◄ by Chris Jorgensen – Gladstone, MO ►
Sleep and Attunement
In the recent IAAP international teleconference call entitled “Mindful Attunement”, one person made a comment about sleep and sleep patterns. Their words really struck a cord with me because I work with clients–young and old, male and female, sick and not sick–who are having trouble getting a good night’s sleep. There are so many factors involved in this quintessential and delicate part of a person’s life (in theory one-third of our life is spent sleeping) that affects health, healing and balance–energetically, emotionally, mentally and physically.
Have you ever spent a restless night, tossing and turning and not sleeping? How did the next day go for you? Long ago when I was a pilot in the Air Force I was required to go through prisoner-of-war training. In that very real experience, the “captors” used sleep deprivation and other approaches to “soften up” their prisoner (me). After a couple of days of not being allowed to sleep I felt like a drunken person – physical fatigue, slow coordination, a numbed mind with intelligent thinking all but gone, and emotionally vulnerable. As a Practitioner of the complementary health and healing arts I know that sleep is vital to the restoration and healing process. Without sleep the body does not return to balance nor heal; we heal while we sleep!
T.S. Wiley and Bent Formby MD wrote, Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival, using research gleaned from the National Institutes of Health, to suggest that: “Americans really are sick from being tired. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and depression are rising in our population. We’re literally dying for a good night’s sleep. Our lifestyle wasn’t always this way. It began with the invention of the light bulb. When we don’t get enough sleep in sync with seasonal light exposure, we fundamentally alter a balance of nature that has been programmed into our physiology since Day One. This delicate biological rhythm rules the hormones and neurotransmitters that determine appetite, fertility, and mental and physical health. When we rely on artificial light to extend our day until 11 p.m., midnight and beyond, we fool our bodies into living in a perpetual state of summer.” The authors recommend 9 to 9 ½ hours of sleep each night.
From Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Phyllis Balch, under Insomnia, “Insomnia can take the form of being unable to fall asleep when you first go to bed or waking during the night and being unable to go back to sleep. It affects one out of ten Americans. Over half of those over the age of sixty-five experience disturbed sleep…” Balch recommends a host of things to assist a person with a sleepless pattern, including diet changes and taking herbs like California poppy, kava kava, lemon balm, passionflower, skullcap, and valerian root to name a few.
There are many other books on the subject of sleep. Some recommend lifestyle changes, some recommend specific routines before bed, others advocate electrical devices that stimulate and/or relax the brain, and some point to therapies that address stress reduction and emotional energy clearing. I often use CranioSacral therapy on clients with insomnia. Depending on the person and circumstance, this is helpful to some degree especially if I include Attunement.
The person who spoke on the IAAP teleconference call mentioned the use of rhythmic breathing to help a “busy mind that won’t be still”. This approach can be quite effective. Before going to sleep I suggest an individual practice some form of sanctification and mindful closure to the day’s activities (mostly people interactions) coupled with self-Attunement. In his early days of teaching, Uranda developed a technique called Over-the-Head Attunement, written about in the Attunement Protocols book (pg. 22). Here are the simple steps which can be done with another person and/or for oneself.
- Balance the cervical life pattern.
- Place both hands over the head, bringing the thumbs together with the base of the thumbs over the pineal, fingers pointing forward, using a diffused hand form (see diagram below). When I do this Attunement position on myself, my palms are over the frontal lobe, motor cortex and sensory cortex of the brain and the middle fingers are together over the pineal. The cortex is the outermost layer of brain cells.
- Thinking and voluntary movements begin in the cortex.
- Hold this position for a few minutes until the radiation balances.
- Re-balance the cervical life pattern to close the Attunement.
The lack of sleep is a growing problem in our modern-day electronic society. There are many in the Attunement Community that have dealt with or are dealing with insomnia in some fashion. I invite you to comment on your experiences and successes with Attunement and sleep.
Good thought provoking article and comments. As a massage therapist one of the most common complaints I see deals with sleep issues. I often remind my clients that the bedroom is a haven or sanctuary. I discourage any type of electronics beyond an alarm clock. I encourage them not to watch television, play games, search the web, or update their Facebook page on their phones, tablets or computers in the bedroom. The bedroom is not the place to do homework or finish that report you brought home from the office. The bedroom should be associated with rest and using electronics keeps the mind stimulated, even when the lights go out. The body cannot rest when the mind is busy or chaotic.
I also tell them that melatonin, a hormone produced by the pineal gland helps regulate our sleep rhythm and that production may decrease with age. A darkened room and cooler temperatures can help stimulate melatonin somewhat. An eye mask can be helpful, but I have found that most clients do not like wearing them. I always discourage the use of electric blankets, instead I suggest warming a corn bag and placing it under the covers 20 minutes before going to bed to warm the sheets. This way they don’t have to deal with the initial feeling of cold sheets, but don’t have the electrical currents interfering with their own energy currents.
My knowledge of herbs and how they interact with pharmaceutical or even other herbs is limited so I usually encourage them to speak with a trained herbalist, naturopathic doctor or a doctor of oriental medicine for guidance. I know people tend to snack at night, but eating too close to bedtime can interfere with sleep, especially foods or drinks with caffeine or high in sugar content. Finally I encourage slow deep breathing. I recommend the 4-7-8 breath. One places the tip of their tongue on the roof of their mouth behind the front teeth, breath in through the nose for a count of 4, hold the breath for a count of 7 and exhale through the lips(like you are blowing a kiss) for the count of 8. You will make a whooshing or whistling type sound. Do this at at rate that is comfortable for you, but do it for 4 cycles. Dr. Andrew Weil highly recommends this for relaxing and for anxiety. He stresses that it needs to be cultivated, so it needs to be done twice a day to get into the habit. I encourage clients to do it during the day when they feel stressed or overwhelmed and at night before falling asleep. Here is a link for more information:http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/VDR00112/The-4-7-8-Breath-Benefits-and-Demonstration.html. I think the breath work combined with the Attunement protocol would be amazing.
I recognize that many people need a great deal more sleep than I do. I come from a family in which many of us require very little sleep. What I have found is that I do need rest. I can quiet the mind or take a 10 minute power nap and feel rested. What I learn long ago was not to get upset about not getting the amount of sleep that was recommended and just relax with what I had. I think it is good to be cognizant of what it right for you. Many times I use my awake times for long distance radiation and prayer.
Great topic Chris. Thanks for opening this one up. I appreciate the reference & diagram for Over-the-Head Attunement. Here are a few other thoughts. Excess alcohol consumption will profoundly disturb sleep patterns, and can create significant sleep-deprivation problems, and we know that excessive alcohol consumption is a big problem in the western world. Acid/alkaline imbalance can greatly affect the nervous system and will disrupt normal sleep patterns. Lack of adequate magnesium can make for a sleepless and/or painful night. Melatonin can be very helpful to induce proper sleep rhythms. THC-free cannabis extract can be very helpful to induce a luxurious sleep without the cannabis high. Water, water, water, drink enough water. Walking in the fresh air, and remember how important it is to breathe – and learn to do rhythmic breathing. Most vital, meditation and sanctification. A deep and abiding attunement with the Lord, and with one’s world is vital, and also, I find that I am having a restless, sleepless night, I have learned to immediately enter into sanctification and engage in rhythmic breathing patterns and, if I need to I will get up and use the awake time wisely in meditation and more focused sanctification, and really enjoy that awake night-time space. It may be necessary to sleep a bit in the late-afternoon and do whatever is necessary to make sure that I get the rest that is necessary to facilitate the greatest possible vibrational Service.
Sleep. I work with many clients in my counseling practice that have been referred to me by sleep clinics for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy specifically designed for sleep. That’s cognitive restructuring around negative thoughts about sleep. Negative sleep thoughts can take a sleep problem and turn it into chronic insomnia. I went for professional training in this approach, thinking I already would know the content, but figuring I’d earn the necessary CEUs to maintain my mental health license. I was wrong!
Apparently, there have been significant studies conducted in the past 10 years, with millions of people, from which new conclusions have been drawn. I didn’t know A LOT! One new understanding is that there are four stages of sleep, and that different processes occur in the different stages. Another is that it is only in the last 300 years that the idea of having uninterrupted sleep was normal. Prior to that, it was normal for people to wake in the mid-night to put more wood on the fire, and get rearranged, warm up again, and go back to sleep. I also leaned that the old idea of needing 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep for health has been updated. It looks like 7 hours of sleep consistently shows the longest life expectancy! I’m sure there are individual variations on that need, but, for the general population, the sweet spot to aim for is now understood to be 7 hours.
Certainly sleep deprivation like Chris experienced is damaging on all levels. But, I learned, the kind of “every day” ( not prisoner of war) insomnia that our clients experience, studies with very large numbers of people, and many of these studies, show that, for the most part, it is the mood that is impacted most. Not health. Again, I’m not talking about extreme cases of sleep deprivation, but the more common experiences of nighttime awakenings, delayed falling asleep, and few hours of sleep. I could explain why it isn’t effecting our health, as much as it’s effecting our mood, but then I’d have to go into the explanation of the 4 stages of sleep and what occurs in each one, and the typing involved is more than I have time for.
With all the updated information, a series of ” Positive Sleep Thoughts” have been developed in order to help a client do the cognitive restructuring that can help them break the cycle of chronic insomnia. Replacing Positive Sleep Thoughts for the habitual Negative Sleep Thoughts. I’ve seen it work on myself. And I’ve now been happy to see it improve sleep with every client I’ve taught the approach to. I’m eager to add this new Attunement Sleep Protocol to my Conquering Insomnia toolbox. If you want to learn more about this, the man I trained with is Dr Gregg Jacobs at Harvard Medical School. His website is http://cbtforinsomnia.com/about/gregg_jacobs.html