Fast Asleep, Wide Awake: Discover the secrets of restorative sleep and vibrant energy

Belief #3: Sleep Has an Innate Healing Ability

We are meant to spend roughly a third of our lives sleeping. I still find this statistic astonishing. Why are we designed this way? There must be a reason. There’s still so much more to learn about the mysterious process of sleep but what is abundantly clear is that pure sleep has the ability to restore, heal and reorganise those 75 trillion cells. In Sanskrit there is a word sattvic, meaning ‘pure’, and this is the type of sleep that I’ll refer to throughout the book.

Sattvic sleep holds the key to healing potential and vibrant energy.

Sattvic sleep is not the junk sleep that many of us get these days (and nights!) – sleep that is muddied by the noise and stimulation of the day – it is clean, pure, deep and restorative.

We need this sleep. Our world is so fast-paced and busy that when we lie down at night we need to recover from the day’s demands and allow ourselves to tap into this healing potential.

Belief #4: Insomnia in the 21st Century Has Its Own Particular Significance

Insomnia has been around for a long time and certainly isn’t a new phenomenon. There are, however, at least a few factors of modern living that have resulted in sleeping issues becoming much more widespread and, in certain scenarios, the ‘norm’.

Speed

Life for most of us is challenging, overwhelming, too busy and way too fast – and this pushes us to do more. This is without even factoring in the real heartbreak stuff that’s thrown at us from time to time: illnesses, losing our loved ones, children growing up, parents growing down, relationships falling apart and so on. We cut corners in a futile attempt to get through our inbox or to-do list and regain control, so we eat faster or skip meals, breathe quicker, hug less, laugh less, cry less, love less, feel less – all of this just takes too much time. As Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow, says, ‘These days, the whole world is time-sick. We all belong to the same cult of speed.’

It’s a strange paradox that while we’ve become obsessed with getting enough sleep we’ve also become complacent about taking slices off it because, in comparison with everything else, it seems to be a luxury item that we don’t need and can’t afford. The result is that we prioritise staying awake over resting our bodies and minds, saying, ‘I’ll get an early night tomorrow … at the weekend … when I’m on holiday … when I retire.’ But we can’t. Sacrificing sleep night after night leaves us grey and lacklustre and praying for the day when we can take a break. But by the time your backside hits the sunlounger you’ve fallen prey to some sort of itis, or worse. How many of us are walking around saying, ‘I’m okay as long as I don’t stop. It’s only when I stop that I get sick’?

Noise

We seem to have lost the ability to be quiet. Deep restorative sleep is quiet and still. No noise and very little movement. To have this at night we need to touch this depth in our waking hours too, otherwise we become like a hyperactive child – exhausted but unable to settle and sleep. For many, sleep is noisy and fitful. Many of my clients report feeling as though they are neither asleep nor awake. Others say they have to sleep with some noise in the room – a TV or radio. For them, silence feels almost alien and even the sound of their thoughts is threatening. As the 13th-century mystic and theologian Meister Eckhart said, ‘There is nothing in the world that resembles God so much as silence.’

So many of us have simply lost the ability to be silent and with silence, and now we are starting to feel the effects. Human beings have always needed to be quiet. Isn’t this why we’re called human beings not human doings?

The effects of silence on the brain are measurable and studies show that the brain is healthier and less prone to neuro-degeneration with regular daily doses of silence.1 (#litres_trial_promo), 2 (#litres_trial_promo) Until fairly recently, quiet time has been innate and not something we’ve had to engineer. That is, until the world started getting noisier, faster and busier, and we lost our natural and automatic ability to draw our energy and ourselves inwards. No wonder the yoga, meditation and mindfulness movements have become increasingly popular over the last 15 years or so; it is exactly in parallel with the growth of technology that seeks to constantly draw us outwards to connect. We seem to have forgotten that retreating and being silent is not only desirable but also absolutely essential to our being able to replenish and renew our energy before we move to action.

Silence is absolutely essential to being able to sleep deeply and live vibrantly.

Always On, Always Connected

The way we have reacted to technology is causing us some problems, including sleep and energy problems.

Notice that I haven’t said that this is due to technology but rather the way we’ve reacted to it. We are responsible.

This is not a rant against the Internet and other smart devices – I like those things too. Technology was designed to make life easier and in many ways it has, hasn’t it? That I can speak to my elderly mother thousands of miles away and see her. That I can sit in my garden studio and communicate with hundreds of people around the world at the same time and make a living from it. That I can reconnect with friends and family I haven’t seen for decades and who are now in my life again in a meaningful way. That’s good stuff, isn’t it?

The problem is that being constantly connected via the Internet has become so pervasive and seductive, so hard to put down, that we just can’t switch off and end up running faster, doing more, to keep up – and the impact on our sleep?

Later in this chapter you’ll find out what happens to the body and the sleep mechanism when it is constantly bombarded with technology, but for now I’ll keep it simple. To sleep deeply we have to live deeply. We have to engage fully with life. If we spend all our time living on the surface of life, responding reactively to demand, how can we ever expect to go deep in our sleep?

Always On, Always Disconnected

We have a whole layer of newly evolved brain, the neocortex, which has the specific purpose of connecting with others, and forming strong bonds and attachments. For relating to others and meeting our basic emotional needs for love, intimacy and trust. However, as Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in Alone Together, ‘Digital connections … may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship … we’d rather text than talk.’ You may be wondering what this has to do with sleep, but it brings me to an important belief that underpins my work.

Belief #5: We Sleep When We Feel Safe

As I mentioned right at the beginning of this book, I have this simple belief that we sleep when we feel safe. Connection – true intimacy, love and trust – is one of the fastest routes to feeling safe. It changes our biochemistry, our brain, our ability to trust, let go, relax and sleep. Technology, with its new ways of relating, has given rise to a kind of biochemical loneliness in which the neocortex drives us to seek out connection, but we’re doing it in all the wrong ways. An obvious example is the teenager who reaches for her phone in the early hours to check her social media feed. The dopamine reward from the number of ‘likes’ offers some short-lived relief from the loneliness but she’s left feeling even more wired and unable to sleep.

Every living organism needs to feel safe.

In his book Feeling Safe, William Bloom, a leading holistic teacher and author, says, ‘Feeling safe is one of the foundations of a normal, happy and fulfilling life. You simply cannot get on with the basic business of living if you feel insecure, frightened, or anxious.’

I extend this to say that to sleep well we need to feel safe. And we need to feel safe regardless of what’s going on out there: worries about terrorist attacks, worries about our relationships, our children, elderly parents, our health, our financial and job insecurities, and our overflowing inboxes. Some of this is the real, gritty stuff of life but in order to sleep well – so that we wake with the energy and resilience for whatever needs to be dealt with – we need to get pure, deep sleep.

And herein lies a big problem. Sattvic sleep becomes unattainable when we are running in survival mode because we’re operating from the wrong part of our physiology, the part that doesn’t allow us to sleep because we need to remain vigilant to fight or flee from the threat (real or perceived), to clear that inbox, meet the demand. Too many of the people who walk through my consulting room door or are sitting in the corporate auditoriums listening to me speak are running in survival mode.

In order to feel safe to sleep we need to break the cycle of surviving.

Belief #6: Sleep Problems Don’t Start When You Put Your Head on the Pillow at Night

Every thought, every behaviour, every choice that you make during the day impacts what happens when you place your head on the pillow at night. You carry these energetic vibrations of the day into your sleep and they reverberate within you, keeping you awake or jolting you into sudden heart-thudding wakefulness. Sometimes they slide even deeper into your sleep, creating the stories of nightmares and night terrors, or overwork your muscles so that you wake up drenched and cold with night sweat.

So when I talk to my patients and clients about sleep, it is an invitation to talk about the choices they are making in their waking hours and my next belief.

Belief #7: The Sleep Problem Is Rarely the Real Problem

If you come to see me with a sleep problem I’m going to do my best to help you sleep. During the consultation I’ll ask all sorts of questions – you’ll learn about some of these questions later – but the simplest and most obvious question I ask is ‘Why?’ Why is this person not sleeping? I ask this question over and over again (in my mind) during the consultation. Why? Why? Why? Ultimately I want to get to the deepest, innermost source of the problem.

Now I might not, at the time, share the deepest reasons for my client’s sleep problem – perhaps they are exhausted and not in a state to hear and/or they know it anyway (although they might not know that they know it). My job – at least initially – is to get them to a point where they’re getting some sleep, feeling more energised and robust, and then they are ready to look at the true cause of the sleep problem. This is doing what I call ‘The Real Work’.

So if you’ve been struggling for a while, your sleep problem is likely to be a life problem. You might feel it’s related to the 10 cups of coffee you are drinking – of course this will stop you sleeping. But why are you drinking 10 cups of coffee? Why do you need 10 cups of coffee to fund your energy? Why is your energy running on such a deficit that you need 10 cups of coffee? This is where The Real Work lies. And this is why superficial sleep hygiene methods and sleeping pills don’t and won’t work.

A lavender-steeped bath, pleasant as it is, isn’t going to truly tackle the source of your sleep problem. Nor is that drug, which is pharmacologically designed to artificially induce a state of sleepiness. Often this is why those with chronic sleep problems end up going from one therapist to another, one book to another, in the hope of finding the solution to their sleeplessness … and never finding it.

The solutions aren’t out there. The ultimate solution lies in doing the inner work, The Real Work.

Belief #8: We All Have Access to Amazing, Vibrant Energy

I have arrived at this belief not just as a result of having studied a lot of theory, but I’ve also worked with a lot of people and, as a result, have learnt a lot about energy. My work has brought me in front of a diverse range of human beings: stressed-out mothers, city employees, children, Premiership footballers, movie and pop stars, prime ministers and their wives, lorry drivers in oil depots, princesses from the Far East. Believe me, I could tell you some stories! Don’t forget, along with being a sleep expert, I’m also an energy expert and my work is also about helping people to tap into the amazing, vibrant energy that we all have access to.

Recently I spoke at a conference with over 500 people from a management consultancy firm and asked the question, ‘Would you prefer me to show you how to sleep better or how to have amazing energy?’ A show of hands indicated that 75 per cent of the people in the room wanted more energy. A week later I gave a presentation to a packed assembly hall of 10-year-olds and asked the same question. This time every single child in the room said they wanted to be shown how to have more energy. Children are wise that way, aren’t they?

Why do we give up on our energy? By this I mean settle for less. Why do we think it’s impossible to have more energy, to feel extraordinary, to wake up in the morning with a smile, or at least grateful for what lies ahead? Do you think it’s possible to feel like this?

A while ago I realised that in helping people overcome their sleep problems something else was happening – something that I hadn’t set out to do. Using my sleep formula wasn’t only helping them switch off, lie down and sleep, but also tap into more energy. While this might not sound like rocket science – if you sleep well of course you’ll have more energy – but the quality of that energy and how it impacted their lives was truly extraordinary.

Was I responsible for this? Were the tools I was sharing bringing about this amazing effect? Well, yes and no. I realised that by helping people with my Fast Asleep, Wide Awake (FAWA) formula they went on to get good sleep but then the sleep started to do its work, which in turn supercharged their energy. Sometimes this happened after just one session. In fact, I very rarely needed to see anyone for more than a few sessions – as long as they were following the FAWA formula, I could take them to a place where their body’s innate wisdom then started to do the work.

For example, Simon, a personal trainer, came to see me exhausted and struggling with nightmares. He went on to end a troubled relationship, leave his job and set up a successful fitness business. Or Sarah, a drama student, on the verge of giving up her studies due to sleep problems and fatigue, who has recently been awarded a prestigious award and a fellowship to study in the States.

When we are aligned with life, dealing with it head on and not running away, our life force is unlocked and our energy becomes extraordinary.

Belief #9: This Book Could Change Your Life

If you work through the techniques and exercises progressively as they appear in the book, they will certainly begin to change your life. I have thought hard about using the words ‘change your life’ because I don’t want to offer false promises nor do I wish to sound boastful. But this not-so-humble claim is made on the basis of the feedback I receive from my clients and patients all the time. When I started doing this work it actually took me a while to believe it. But my scientist’s brain started to become more convinced as I continued collecting the data.

Belief #10: Your Sleep Problem Might Be a Blessing in Disguise