Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE

« To send or not to send... | Main | Inspiration »

Tapping the subconscious

Do you know that when you sleep your brain is more active than when you are awake? And all this time we've believed that that our beauty sleep is simply the peaceful fluffy cloud of child-like simplicity; that is unless we're suffering from disturbed sleep and restless dreams. No, white fluffy clouds and pink cushions it ain't, but a period of massive re-organisation of information, it is. Thanks to regular sleep we can cope with the new day next morning. If we do not get sufficient sleep, our whole performance and health suffers.

When we go to sleep we pass from phase 1 of feeling drowsy quite quickly to phase 2 which is a shallow state from which we can still awaken and feel fresh. Phases 1 & 2 usually last less than 30 minutes, so if we ever have a mid-day power nap, we must wake up within this time or else we'll feel very groggy. Phase 2 sleep is when our body 'learns' physical skills i.e. playing an instrument, athletics etc. Scientists say about 'Practice makes perfect' ~ "Neurons that fire together, wire together". If we're learning a skill, it would make sense to have a regular naps as the muscle co-ordination or muscle 'memory' is only temporarily stored until we sleep, when it goes into a deeper memory bank. The skill/memory diminishes with time and the longer we stay awake without sleep, the less of the experience is stored for future use.

Phase three and four are 'Slow Wave Sleep' which help growth hormones from the pituitary gland and also to repair physical damage, bone and muscle growth and also to metabolise fats! (Sleeping helps you slim!)

REM or Rapid Eye Movement is when we dream. This phase is critical for learning new experiences. Until we have REM no significant consolidation of the information relating to our experience will be consolidated in the brain.

A night of sleep takes us through all these stages; the whole cycle takes about 90 minutes and we repeat the cycle over and over again, 4 or 5 times a night. Phase 1,2,3,4,REM then phase 2,3,4,REM, phase 2,3,4,REM. You will note that phase 1 occurs only once when falling asleep and only again should we wake up in the night before returning to sleep.

Normally during the day we experience a mix of conscious and subconscious thoughts and emotions. During sleep everything is happening without the influence of our conscious thought; it's a time when our conscious mind is not getting a look in. We can benefit from this situation to resolve issues, seek inspiration and to discover what our deepest wishes and desires are. We do this by asking the question before going to sleep. By taking just a few minutes as we lie in bed, just as we're entering phase 1 of the sleep cycle, we can ask our subconscious for the answer to any question we have and our subconscious will unravel it by the morning. When morning comes and before we properly wake up, we can lie there think of our issue again and see what comes to mind. As we become more awake, our conscious thought will get involved and all sorts of rational, arguments, reasons why-not, attitudes and other restrictions will get mixed with our subconscious thoughts. We can self-argue ourselves out of anything!

If we 'Listen' to what's in our mind as we wake up we will be more in touch with our soul and our deepest desires. It's then that we may have a great idea and solution to our problems.

:-)

Source: Some of this information has been taken from 'Take a Nap! Change your life', Sara C. Mednick, Ph.D. Harvard-trained sleep scientist and consultant to the military and private business.

Posted by Noël on October 30, 2007 9:09 AM | Permalink