Let's play a little game. Imagine your body could talk to you. It's talking in a language you don't always register or understand. This time it's talking to you in the form of waking you up in the middle of the night, not allowing you to fall asleep, or making you feel tired after you have rested.

Multiple Choice

If your insomnia or sleep problem were a message to you from your body, what would it be saying? 

A. Help! There's too much on my plate. I'm stressed, too busy, and running around with my head cut off.

B. Ouch. That thing that happened last week (or years ago) was so hard and overwhelming. We can't let it fester any longer… it's tearing me up inside.

C. It's taking so much energy to live towards other people's expectations of me. All the shoulds and obligations. I feel lost and not myself. Who am I anymore?

D. You're not living your passion or your truth. You're hiding inside and it's breaking my heart.

E. _____________(Other: insert your own story here…)

A Message From Your Body

Actually, our bodies do talk to us! It speaks through it's sensations, dis-ease, emotions, impulses, thoughts and imagery.

Our sleep is a powerful way for the body to give us a strong and sometimes alarming alert that something is unresolved and needs our attention. It’s as if the body is saying, “You’re not listening to me during the daytime about what I would like you to know or resolve, and so I will tell you when it disturbs you the most. That way you’ll finally listen!” In some cases, people feel anxious, restless, or their thoughts racing before bed or in the middle of the night. In other cases, people are experiencing too much sleep, combined with lethargy and that they are not rested even with sleep. Either way, an overwhelmed or taxed digestive system (emotionally, spiritually, energetically, and physically) can be a main source of sleep issues.

The right quality and amount of sleep can provide good health, a sense of well being, longevity, strength, vitality, and the cultivation of intelligence. Through sleep, nourishment of the bodily tissues and cells, immunity, clearing of wastes, digestion, and integration of the day’s experiences come with ease. On the other hand, inadequate or an inappropriate amount of sleep (excessive or insufficient) can have the opposite effect on health and wellness.

But what causes most sleep problems? What keeps people “up at night” seems to be a combination of several aspects, one of the most important being digestion – from a holistic perspective. While sleep supports digestion, the opposite can take place as well, where digestion supports good sleep.

Digesting the Day's Food

Digestion includes the processing of all types of food including physical food, emotional food, spiritual experiences, and anything that comes in through the five senses, according to Ayurveda, ancient Indian Medicine, Yoga, and many indigenous understandings. That means that the sounds, tastes, sights, touch, and experiences you have all need to be processed in the body to have a restful and sound sleep. While physical food needs to be digested through the physical digestive system, other sensory experiences and emotions must be digested emotionally and energetically.

Usually the brain and body have no problem processing the daily experiences and food through REM sleep, however, when things become overwhelming, sleep is disturbed. Too much sensory input or stimulation can be taxing on the body and the nervous system, or the heart and Spirit. It is like eating a second or third plate of food when you are already full in your belly.

In addition, experiences that are intense, whether troubling or wonderful, can often be equally as challenging to digest. Sometimes the hardest experiences to feel are ones that we are praised, feeling accomplished, loved, or receiving a positive feeling. On the other hand, experiences that are emotionally or physically challenging, hurtful, scary, surprising, or otherwise, can be cause for the nervous system to feel unsafe and seek resolution.

Downward Energy to Support Sleep

The energy of all types of food being metabolized is naturally a downward moving energy, which is the same downward energy that supports feeling grounded enough to rest and sleep well. Have you ever had a good cry where you felt peaceful, grounded, and could take a good nap? Crying consciously, while being aware of the feelings and sensations, is one way to process experiences bringing a discharge of nervous system activation and downward flow of energy. When it happens organically, the nervous system can feel safe, peaceful, and restful, and therefore safe to sleep.

Every experience one has is loaded with information that is fed into the five senses, all of which can be digested with present awareness. When an experience is beyond our nervous system’s capacity to stay present and digest, we may have undigested bits saved for later. If you’re particularly feeling fearful or overwhelmed, this experience may be more challenging to pass through your system. If it doesn’t, this potentially could build up over time and cause a sleep problem.

From the Scientific View

Consider an animal in a position of being threatened by another animal, which would be a life threatening situation: their attention would go to protection and getting to safety. How could they possibly be so vulnerable to lie down and sleep? This is the same instinctual nature of our instinctual bodies, according to Somatic Experiencing, and other somatic therapies.

When the nervous system is feeling unsafe or threatened (like the animal example), the body’s normal and healthy functions of eating, digestion, rest, sexual interaction, play, and curiosity are in a sense “offline” as the body’s energy and attention is put to seeking protection or safety. Even if your mind is aware that you are truly safe, the nervous system can simultaneously experience anxiety, fear, and overwhelm when the body’s experience is unresolved and not metabolized.

 

Sound Sleep

Many people experience troubled sleep, which is what inspired me to create the Sound Sleep Alchemy Album. The Album provides guided meditations, healing experiences, resources, yoga, and acupressure recommendations, and sleep hygiene from a holistic perspective, addressing digestion of food on all levels of the physiology.

Download the Digesting the Day Meditation

As a gift to you, I’d like to offer one of the tracks on the Sound Sleep Alchemy Album so you can enhance the quality of your sleep. This specific meditation, Digesting the Day, supports metabolizing the day’s experiences so that you may begin to feel grounded, peaceful, clear, and restful. Please note that this is a practice that will support you over time, especially if you feel you have many undigested experiences. As the saying goes, “It didn’t happen overnight, so it won’t be resolved overnight.”

 

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This is the first of a series of blog posts on sound sleep. Look out for my next Sound Sleep Series blog post about why that is and some recommendations for the different types of sleep problems. Feel free to reach out with any questions and/or consider if the Sound Sleep Alchemy Album will support you in better sleep or grounding.