Ok, so it has been 30 minutes since I last posted and I’m still not asleep. This is not only annoying but also really scary!

I remember from Sleep School (and don’t quote me on that, my blog is not meant to be scientific) that dr Meadows said that standard type of relaxation techniques (where we force ourselves to relax) cause fight and flight response in the brain. Apparently our amygdala thinks that the fact we make an effort to relax means that we’re in danger because if there was no danger, we wouldn’t be bothered about the fact that we’re stressed.

It does seem a bit strange but I’m ready to believe this now.

So anyway, Sleep School technique is different: instead of forcing ourselves to relax we are observing how we feel while being non judging and the relaxation happens by itself as a side effect. And we fall asleep because we feel safe.

My Sleep School subscription run out on the 12th of January, but even when I was on it, I sometimes didn’t do anything for several weeks, so I really don’t think the fact I wasn’t doing the exercises recently makes any difference here. I bet it’s the standard meditation that I started using that is keeping me awake now. Even if I remind myself how to use Sleep School technique, I manage for a few minutes but then feel like someone is pulling me by the sleeve and says ‘wake up, wake up!’ and I feel so bloody scared it’s ridiculous! And no, I’m not scared of ghosts, I’m scared of the fact that my own brain is doing that to me.

And as a result I feel like I got broken! I really hope I’ll manage to fix it. If I have a choice, I’d rather sleep than be able to visualise success.

Well, I guess if I do visualisation once every 3 months, or possibly only when I feel really low and can’t imagine the future, that shouldn’t hurt too much? But on a day to day basis I’d rather be sleeping!

Oh btw, I don’t believe that visualisation can be done while practicing Sleep School relaxation techniques. To be quite sure you’d need to ask dr Meadows, but I really don’t think that would work: Sleep School technique is all about accepting the here and now and visualisation is about wanting things to be different. Those two will never work together, I don’t think.