Insomnia
I am a night owl. Like so many others, I was forced to be up by 5:30 a.m. To get by, I rotated between four or five different sleep meds. I took the sleep medication, sat at my desk writing till I could not keep my eyes open, plopped onto my futon and fell into a seemingly dreamless sleep.
I got by with five or six hours of sleep. To feel balanced, I required nine or ten. I suffered from constant sleep deprivation. Lack of sleep raises the level of the stress hormone cortisol, so I’d medicate with tranquilizers during the day and drink sake evenings. A toxic combo that nearly did me in.
Insomnia
I hate to read studies linking sleep deprivation with everything from poor work performance, mood problems, anger, depression, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and memory. If that doesn’t keep you wide-awake with panic, factor in the destructive effect on otherwise life-extending telomeres. Whether we get less sleep due to work, insomnia, or any combination of causes, hearing that sleep deprivation takes an emotional and physical toll just adds another fearful layer to the problem.
Hyperintention
Trying to fall asleep keeps you wide awake trying. Victor Frankl coined this paradox hyperintention. He described the case of a violinist who focused on the details of his playing. He was conscious of how he placed his violin on his shoulder, down to every trifling detail, leading finally to a performance disaster.
Therapy for the violinist began with reducing the tendency to overbearingly self-reflect. Over reflection opened “Pandora’s Box.” The goal of therapy was basic, to return what came naturally back to the unconscious.
Logotherapy builds trust in the unconscious, bringing about the release of artistic creative powers of the unconscious.“Dereflection,” a basic part of Logotherapy, liberated the violinist’s creative process from the inhibiting effects of over reflection and sucked the demons back into the box.
In baseball parlance, hyperintention is Steve Blass Disease. Steve Blass pitched for the Pittsburg Pirates and up until 1973 had a fantastically successful career. He was World Series Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1971 and one of baseballs’ most successful pitchers in 1972. Then in 1973, like the violinist, he opened Pandora’s Box and unraveled. Walk after walk, pitching the ball behind batters, and into the fans in the stands in a come-to-life pitcher’s nightmare.
I had a form of Steve Blass Disease – hyperintention – from the day I started working. I “forgot” how to fall asleep. I spent nights frantically trying to get to sleep. I could not make the sleep up on weekends, because I needed keep the resemblance of a sleep schedule. Like the violinist and Steve Blass, I took the sleep process out from the unconscious and could not get it back in again.
Trust Your Unconscious
As with Logotherapy, Ki Breathing Meditation helps reduce the tendency of self-reflection and self-observation and yields back trust to the unconscious. The unconscious part of your brain knows how much sleep you need and how and when to get it. It is essential to give up taking control and allow the vast unconscious brain to do its job. Ki Breathing Meditation distracts the mind from self-reflection and self-observation and has positive effects on the body and mind.
Meditation
If you want to try meditating, but can’t fit it into your overbooked life, insomnia makes it a win-win situation. If you don’t fall asleep, you have the physical and mental benefits of meditation. If you do fall asleep, you’ve dealt with insomnia.
Sometimes I practice Vipassana or Insight Meditation. Like Ki Breathing, all meditation reduces self-observation and self-reflection. Especially if you are an insomniac, try it in bed for a body-mind benefiting experience.
Now I take melatonin an hour before I go to bed to get the serotonin flowing. I fall asleep in a few minutes. It helps, of course, now that I can stay up as late as I like. But like most older men, I wake up every couple of hours to go to the bathroom. I do Ki Breathing Meditation and usually fall back to sleep.
If you Ki Breathe you may fall asleep, but even if you don’t you are less affected by the lack of sleep, because Ki Breathing delivers oxygen through the capillaries to the lungs and removes wastes through the same capillary system. The longer you Ki Breathe, the better you feel.
I made this video for you to learn and practice Ki Breathing meditation.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you lay in bed and worry about not being able to fall asleep, you take forever to sleep and feel miserable during the night and the next day. The odds are with Ki Breathing — when you Ki Breathe in bed you do not focus on trying to get to sleep, but usually you eventually will sleep.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
