathetic nervous system propels us into action, activates adrenaline and stress hormones, and moves us into a fight or flight response. The parasympathetic nervous system calms us down, it helps us to “rest and digest.” Mammals in the wild will respond quickly to danger, but once the danger is gone there nervous system will return quickly to baseline. Humans can perpetuate an anxiety and fear response indefinitely though worrying about things that may never happen.

The nervous system functions not unlike a see-saw.  If you can consciously activate a parasympathetic nervous system response, you can calm down an overactive sympathetic nervous system.

Here are some of my favorite methods for calming down an overanxious nervous system.

Conscious Breathing

• Take some time to notice your breathing, just as it is right now.
• Experiment with sending your breath into parts of the body that feel tense or tight. As you send your breath, also send the words “calm and relaxed” to that part of your body.
• Imagine that your inhalation is filling up a pitcher of water, and that with your exhale the water spills over the edges of the pitcher. Stay with this image as you breathe in and out.
• Breath and count the number of seconds of your inhalation and the number of seconds of your exhalation. Now make your exhalation twice as long as your inhalation. Focus your attention primarily on your exhalation.

Grounding

• Lie on your belly and sense the ground through your belly.
• Sit and sense you perineum. Rock and wiggle on the sitz bone.
• Stand on your feet and relax. Put your attention and weight on different parts of the soles of your feet. Now imagine deep roots going down into the ground. As you breathe in, imagine pulling energy up from deep in the earth. As you breathe out, imagine tension going out the bottom of your feet and deep down into the earth.

Containing

• Feeling contained or held in your body can be very calming to a stressed out nervous system.
• Sense your back by pressing your back against a partner or against a wall
• Rub and squeeze all over your body with your hands, sensing the boundaries and edges of the body.
• Lie down on the floor. Press the body against the floor to feel the sensation of containment. Roll around until all of the body has come into contact with the surface of the floor. Use your hands for the areas that can’t touch the floor, like armpits, perineum, between fingers, etc.
• Exhale making an extended “Vu” sound. Feel this vibrate in your torso and belly.

Taking In Support

Put your hand on your heart. Begin by breathing into your heart for a count of 4 and out for a count of four. Continue for awhile. Now imagine or visualize everyone who’s ever wanted good things for you, loved you, and thought well of you, living or dead. (If complicated relationships come up, just think of the good parts of those relationships. It’s your imagination, you can do whatever you want.) You can even include pets. You can even include spiritual figures. Imagine their love and care coming into your heart with each in breath.

Mindfulness

To become mindful when stressed or anxious, see if you can start to become curious about what’s going on, not judgmental. Just notice your body, your inner sensations, your emotions, your thoughts,  and your behaviors. Notice how you are reacting to the anxiety or stress. Imagine that you can see your thoughts go by as though you are watching them from a vantage point. Like  sitting on a rock at the side of a river and watching your thoughts go by, as though they were leaves floating downstream.

Significant positive effects for participants in the group keeping track of blessings were found. They reported an increase in positive emotions, fewer negative physical symptoms, and more feelings of connection. Family and friends of the group practicing gratitude indicated the participants  were more helpful and engaged. Other studies have shown physical effects that include help with stress, better sleep and lower blood pressure.

How to Practice Gratitude

Psychologist Robert Emmons has a number of suggestions for building gratitude in your life:

•  Keep a gratitude journal. Think about three good things that went well recently. Write about how you are grateful for these things. Begin by counting your blessings every day for a week, then follow that up with weekly booster sessions. Be creative, not repetitive.
• Take the time to reflect on the good. This may include the everyday (a moment of beauty in nature, a hug, a small bit of good luck), important relationships, and your own life (a strength, a talent, an opportunity, an insight).
• Remember hard times in the past, and how far you’ve come.
• Paying attention to your senses (touch, taste, smell, see, hear) to help you savor life’s pleasures and gifts.
• Grateful people often use words and language that includes acknowledgment of gifts, givers, and  blessings.
• Fake it till you make it. If you go through grateful motions, such as keeping a gratitude journal, smiling, saying thank you, or writing a letter of gratitude, the emotion of gratitude can follow.
• Be creative and open to opportunities, creatively look for situations and people for whom to be grateful.

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”   – Thich Nhat Hanh

Meditation: Meditation is a simple technique that has been practiced in Asia for more than 2,500 years. Meditation and mindfulness practices have been picked up by modern psychology, and studies have shown the positive psychological and physical health benefits of the practice. Many forms of meditation begin with gently focusing the attention on the breath. Meditation concentrates and calms the mind. It helps us to see through habitual patterns of thinking and reacting so that we are able to live more freely and fully present in the moment.

Exercise:  Regular exercise is a powerful component in improving and stabilizing mood. Brain chemicals (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and endorphins) are released during exercise which have strong effects on mood and help to reduce feelings of anxiety, stress and depression. Regular exercise also improves immune system functioning. Regular cardiovascular exercise, which raises the heart rate and produces a sweat, is most effective for impacting mood. I recommend a minimum of 20-30 minutes of exercise 4-5 times a week, but start with whatever you can. Weight training can be a great addition to cardiovascular exercise, but weight training alone without a cardiovascular component may actually increase feelings of anxiety.

Helping Others:  For some reason, possibly the evolutionary development of the brain and the necessity of banding together to survive, helping others helps us to feel good. Numerous studies, including one by Cornell University, found that helping others through volunteering increased study participant’s energy, sense of mastery over life, and self-esteem. Psychologist Robert Ornstein describes the “helper’s high” as a kind of euphoria volunteers get when helping others. This is a warm glow in the chest and a sense of vitality that comes while being simultaneously energized and calm. He compares it to a runner’s high and say it is caused by the body’s release of endorphins.

Gratitude: Long practiced by religious and spiritual communities, studies are just beginning to look into the connection of gratitude and our overall sense of health and well-being. In one 2003 study, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events. Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress.

 How to Increase Your Happiness by Practicing Gratitude

• Keep a daily gratitude journal. List things you are grateful for every day. Review it periodically.
• Make it a point to voice your appreciation to people out loud.
• It’s much better to focus your gratitude on the other person (“You were so thoughtful to think of me You’re such a great friend.”) rather than  the object (“Thanks for picking up the coffee.”)
•  At the end of the day, share with someone what you were grateful for, what you enjoyed, and what you were satisfied with that day.

 Resources for Learning Meditation

Meditation is a great way to calm the mind, see through habitual ways of reacting to life, and create greater emotional evenness. Here are some resources to learn how.

•  For an 8 week class in mindfulness and meditation near you, do an internet  search  for “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction” and your location.
•  For similar classes with an emphasis on help with depression, do an internet search for “Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression” and your location.
•  Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin offers classes and retreats.
• The East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland has introductory classes

How to Practice Generosity

• Share your time, energy, and material resources with those in need.
• Allow yourself to feel good about what you have done.
•  A great resource for volunteer opportunities – check out www.volunteermatch.org

In dealing with dangerous events in real life, it is often very useful to just get away and escape. If your house is on fire, the first thing you need to do is get out. But in the internal world of thoughts and feelings, the harder you try to “get away” from difficult feelings, like anxiety, the worse the results. What you automatically do, reacting to a thought as though it is actual danger, is exactly the opposite of what you need to do.

Anxiety is not danger. It is only discomfort. It doesn’t need to be run from, suppressed, denied, comforted or placated.

Acceptance and acknowledgement of difficult emotions can be extremely helpful: “I am experiencing anxiety right now. This is what it feels like in my body. I also know that I am not in danger, I am only experiencing discomfort. I can be curious and investigate what this anxiety feels like. And I know it will pass.”

 Breathing Into the Diaphram

Anxiety will pass on it’s own. But while you are waiting for it to pass, you can make yourself more comfortable by practicing a variety of breathing techniques to activate your sympathetic nervous system, that part of the nervous system that is designed to help you ‘rest and digest.’ Here’s one:

1.Place one hand on your belly and the other on your chest.

2.Begin with an audible exhale. Sigh. Let your shoulders and upper body relax and collapse slightly forward.

3. Pause

4.Inhale slowly through your nose by pushing your belly out. Feel it pushing out with your hand.

5. Pause

6. Exhale slowly through you mouth by pulling your stomach in,

7. Pause.

8. Repeat the inhale and exhale, with the belly rising and falling, as needed.

The Principle of Opposite Action

It is easier to change your feelings through your actions than to wait for your feelings to change in order to get on with your life. One of the most useful rules of thumb in  dealing with severe anxiety is to do the exact opposite of what it is telling you to do. Fear tells you to fight, flee, resist and struggle. What if you instead accept and acknowledge the feelings without being afraid of them? For example, fear might tell you to hold your breath, resist the fear, tense the body, stand still, hide, or flee. The opposites: breath into your belly, accept the fear, relax the body, move your body, and hang out.

What you may find is that the discomfort might not go away. But you can be freed from the  tyranny of responding to scary thoughts as though they were reality. You can stop contributing to the anxiety cycle with your own reactions and anticipations.

More About the Principal of Opposite Action

Someone struggling with anxiety may try to process it away in therapy, meditate, use affirmations and try lots of strategies to make the anxiety go away, to no avail. Inevitably intense feelings will tell them to get the heck out of the situation that is so difficult for them.

Instead of fleeing, the first thing you can do is change the way you talk to yourself. Tell yourself that this is discomfort and not danger. Can you tolerate and accept some discomfort?

The second thing you can do is to practice doing the opposite. Notice the  instructions the anxiety is giving to you, and used them as precise but opposite instructions of what you actually needed to do. For example, with social anxiety the anxiety may tell  you to be quiet, just observe, and get out. Instead you might try to  introduce yourself, speak up, hang out, and interact with others.

It will not be a comfortable experience, but  you may find you are no longer victimized by the anxiety. You can change your actions, and  this will ultimately change the way you are feeling in the long run.

Physiologically what is happening is that adrenalin and cortisol are secreted, blood is diverted from less vital to more vital organs and the heart rate increases to increase blood supply.  An animal in the wild will respond to potential danger by fleeing or fighting, and once the danger is over, their nervous system will return to baseline.

We humans have the advantage and disadvantage of a highly developed front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex. We can think about the past, and plan for the future. And we can manufacture worry. We can respond to scary thoughts as though they were actual physical danger.

The problem with chronic anxiety is that it is persistently sounding a false alarm of danger. It is a product of the mind, a mental construct, not actual danger in the physical world. Unchecked, chronic anxiety can have a terrible effect on our mental and physical health and well-being. It has been linked to heart disease, obesity, hypertension, arthritis, migraine headaches, and thyroid conditions.

The things that work in response to danger in the world are counterproductive in dealing with the ‘false alarm’ of chronic anxiety. What’s good in response to danger is fight, flight or freeze. What’s good in response to anxiety is to change the way we think about and react to the anxiety itself. In my next blog post I’ll talk about some ways to start to change the way you react to anxious thoughts and feelings that can help to reduce anxiety in the long run.