[Don Salmon]

Ah I just saw the note on how you can’t “Try” to fall asleep and thought I’d share some practical tips (Whit, if you’re around – this is about practice to shift from LH to RH mode, and beyond)

This truism about not being able to “try” to fall asleep is pretty much universally accepted in the “how to sleep world” (I’m certified in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which is now the #1 recommended treatment, BEFORE pills or supplements or marijuana or whatever and the CBT-I folks all say the same thing)

Probably is it can take some time to learn CBT I and inevitably, people get caught up in it and start trying too hard.

So about 10 years ago the sleep clinicians started introducing mindfulness, which for a lot of people helps them let go of trying, but unfortunately, the way mindfulness is often taught is about “trying” to be in the now, trying to be mindful of sensations, etc.

Looking about for a way to get past this, I settled on the neuroscience literature on the ‘Default mode network” and “task positive network,” But those are terribly boring and misleading names, so we just talk about control mode and experiential mode (which are NOT perfect correlations with LH and RH – actual experience is just never captured by anything neurological)

But I do find, once people learn – meaning become acquainted with what it feels like – to make this shift to experiential mode, it can be effortless to fall asleep. You just let go of control (yes it can be done intentionally!) and within minutes, you’re drifting off into Stage 1, then Stage 2 and stage 3 sleep.

Here’s a video about it: http://www.RememberToBe.Life, the 2nd video on the page.

Even better, here’s some techniques that can help you make the shift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_TiTWLLt34&feature=youtu.be