Super Simple Snoozing Strategies Part V
Inside Out Weight Loss
Renee Stephens
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Episode 76 - Super Simple Snoozing Strategies Part V

Learn how one woman relieved her social anxiety, you know, the kind that puts food in one hand and a drink in the other, through simple intent setting. And, Renee takes you through how to use the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to send you into delightful slumber, no matter how long you've struggled to sleep, or how bad it's been. Remember if you snooze, you lose!

Transcript

Transcript

Renee Stephens: Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss. I’m your host Renee Stephens, and together we’re accessing and adjusting the control panel of your mind/body/spirit system, bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey and fullness to the rest of your life. A special welcome to new listeners to the show. We’re delighted you found us. I encourage you to jump right in to today’s episode, and also to go back to the beginning, starting at the prologue where I share the Inside Out Weight Loss and Renee Method philosophy, as well as why I care so much about ending the weight struggle. Inside Out Weight Loss is here to help you. We blend cutting edge behavior change tools with a foundation of unconditional self-acceptance, to give you a whole new experience of weight loss. And I’ll be right up front about it; I have a hidden agenda here. Yes, I want you to be slim and fit and healthy. I also want you to easily lose weight. Absolutely! But even more than that, I want you to discover the rest of your life. And there’s a thriving listener-run Yahoo group dedicated to this show. You’ll find links at my blog at personallifemedia.com/renee. That’s r-e-n-e-e. Read some of the blog posts and post a comment of your own to share your personal experience. We’d love to know. Join the community. Find a support buddy. Ere through your personal network of friends and colleagues or by soliciting one, either through the Yahoo group or the Face Book group. You’ll get many times more out of this program than what you put in, but you must put in to get out.

Renee Stephens: Now to help you ease into today’s transformative journey, I encourage you to share a moment of bliss with me courtesy of blisstrips.com. Imagine your dream in broad daylight. That secret desire you’ve been harboring is now out of the closet and living out loud. Perhaps you see yourself stronger and slimmer, dancing on the beach. Or on your shiny new motorcycle, rum-rum. Don’t be shy. Whatever it is that you’ve been craving, imagine it now in big bold colors, since a dream is only your fondest reality yet to materialize. Let it take its first soft breaths in your imagination, then let it loose on the world and watch it fly. I love that, don’t you? A dream is only your fondest reality yet to materialize. Allow yourself a few moments to imagine your greatest desires fulfilled. You have your best body, slim, strong, healthy and fit. Perhaps you have your dream job or business that you’ve started yourself. Perhaps you see yourself plucking mangos from a tropical tree in a beautiful beach setting with the love of your life. Whatever it is, allow yourself this few moments of experiencing it now here, as you go even deeper into this episode.

Renee Stephens: And by the way, go ahead and set your intent for this episode. What would you like to experience in today’s episode? What would you like to finish the episode having or feeling or knowing or having transformed to? I’ve said so many times that intent setting is a very powerful way of creating the reality that you want to create. I’d like to share this little experience that I had with one of my clients. This client had a great deal of social anxiety. One of her key triggers for overeating was a social situation where there was a lot of food, a buffet, a festive night out, a meal. Being an excellent friend herself, she was invited and is invited, to many, many events full of food opportunities. And because she has this social anxiety, she’d feel very nervous about these events, especially ones where she felt that she didn’t know very many people or didn’t know them very well. So she’d head straight to the food table and eat as a way, as a mechanism to relieve this social anxiety and be able to stay at the party. Now this strategy kind of worked because it got her to stay at the party. Unfortunately, obviously the side effect of this strategy is that she carries extra weight. So we quickly figured out that by simply changing this one type of situation, in other words by changing her reaction, the way she is in this one type of situation which frequently recurs in her life, she could make a really significant positive difference in her weight. And we spoke the other day, and she’d just come back from a weekend away where in fact she went to a party where she knew almost no one. But what did she do this time? She set her intent to have fun. Before she went to the party, rather than getting more and more nervous about it, she said, “My intent is to have a good time tonight, just simply have fun.” And lo and behold, she went and guess what? She had a great time without spending her time at the food table. Her focus instead was on enjoying the people that she met. Dancing and having a great time. Now in my book this is a double or triple bonus because not only is it favoring her waistline, but also she’s enjoying the whole experience a whole lot more while making new friends. What could be better?

Renee Stephens: I’ve noticed that there are so many situations in my life where I can use intent to create the kind of experience that I want if I simply pause ahead of time and set my intent. So go ahead and do that now. Think of any type of experience where you aren’t too excite, where you’re kind of hesitant, maybe you have some anxiety about it, you don’t want to do it. And consider setting your intent for that experience to enjoy it, to have it easy, to have a good time, to be productive, whatever it might be. And of course I’d love to hear where you’re setting intent and how it’s working out for you on the blog at personallifemedia.com/renee. I’ll post an entry there where you can comment and share your experience.

Renee Stephens: We’re in the midst of our series on super simply snoozing strategies. So far we’ve covered sleep cycles so you understand sleep itself a bit better, and the three pieces of getting a good night of snoozing. First, prioritizing taking the time to sleep, which means putting yourself first. Second, relieving anxiety about sleep, which we’ll be covering today. And finally, learning what to do to sleep, which we’ll be covering in future episodes of Inside Out Weight Loss. Last episode we covered the basics about settling down to snooze, setting up a soothing environment in your bedroom by clearing clutter, limiting television viewing, etcetera. Think of your bedroom as your sanctuary and your bed as your own personal cocoon. Personally I like to curl up under the covers and indulge in a deep sigh of relaxation, as I allow myself to sink in to the soft bed. It feels so good at the end of a long day. But what if you’d love to do that too, but you just can’t? I mean, you’ve been having trouble sleeping, so you find yourself full of anxiety about sleeping. In fact, you may even dread that prospect of going to bed. In other words, the bed or sleeping for you has become a strong negative anchor. Remember that an anchor is a short-cut reminder of a particular healing state or experience. So it may be if you’ve been struggling to sleep, if you’ve been having trouble with it, that bed, bedtime has become a negative anchor immediately sending you into increased anxiety about sleep. And believe me, I know how it goes with the worry about, “Oh my god, you know, I have so much to do tomorrow. I really need a good night’s sleep. This is an important day. When am I going to get sleep? Ohhh.” And we can work ourselves up into a lather about the whole situation, but we don’t know how to get out of it, apart from going to the doctor and getting the heavy duty meds to knock ourselves out. But alas, the minute that we don’t have the meds we are inclined or at risk of going back to that same anxiety. Not good. So, what I want to share with you today are or is a very simple way to relieve that anxiety for good in a permanent way without meds… We love that, without meds, if you can avoid them in a healthy way, then it’s a great thing to do. And we’re going there right after a short break. This is Renee Stephens, and you’re listening to Inside Out Weight Loss on Personal Life Media.

Renee Stephens: We’re back now. Before the break we were talking about relieving anxiety about sleep. In other words, relaxing about sleep. Now back around episode 41 I taught you a technique called EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique. And I tell you, I am hearing about this technique all over, even stories about how doctors, one… I just heard of a clinic up in Reno, Nevada where the doctors require that the patients use EFT on a daily basis. Well EFT is a terrific technique for sleeping. You can do a round or two of EFT before you go to sleep at night to relieve your anxiety about sleeping, to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is a part of your nervous system that calms you down so that you can easily drift off to slumber. So today I’m not going to go over much about EFT because I don’t want to be repetitive, and you can always go back in the episodes around 41 and pick up on all of the details about how to learn EFT, which I strongly recommend you do if you’re not already familiar with it. Today I’m assuming you’re familiar with it, and I’m going to take you through the wording, the tapping wording that I suggest as a starting place to use when you’re about to go to sleep to ensure a wonderful night of deep and restful sleep. So with my thirty second review of EFT, basically it’s a technique that involves tapping on the energy meridians, the same meridians used in acupuncture and Chinese medicine, while bringing up something with a negative emotional charge. It allows you to release that charge completely and bring in positive energy and relaxation instead. The good news is that although there are quite a few tapping points, they’re the same for every round, they’re the same all the time, so once you learn it it’s very easy to do it again and again. So tap with me now, as we go through these sequences that I recommend for sound snoozing. Great. Now, the first tapping point is on the karate chop point, the side of your left palm. You take your right hand and tap there, keep tapping, and you’ll be repeating after me, either silently if you’re in a public place, or out loud if you’re on your own somewhere or if you’re particularly courageous. You know what, stick a Blue Tooth headset in your ear and no one will think twice about it. Okay, side of the palm. And we say the setup phrase three times, which is, “Even though I’m really nervous about getting to sleep, I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep. Even though I’m really nervous about getting to sleep, I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep. Even though I’m really nervous about getting to sleep, I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep.” Good. Three times on the side of the palm, that karate chop point. Now tap on the top of your head; “I’m really nervous about getting to sleep.” Now go just above your inner eyebrows, one hand on either side tapping there and say, “I’m so nervous about falling asleep. I have so much anxiety about it.” Outer tip of the eyes; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep.” Bony ridge under your eyes, one hand on either side; “I’m so nervous about falling asleep. I have so much to do tomorrow.” Under your nose, between your nose and your upper lip; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep. I have so much to do tomorrow and I’m exhausted.” Crease in the chin; “I’m so worried that I’ll get sick if I don’t get a good night sleep. I’m really nervous about it.” Now go to the clavicle bone, one hand on either side, top center of the chest under your clavicle bone; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep.” Raise on of your arms, your left arm and tap about four inches beneath your armpit; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep.” Same place on the other side; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep.” Other karate chop point on your right hand; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep.” Tapping your inner wrists together; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep. I have so much anxiety about it. I think it’ll never happen. Like it hasn’t happened in the longest time.” Good. Back of your left hand, back of the palm towards the pinky, to the pinky side; “I’m really nervous about falling asleep.” And then finally on the back of your right hand, you say, “But even so, I’m letting all of that go, as I easily fall into a deep and restful sleep, because I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” Now take a deep breath and check in. You can go through the sequence a little bit more slowly when you do it on your own. And I want you to notice that the standard phrase for EFT, the default phrase on the positive side is, “I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” So we say the problem, “I’m really nervous, but I still deeply and completely love and accept myself.” You are welcome to use that phrase if you like. And it also works to use a more specific phrase as we’ve done here; “I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep” is my personal favorite and one that I’ve used many times on my own. You could add to it, “I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep, awakening refreshed I the morning” or “a deep and restful sleep throughout the night”, something like that to ensure that you sleep all the way through the night. I find if you’ve used the same phrase many times, sometimes it begins to lose its meaning, and by going with something more specific it really opens you up and begins to create that reality that you’re talking about. Remember to pause after each round, take a deep breath and check in. Now you can do this while you’re sitting in bed or you can even walk to another room or bathroom so as not to disturb your partner, it will still work. You see, what happens when we have anxiety about sleeping is that our sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight part of our nervous system, the part of us that very quickly reacts, pumps adrenaline through our system can get activated if we have anxiety. Anxiety tends to activate that part of our nervous system, and it works very, very quickly, shoots out that adrenaline and gets us going, which is the opposite of what we need when we’re drifting off to sleep. The parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, is the part of the nervous system that calms us down and it works more slowly. From an evolutionary perspective this was appropriate because if we were being chased by a lion or something we would want to slowly calm down to make sure that the coast was clear. What EFT does is it kicks into gear that parasympathetic nervous system and allows us to calm down, and being to draw up inside of our bodies and drift gently off to sleep. And if you’re an especially analytical type, like I can be, and your mind works overtime you can add some phrasing like this: “Even though I’m worried about this working, I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep.” Here’s some other wording that you might want to include: “Even though I have so much to do tomorrow”, “Even though I’m frustrated”, “Even though it’s really important that I…”, “Even though I’ve had this insomnia for years or decades”, “Even though nothing else has worked”, whatever it is that is your biggest fear, your biggest block, just throw it right in there into your wording as you tap away. Oh, and here’s a good piece of wording: “Even though I feel really sill about this odd technique, that’s way to woo-woo for me, I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep.” You getting the idea here? You can throw in anything, whatever it is that’s on your mind, throw it in there. And say you do one round and you’re starting to feel a little bit better; you can throw that in there too on the positive side. So it would go like this: “Even though I’m really nervous about getting to sleep, I am already starting to feel more relaxed and I’m still choosing to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep.” “Even though I’m really frustrated, I can feel myself beginning to wind down, and I still choose to easily fall into a deep and restful sleep.” You get the idea here? You can throw in anything that is your experience into the wording. But again, you could also keep it very, very simple, especially as you’re becoming more and more familiar with the technique. And you know, I think I’ll post my instruction sheet to the blog again, just so that it’s easily accessible to you. It’ll be at personallifemedia.com/renee. And while you’re there post a comment.

Renee Stephens: That brings us to the end of our show today. Thank you for being present. Research clearly shows that by having a support network you can increase your success in any weight loss effort. I encourage you to find your own by opening up and sharing with friends and family. And join the Yahoo group, the Face Book group, and solicit a support buddy there as well. Also be sure and sign up at personallifemedia.com/signup to get email notifications when the latest episode of this podcast becomes available, because while you may be subscribed via an RSS feed or an iTunes, iTunes may automatically unsubscribe you if you have a couple of un-listened to episodes. So the failsafe way to do it to go ahead and sign up at personallifemedia.com/signup. This is your host, Renee Stephens, and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggle from the planet, enabling you to develop and share your abundant souls gifts. Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves. Take good care.