Working Moms Blog

In Part 1 of this Sleep Self Help article series, we got an overview of some of the factors that cause disruption in our sleep and prevent us from relaxing and resting enough each day.

Let us now look at some key questions that you can learn to regularly ask yourself to increase your self awareness quotient. This will help you take control of your stress to manage it more effectively.

Find Out What Triggers You

Take a few minutes every day to see what triggers your ‘anxious moments’:

Pay attention to what your body feels like in those moments Pay extremely close attention to what your mind says and how it rationalises these anxious moments What do you do when you feel stressed? How do you act, feel, speak? What do you turn to to help you feel better? Do your coping tools help you understand at a deeper level what is bothering you and reveal possible ways for you to transform the situation or does it just provide a band-aid-type, temporary relief? Or both? The more willing you are to deeply explore the inharmony in your outer, everyday life that triggers your feelings of stress, and your inability to relax and to sleep, the more successful you successful you will be in evaluating your internal stresses at the mental, emotional and deeper self levels.

Ask yourself the following questions:

Are you willing to step out of your ‘daily box’ within which you reside to really look at what’s bothering you? Are you willing to shift away from the accustomed, ‘comfort zone’ way of ‘dealing with’ the superficial stresses to dig deeper into their true cause? As you begin the important journey of restructuring your life and reclaiming your daily balance, stress, sleep problems and worry will recede. You will always worry to some extent about life issues that face you but you will learn with practice how to look more deeply at these issues so that you can solve them one by one.

In Part 3 of this Sleep Self Help article series, you will look at how to ‘keep it real’ so that you can more effectively manage your stress and learn to relax and love yourself into harmony more each day. This is extremely important for you to get great sleep when you go to bed at night!
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