Nightmares
1. About Nightmares
2. Recipe: Mulberry Pie
Hi There!
Look at the beautiful flowers one of my ecstatic clients gave to me, at the Healthy Inspirations talk!
What a wonderful month it has been! We’ve had visitors, took a quick trip to Beechmont (in the mountains behind the Gold Coast), finished our Latin dance course, and of course, indulged in West End’s wonderful restaurants. The mulberries have been wonderful, so Mulberry Pie was the order of the day too.
I have even taken some of my own advice I’m so fond of giving others, and we enjoyed a 4 day weekend right here at home. We went bike riding around West End, over to Toowong, then up to Paddington for a leisurely lunch. And another day was spent walking to the Green Bridge from Highgate Hill, then taking the little ferry across to the Uni for morning tea, and then down to Southbank to the museum. We caught a fantastic Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, just stunning, and had lunch there too. All in all, very relaxing and yet invigorating.
The Healthy Inspirations Seminar on Low Down On Labels and 7 Tips for Thinking Thin was great. I learnt so much about food labels that it was a real eye-opener.
I’m feeling very excited to have been invited to present a paper at QualCon 2006, on the Mysteries of Leadership. It’s an annual National Conference hosted by the Quality Organisation of Australia and held in Sydney next week. There’s a huge gala dinner as well so it will be nice to get all dressed up!
Warm regards, Narelle
1. About Nightmares
What causes nightmares? There are a number of theories ranging from food you eat, over-exercising, and unresolved trauma. If we take a look at this problem from the perspective of your sub-conscious mind and how you respond to stress, I think you’ll find that nightmares mostly occur when you are under stress. Of course, the nightmare and its subsequent triggering of broken, poor, or reduced sleep doesn’t help and only exacerbates the problem.
Once you begin to worry about nightmares and get into the habit of worrying about them, then the nightmares themself become a habit pattern too. Of course, this doesn’t help either, and there is often a vicious cyclical pattern as a result.
What to do?
1. Do monitor your diet and avoid cheese and chocolate in the evening particularly, as this may contribute to nightmares.
2. Check your stress levels. Lots of people are stressed, without even realising it. Ask yourself these questions: Am I under pressure at work? Do I have deadlines to meet? Am I coping with staff demands? Do I need management training? Are my work expectations not being met?
3. At home: am I trying to be super woman or super man? Am I staying up late at night and getting up early in the morning? Do I ever take a break?
4. Have you resolved all the little things that need resolving? Was there anything that played on your mind, kind of in the back of your mind? If there was, bring it to the forefront and deal with it. Decide to learn from it, and let it go. If you can’t figure it out, let it go. Then it won’t pop up in your dreams trying to get you to resolve it there.
5. Or have you been traumatised? Have you experienced sexual harassment, sexual abuse, domestic violence, natural disasters or been caught in war zones? If this is the case then come and see me, because for a specific technique to resolve the trauma. You do not have to live with post-traumatic stress, because help is available for you.
If any of the above apply to you, then your subconscious has used nightmares to try and resolve the issues, by replaying the events over and over. However, what it really needs is for you to intervene and interrupt the habit to create a new outcome.
So, start by preparing yourself for a restful night’s sleep.
1. Get into a routine of going to bed at the same time, every night of the week.
2. Get into the habit of following the same leisurely routine, for example: brush teeth, go to the toilet, stretch, and read something positive for 15 minutes prior to turning your light off and relaxing on your back in bed.
3. Have a glass of water beside your bed, and drink half, saying to yourself: “As I drink this half a glass of water, I know I will have a sound sleep and awaken refreshed tomorrow morning. I will dream of angels and fairies and wonderful happy things… Of places to visit and positive uplifting people to meet.”
4. Focus on how to fall asleep. To do this, recall what it was like when you used to fall asleep easily and effortlessly. You could feel yourself breathing in and out, you could feel your face and eyes softening, you became aware in a half-aware sort of way that your whole body was relaxing and becoming limp and heavy, and let yourself recall what it was like to be falling asleep, gently and comfortably. Allow yourself to drift off to sleep, like drifting on a soft fluffy cloud. (If you do wake up with a nightmare, flood the images with bright light, and see them dissolve, like ice melting quickly under a burning bright sun.)
5. When you wake up, pick up the half glass of water, and drink it and say to yourself, “As I drink this half glass of water, I give thanks for a good sleep and wonderful dreams, and during the day, I will be reminded of only those positive dreams through little things that act as a trigger.”
6. Focus only on the good sleep you had. Full stop, end of story. If you slept for 4 hours straight, that was a good sleep. If it was 1 hour, it was a good sleep. Do not worry about how much sleep you should have got. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the sleep you did get.
7. Follow this routine every night and morning without fail and your sleep will improve and your nightmares disappear.
Remember, if you have been traumatised, you may need additional help, but for most other situations, following the above routine can be very helpful.
Did you know that there is a South Pacific Island which resolves all of its conflicts in the dream state? There is never conflict during the day; people dream about the conflict and sort it out while in the dream state! Ah, the power of dreaming positive dreams, just decide on it and watch it happen.
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Treasure the love you receive above all.
It will survive long after your
gold and good health have vanished.
– Og Mandino
2. Health Tip: Mulberry Pie
Line a pie plate with shortcrust pastry. Bake blind in oven at moderate heat for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.
Mix 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water, 1 tspn lemon juice, 1/2 tspn cinnamon and 3 tbpns cornstarch together, then gently mix through 4 cups fresh mulberries.
Pour into your pastry case, dot with little dobs of butter, then top with pastry crust which has slits in it. Bake until golden brown at moderate heat.
