In the recent clinic found a lot of insomnia patients, most of their problems show a pattern – 1, long-term chronic insomnia, mostly from adolescence onwards. Some people come to the clinic in their fifties or sixties, but the history of the disease will also find that the insomnia manifestation has actually been as long as 20 to 30 years. 2, taking a variety of sleeping pills, the effect is not good, or at first effective, but soon no effect. 3, many people are units of “good comrades” and “backbone force”. If we carefully analyze the character of these patients, we will find that most of them have the characteristics of demanding perfection, this character trait has a relationship with insomnia? The answer is yes! Originally, insomnia is due to their attitude towards insomnia. Ms. Liu is such a typical case, she is more than 30 years old, the last five years of insomnia has intensified, has affected her normal work during the day. When she came to the clinic, she had dark circles under her eyes and was listless. She said she used a lot of sleep-promoting techniques every day – foot soaks before bed, drinking hot milk, going to bed early, taking sleeping pills …… Slight environmental disturbances – such as moonlight, outside firecrackers going off, etc., made her even more nervous when she thought it was disturbing her. She made up her mind for herself: she has an important task tomorrow, and she must fall asleep tonight. But it often backfires. The more anxious she is to fall asleep, the more sleepless she becomes instead. …… Analyzing this patient’s problem, it is precisely not that she has not paid attention to the problem of insomnia, but that she has paid too much attention to it. Moreover, she overemphasized the influence of the environment, but neglected her own regulation and adaptability. She emphasized too much on the harm of insomnia, but neglected the fact that nervousness and anxiety may be more serious than the harm caused by insomnia. This is the truth of “too much is not enough”. I told her: in order to sleep well is the first to let yourself relax, you give yourself before going to bed to set yourself “must sleep well” mental suggestion, then in case it does not meet your expectations, will not make you more tense, in vain to increase the excitement of the cerebral cortex? Of course, the more you want to sleep, the more you can’t sleep. As mentioned above, most of such insomnia patients have the character basis of “demanding perfection”. As a matter of fact, this is also the general social and cultural background of our contemporary society, especially the 60s and 70s, who are educated with the idea that “man will win”, which has a positive effect on breaking through the personal limits and challenging the adversities of life, but also easily creates a tense state of mind in oneself. Especially when it comes to solving problems such as depression and insomnia, this “fight hard” attitude is counterproductive. We know that there are not only individual differences in sleep, but also that it is not constant throughout a person’s life. Sleep as the body’s physiological instincts, its own regulatory mechanism. Sleepy and tired naturally want to sleep. Can not sleep, more factors are nervous. This is like eating, you are hungry, of course, want to eat, but if you are in a state of tension and anxiety, how can you eat. So what is the factor that causes tension during sleep? — precisely our concern that we won’t be able to sleep. If you don’t worry so much about whether you slept well or not, and allow yourself to relax, you may actually be able to sleep well instead. The human brain itself is not as fragile as we think it is, and even if we have been busy lately and have gotten too little sleep, it doesn’t mean that our brains aren’t resting. Rather, it is more important to learn how to relax oneself and let one’s body and mind get enough rest than to fall asleep or not. So, my advice to Ms. Liu is: If you want to do something to promote sleep can be done, but do not set yourself “must fall asleep” rules. Sleep or not let nature take its course, if you can’t sleep, close your eyes and relax, right as a rest. At the same time, I also introduced Ms. Liu to a “body scanning” exercise. This is a method from MBSR, which is very easy to learn and master on one’s own. I suggested that she practice it every night before going to bed, but still not to care whether she fell asleep or not – you see, the method is not important, but the important thing is the state of mind. I present this method of self-hypnosis to you. No matter what kind of situation you are in – chronic insomnia, occasional insomnia, not up to the standard of insomnia sleep quality decline (the so-called sleep sub-health), or like Ms. Liu in the article on the excessive tension about sleep …… this method can help you ease. I suggest this method just before going to bed, lying in bed to practice. Perhaps in the process of practicing, you go straight to sleep. If you keep practicing it for a long time, it is also very effective for long term persistent insomnia. All self-hypnosis exercises need to be preceded by whistle relaxation. Do a few deep and long abdominal whistles, and consciously feel yourself relaxing and experiencing your nobility, serenity and peace. If you feel rushed at this point, don’t rush to start the body scan, continue with the belly whistles, or do a focused whistling exercise (see my historical article “Positive Thinking – A Remedy for Stress Reduction in the Workplace” for an example of how to do this exercise) which will help you to relax. The body scan approach: give your full attention to the sensations you feel in your body, and just become aware of the sensations in your body – perhaps feeling tight, sore, tense, etc. – but don’t evaluate the sensations, divert your attention, or consciously eliminate the sensations. If you feel uncomfortable here, stay there for 1-2 minutes and these areas will naturally relax. The order of the body scan can be from head to toe or from foot to head. However, I usually start with the toes of my left foot, but of course there is no rule, the purpose of the order is just to avoid missing, or you subconsciously avoid localized awareness: the toes of the left foot -→ the instep of the left foot -→ the left ankle -→ the left calf -→left knee -> left thigh -> left hip -> left waist -> toes of right foot -> instep of right foot -> ankle of right foot -> ankle of right foot -> ankle of right leg Ankle of the right foot – → Calf of the right foot – → Knee of the right foot – → Thigh of the right foot – → Hip of the right foot – → Waist of the right foot – → Back of the waist – → Lower abdomen – → Upper abdomen Lower abdomen -→ Upper abdomen -→ Chest -→ Whole back -→ Both shoulders -→ Neck -→ Head and face -→ Both upper arms -→ Elbow joints on both sides -→ Forearms on both sides -→ Wrist joints on both sides -→ Backs of hands on both sides -→ Palms of hands on both sides -→ Fingers on both sides. If you were able to complete the entire body scanning process, then congratulations! You are now in a very relaxed state. You can continue to relax your entire body even further by smoothly belly whistling and including your entire body in your awareness. If you wake up the next day and realize that you don’t seem to have completed the scan, then again, congratulations! Because you have actually fallen asleep. In fact, this method worked so well that she gave me feedback the next day that she seemed to be asleep. I asked her, “How do you seem to be?” She said, “I don’t know exactly when I fell asleep, but it seemed like I fell asleep before the body scan was done.” Over the course of a week or a month, she gradually learned the body scanning method and developed a mindset of going with the flow, and her sleep got better. There’s no way to cure sleep disorders with this method, but it can help you improve the quality of your sleep! Although it is said that you can only be in a good mood if you sleep well! But, in fact, the two are not necessarily related, sometimes, relaxation is more important than falling asleep!