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HOW TO RECLAIM YOUR SLEEP AND TRANSFORM YOUR L IFE

ELINA WINNEL

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author,

except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Copyright ©2017 Elina Winnel

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataWinnel, Elina

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To the insomniacs, night owls, sleep deprived and just plain old tired,

this is dedicated to you.

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1 Sleep secrets 5 Take heart in the knowledge that there IS a solution to your struggles with insomnia – even if you feel like you’ve tried everything.

2 Sleep myths BUSTED! 8 Is the reason why you’ve had such trouble reclaiming your sleep because of all the inaccurate information out there?

3 Keys to the kingdom of sleep 20 Now you know what doesn’t work, it’s time to learn the seven factors that CAN make a difference.

4 Putting it all together 32 Why a multifaceted approach is the only reliable way to address the complex root causes of poor sleep.

5 This really works! 34 Join the hundreds of people who have redesigned their ability to enjoy the deep, sound slumber we all need.

Table of Contents

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CHAPTER ONE

SLEEP SECRETS

Even if you feel like you’ve tried everything, the solution to reclaiming a peaceful night’s sleep IS within

your reach!

Do you remember what it was like to float away effortlessly to the land of dreams, spend the whole night sleeping deeply and soundly, and awake in the morning feeling refreshed, energised and full of life? Or, if you have never slept well, can you imagine how wonderful that would be?

Such blissful, revitalising slumber doesn’t have to remain a memory or a fantasy: it is your birthright to be reclaimed, not just as a rare occasional fluke, but every single night!

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve probably already tried implementing every piece of information you could find about how to improve your sleep. And I wouldn’t blame you for approaching what I’m going to reveal with a healthy balance of scepticism.

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The sleep secrets I want to share

with you are not just a catchy

slogan: these are the answers

you’ve been searching for.

How do I know this? Because I quit my job and spent four years searching for them myself.

I followed all of the rules and advice I could get my hands on about how to improve my sleep, just as you have probably done. Unfortunately, at the time, I could not find anything of substance, or anything that actually worked.

For years, I travelled all over the world, trying to unravel the mystery of my insomnia. Somehow, I knew the answer was out there – and gradually, piece by piece, I managed to put the puzzle together.

Perhaps you’ve started to think that maybe you are beyond help, especially if you’ve followed the advice of every health and wellbeing blog, magazine, and news article that crossed your attention span. And if you have, I’m sure you applied yourself with the utmost diligence. Well, let me reassure you that the problem does not lie with you: you’re not a hopeless case, and you’re not ‘just doing it wrong’.

Most of the information on ‘curing’ your sleeping issues deals with only the surface symptoms, not the root causes.

Is it any wonder that you’ve been unsuccessful if you’ve been trying to stick Band-Aid after Band-Aid on a problem that must be healed at a deeper level? If all the bloggers, health writers and so-called experts can really offer a functional solution, why isn’t every single one of us sleeping like a baby?

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After visiting one medical specialist after another for years on a desperate quest to restore my ability to sleep, I eventually realised that the pharmaceutical-based approach of the medical profession was simply not going to solve the problem. As I found out, alternative methods such as acupuncture and meditation, by themselves, were not the answer either.

All these individual methods were too single-pointed to solve the complex, multifaceted problem of poor sleep.

This book is my way of reaching out to anyone who is sick and tired of being sick and tired. I want to empower you with the crucial information I discovered, which can reliably and permanently restore your ability to fall asleep, and stay asleep.

None of the doctors I visited ever mentioned anything about balancing my nervous

system, slowing my brainwaves, or any of the other factors which I now know to be the keys to successful sleep. That’s why I’ve made it my mission to break the stranglehold of the ‘specialists’ who simply repeat one another’s ineffective suggestions, leading to superficial fixes that don’t last.

I believe it’s time someone set the record straight, which is why I’ve written this – just for people like you. I want to show you that you DO have a choice, no matter what your experiences might have been up until now, no matter what you might have been told by medical professionals.

There IS a totally different option – one that works! Read on to find out the truth about poor sleep, as well as

what you CAN do to make a change.

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CHAPTER TWO

SLEEP MYTHS BUSTED!

Uncovering the truth about why you’re still struggling to sleep

The topic of sleep has been dumbed down, the advice that’s floating around has been simplified to the point of ineffectiveness, and much of it has failed to keep pace with the way we live in the 21st century. The whole field is antiquated, and it’s time to give it the overhaul it deserves, so that people like you can finally reclaim the peaceful night’s rest that has been eluding them.

How can you fix your sleep if you’ve been working from outdated information?

Part of my mission is to change this, and to equip you with the knowledge you need, to begin to truly address the issue of how to get better sleep.

The first step is to understand the myths behind improving sleep: all the stuff we are advised to do, but which doesn’t really make a great deal of difference.

On the following pages, I will share some of the myths that have kept people stuck in the cycle of poor sleep, and reveal the truth about one of the most important health topics for us as human beings.

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MYTH 1 Practicing sleep hygiene will ensure that I nod off effortlessly.

THE TRUTH Your habits surrounding sleep only represent a tiny piece of the puzzle!

Did your sleep problems start when your bedroom got a bit messy one day? If the answer is ‘no’, then this should be a clear indication that such a simplistic approach probably isn’t the solution to your difficulties with sleeping.

Sleep hygiene is a popular catchphrase for the sum of our habits that are supposedly related to our sleeping patterns. These can range from the state of our bedroom to our evening routine, what and when we eat, and so on. The truth is, these issues only account for about 10% of people’s sleep struggles.

Admittedly, there is truth in the idea that cutting out coffee in the afternoon and going to bed at the same time every night may help you sleep. However, it’s crucial to remember these only comprise a tiny piece of the whole reason you have trouble sleeping.

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There are also issues such as an inability to control your thoughts, imbalances in your nervous system, hidden stress and other factors that all play a part in determining your quality of sleep. This means that even the best sleep habits in the world are usually not much of a guarantee that you will regain a wonderful night’s rest.

“Working with Elina has changed my life. She really understood the struggle that I was facing,

having experienced insomnia firsthand.”

– Michelle, Perth, Australia

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Pharmaceutical drugs also tend to induce a state known as ‘artificial sleep’, which is a form of unconsciousness with disruptions to our natural sleep architecture. In other words, we don’t go through each of the stages of the sleep cycle the way we are supposed to naturally.

This means that if you constantly rely on medication to zonk out, you never receive all the health benefits that natural sleep holds, and that are imperative for long-term health.

“I’m so grateful to Elina for the difference she’s made to my life. I’m off sleeping tablets and I feel like a different person.

I’m happier in my daily life and everyone is noticing the difference. I wish I’d found her sooner!”

– Paul, San Diego, USA

In much the same way as painkillers are not going to mend a broken leg, sleeping medication is not the solution for chronic sleep issues – it simply covers up

the symptoms of an underlying problem.

MYTH 2 Medication will fix my sleep problems.

THE TRUTH Sedatives only address the symptoms,

not the root causes of poor sleep.

Medication may help in the short term, or for acute bouts of sleeplessness caused by temporary external factors (for example, trying to sleep in a noisy environment). However, if you find yourself relying on medication to get unconscious, there is probably a more serious underlying cause that needs to be addressed.

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MYTH 3 A more natural approach, such as

acupuncture/hypnotherapy/herbal remedies will solve my sleep issues.

THE TRUTH For most people, a single-

pointed approach is not enough, regardless of how ‘alternative’ it is.

Many alternative therapies have excellent and well-established reasons for being so successful, but that doesn’t mean any of them are particularly ‘better’ at healing your sleep than plain old pharmaceuticals.

Sleep is a complex issue, governed by a wide spectrum of factors that interact with one another to determine its quality. So as you can probably imagine, a one-dimensional approach is not likely to be an effective way of solving a multi-layered problem.

In order to reclaim the deep, restful sleep that is your birthright, a multifaceted way of tackling all the underlying causes is absolutely imperative. This may include gaining a greater understanding of the many factors that are damaging to your sleep, not just the superficial ones. In addition to the simple, physical difficulties, there are also deeper emotional, mental, even energetic and spiritual reasons to be considered.

By being open to addressing your sleep issues on all the necessary levels, instead of just trying a single ‘quick fix’, you can enjoy enormous breakthroughs in reclaiming a healthy night’s sleep.

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MYTH 4 Meditation is the remedy

to poor sleep.

THE TRUTH Meditation can be a very

beneficial tool, but if you have trouble calming your mind enough to meditate, then it’s not likely to be a practical solution.

As with sleep habits, meditation is one piece in the puzzle of solving your difficulties with sleeping. Trying to fix the whole problem through meditation alone is a bit like saying if you eat kale, you will have a healthy diet – when obviously, incorporating just one healthy food does not automatically mean you are receiving adequate nutrition.

The reason meditation can be helpful is because it slows our brainwaves down, and that’s a skill we do need to develop in order to sleep well. But if you suffer from a racing mind, trying to meditate might not be the best solution, because you’re unable to achieve those slow brainwaves in the first place.

Instead, you may need to use alternative tools and techniques to retrain your brain before meditation can become an effective way of reaching the slower brainwave states that will be beneficial to your sleep. Once you’ve improved your ability to slow your brainwaves, meditation can become a valuable practice to utilise alongside other methods, collectively helping you reclaim deep, restful slumber.

Meditation can be very beneficial as one component of a more holistic approach, but many people find it difficult to use this

method alone to slow their brainwaves and improve their sleep.

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MYTH 5 What I do in the hour before bed

will dictate how well I sleep.

THE TRUTH It is actually your daytime activities

that determine your night.

One of the trending topics about sleep in the media is centered around the idea that what we do immediately before retiring has a profound effect on our sleep. Yes, it’s definitely beneficial to have a pre-sleep wind-down routine, and it is worth being mindful of how you spend that time before bed.

But the truth is, our day turns into our night, so how we spend our waking hours has much more potent relevance to how we will sleep.

For example, if our busy day causes us to build up high levels of stress hormones in our body, or if we have ‘wound ourselves up’ and all that nervous energy hasn’t been expelled, then there is a high probability that we won’t sleep well. And no amount of mindfulness during the hour before bedtime is going to reverse a whole day’s worth of stresses and frustrations!

By understanding the significance of our day as a whole, and the effect it has on our quality of sleep, we can

begin to implement strategies throughout our waking hours that positively improve our quality of sleep when

the sun goes down

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MYTH 6 I don’t feel particularly stressed out,

so I must not be under stress.

THE TRUTH It’s hard to notice you’re stressed

if that’s the way you feel almost all the time.

Most people today have an elevated baseline stress level that we’ve come to think of as ‘normal’. The problem is, ‘normal’ may already mean ‘stressed’, and we’re just not consciously aware of it, because we tend to stop noticing things we are used to – such as a constant state of background stress.

You need a point of reference to notice the contrast between ‘stressed’ and ‘un-stressed’. If being under stress is your default starting point, then what many people perceive as the difference between just normal’ and ‘feeling stressed’ is actually the deterioration from ‘already stressed’ to ‘severely stressed’.

‘Your body can provide you with a more honest evaluation of your stress level than your conscious mind can. Check in with your breathing, the state of your muscles, and your posture. Are you breathing quickly and shallowly, and are you feeling the movement of the air in your chest rather than lower down, towards your abdomen? Are any of your muscles under tension, or are you clenching your jaw? Is your back slightly curved and feeling ‘tight’?

These are all telltale indicators that you are under stress and in ‘fight or flight’ mode without even realising it. Considering that stress is the number-one factor which affects sleep, this can be an enlightening realisation.

By becoming aware of the signs pointing to ‘hidden stress’, you can be empowered with knowledge that

you can use to make a change for the better.

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MYTH 7 My stress is caused by my

circumstances, so if I can change those then I will sleep better.

THE TRUTH The crucial missing link is that stress is

caused by the way you react to certain situations.

Stress is actually an ‘inside job’ – although it is often ultimately the end result of things that are happening around you, the crucial part of the linkage is how you perceive and react to those circumstances.

Many people think they will start sleeping better once they have changed certain circumstances in their life, for example that job they despise or the relationship that isn’t good for them. Before they started working with me on repairing their sleep, many of my clients either changed or quit their jobs, thinking that would solve the problem. Imagine their surprise when their sleep did not improve at all! If you have developed a habit of stress or anxiety (and by doing so, unwittingly damaging your sleep), or if you suffer from a racing mind, then you will probably always find something to be stressed or anxious about, and your mind will race regardless of your circumstances. The key, then, is to learn to change your mental patterns – and once you solve that problem in the linkage, your circumstances will be powerless to affect your sleep.

The first step is to understand our mental patterns, which most of us cannot, because they’ve been part of us for our whole lives. And we’re completely unaware of how these patterns are affecting us.

Stress creeps in through the way you think about your circumstances, not directly from the situation alone, so it’s your mindset that you need to work on, rather than

your circumstances.

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MYTH 8 Reducing your time in bed will help you sleep once you finally get the chance.

THE TRUTH For most people, this will actually cause sleep to deteriorate further.

Many people who struggle with sleep are advised to restrict the amount of time they spend in bed, with the intention that they will be worn out and ‘forced’ to fall asleep at specific times. This methodology implies that there is a problem with a person’s circadian rhythm. In the majority of cases, the wrong cause is being addressed.

Most people who struggle with sleep are affected by an imbalance in their nervous system, chronic stress, or a hypervigilant state of consciousness.

In most cases, reducing the amount of time you can spend asleep only causes the levels of your stress

hormones to rise, which is a major part of the reason why you’re sleeping badly in the first place.

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MYTH 9 A diagnostic sleep study will reveal why you sleep badly.

THE TRUTH Sleep studies normally examine what happens while you’re already asleep,

not why you can’t drift off.

The expensive procedure known as a diagnostic sleep study, or polysomnogram, is used to diagnose and evaluate conditions such as sleepwalking, narcolepsy and other sleep disorders. Unless you suffer from sleep apnoea, a sleep study is unlikely to provide you with practical information that you can use to restore deep, restful sleep. Many of my clients have wasted thousands of dollars on sleep studies, only to learn that the cause of their problems is not sleep apnoea, for example, and they can’t be helped.

Sleep apnoea is a condition that causes normal breathing to be disrupted while a person is asleep. This can be as a result of a person’s airways becoming blocked when the soft tissues around the throat relax. Less commonly, the interruption to breathing happens when a person simply stops making the effort required to draw a breath.

It’s true that this condition is notorious for disrupting sleep and preventing a person from obtaining the rest they need, and a sleep study can be a useful part of the treatment for this. However, if your problem is being unable to fall asleep, or waking during the night for extended periods, a sleep study is not likely to be of much use to you.

Although a sleep study can be useful for diagnosing or ruling out certain conditions, it’s unlikely to

provide you with an answer to why you have trouble falling asleep, and in many cases, also staying asleep.

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MYTH 10 Poor sleep is just something I have to

live with.

THE TRUTH It is your birthright to enjoy revitalising,

sound, blissful sleep. Insomnia and poor sleep are real and legitimate struggles – but there is a solution.

Having once endured chronic problems with sleep myself, let me reassure that there IS hope – it’s just a matter of taking a multifaceted approach to finding it! Don’t let your pessimism, your friends, your family, or even a healthcare practitioner tell you that this is just the way it is, and you have to resign yourself to it. Make it your mission to uncover the underlying causes of your sleep issues, and you will eventually succeed!

It takes persistence, determination and a personalised, multifaceted approach to solve the complex problems

that are affecting your ability to sleep – but take heart! I’m living proof that it’s within your power, and so are

the hundreds of people with whom I’ve worked.

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CHAPTER THREE

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM OF SLEEP

Learn the seven vital secrets that will help you reclaim a great night’s rest.

Now you’ve learned the truth about some of the common misconceptions related to sleeping soundly and restfully, you probably have a better understanding of why your efforts have not yielded the results you had hoped for.

So let’s move on to the things that DO work!

Are your past frustrations with reaching the holy grail of blissful slumber locking you into the conviction that nothing works? It’s so easy to become pessimistic about your options when you’ve tried every method you can find: believe me, I’ve been there.

Since discovering the seven secrets to a restful night’s sleep, I’ve been dedicated to healing myself and others of their sleeping difficulties. So even if you feel like you’ve tried everything... please, let me restore your hope.

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Amazingly, the fundamental factors underpinning sound sleep are hardly ever spoken about, despite all seven of them being absolutely critical to achieving the blissful and healthy rest we all need. If popular hype has been leading you up the garden path – instead of along the most reliable route to the land of dreams – then I’m here to reassure you that your sleep problems CAN be solved.

“Elina saved my life. She is a sleep magician.”

– Daniel, Sydney, Australia

In response to all the myths that are floating around, I want to share with you the seven golden truths about what really DOES work!

What’s missing is a multifaceted, holistic approach. Although it’s important to note that this is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution, there are patterns I’ve noticed in every single one of my clients, and these have helped me identify the seven pillars that form an unshakable foundation for amazing sleep. If you are missing one of these vital ingredients, chances are your sleep isn’t as good as it could be.

Read on to discover the seven crucial keys for unlocking a great night’s rest.

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KEY ONE: Increase your brainwave flexibility

Train yourself to shift from alert, waking brain function to the slower brainwave state associated with sleep

The electrical activity of your brain follows a rhythmic pattern often known as brainwaves, which can be measured using an EEG (electroencephalograph). Depending on your state of mental activity, there will be an emphasis on one of the five main brainwave frequencies that are constantly in motion in your brain.

When we fall asleep, we enter the slow brainwave state that neurologists have named ‘delta’. However, many people today cannot shift into this brainwave state easily. If meditation is something you’ve always found difficult, this might indicate an inflexibility in shifting brainwave states. We inherently have strong brainwave flexibility as children (unless you grew up in a stressful environment), but we can lose this as we become older.

The good news is that neuroscience has shown us we can help our brains become more flexible, and meditation is not the only way to do this. Just as gymnasts perform a rigorous stretching routine to help them become supple enough to perform incredible feats of grace and flexibility, there are many kinds of exercises that can enable you to shift your brainwave activity naturally and easily.

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Set aside a few minutes every day to do an activity which frees you from feeling constrained by space and time. For some people this may be knitting, painting, origami, or going for a walk in nature: these are the kinds of activities that slow your brainwaves down. You can even stretch the abilities of your mind by stretching your body – for example, through yoga. At The Sleep Expert, we have developed a number of techniques to effectively and quickly teach you how to shift brainwave states with ease.

In some ways, your brain responds just like your muscles: through practice, training and

stretching, you can achieve the flexibility you need to fall asleep quickly and easily.

KEY TWO: Balance your nervous system

Restore harmony between the aspects of your nervous system responsible for revving you up and chilling you out.

Most people today have an imbalanced nervous system because of our high baseline stress levels. We typically don’t pay attention to the things in our lives we consider ‘normal’, and things that are consistently in the background don’t really jump out at us as being particularly noticeable. So if continually being stressed is what we’re used to, we often don’t realise just how high those stress levels are. This default state of stress creates an imbalance in our nervous system, resulting in an overactive sympathetic nervous system (associated with the stress response), and an underactive parasympathetic nervous system (the relaxation response, which also controls our functions of resting and digestion).

Bringing your nervous system back into balance is one of the keys to a great night’s sleep. It might seem obvious that we need to stress less and relax more, but that’s a huge part of the reason why we overlook the significance of this

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problem. We start to take it for granted that this is ‘one of those things’ we need to get around to, so we never end up making a deliberate and conscious decision to draw our attention away from what stresses us, and towards what relaxes us. Many of us have also lost the art of true deep relaxation.

One way of improving the balance of your nervous system is to consciously become aware of your breathing at various times throughout the day, then slow it down and deepen it. When people check in with their breathing, they can often be surprised. It may be fast and feel like your breath is only going into the top part of your chest, or you may even find yourself holding onto your breath. These are both signs of stress. Begin to become aware of your breathing patterns and take some time every day to change them: this will help you bring balance to your nervous system.

Once you’ve restored balance to your nervous system, and the two equally important aspects of ourselves are in a state of equilibrium, you will find it much easier to

switch on and off at will.

KEY THREE: Reduce your stress patterns

One of the reasons why we have trouble falling asleep is because we’re tricking our bodies into thinking we’re in danger – when really, that’s not the case

Our minds are incredibly powerful, and we can routinely turn on the ‘fight or flight’ response through thought alone. In other words, there doesn’t need to be any immediate, genuine threat to our physical welfare for us to activate our stress response and switch into survival mode. Something as simple as worrying about a work deadline or being late to pick up the kids can trigger this.

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For example, if you are anxious about losing your job, or worrying about the state of your relationship, you release stress hormones into your body which prevent you from drifting off into a deep and easy sleep. It stands to reason that your self-preservation instinct will not allow you to fall asleep when your body chemistry is behaving as if you are in danger – even if the danger is not actually real. And it’s not just the thoughts we have during the evening that affect us: the build-up of stress hormones from these types of thoughts throughout the day has a huge impact on our ability to settle ourselves and sleep deeply at night.

Everybody has several key thought patterns they repeat hundreds of times a day, affecting their body chemistry. And these patterns are not even based on what we think, but how we think. Once you learn how to change these, your stress levels will be drastically reduced, and sleep will come much more easily.

One way to do this is by consciously taking charge of your attention. Instead of dwelling on a subject that’s causing you unhappiness and tension, make a deliberate decision to focus on something pleasant instead. Alternatively, ground yourself in the present moment by checking in with your breathing, and noticing all the physical sensations you are experiencing right now.

The problem is, you’ve lived with your own thoughts all your life, so it can be very difficult to look at them objectively with awareness and clarity. This is where getting help from an expert sleep coach can be a valuable way to supplement your own efforts: think of it as being a bit like having a personal trainer for your sleep. Sure, you can do those crunches perfectly well by yourself, and nobody else can lift your weights for you. But it does take your workout to a whole new level when there’s a qualified professional guiding your efforts.

Are your circumstances really to blame for all the stress that exists in your daily life, or is the root cause actually a collection of mental patterns you reflexively

use to cope with difficult situations?

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KEY FOUR: Work on your sleep strategy.

Develop a plan for letting your consciousness pleasantly drift off to sleep.

Many people don’t know what to do when they are lying in bed, awake, with their mind simply doing its thing. Sleep is all about going inwards – but for many people, this can be a scary process. It is not something we are good at as a society. However, there are ways you can learn to get comfortable with directing your attention inwards, and the more you grow to enjoy it, the easier it will be to fall asleep.

Instead of simply going to bed and lying there with a racing mind, hoping your body will drift off to sleep somehow, take the initiative to experiment with various strategies until you find one that works reliably for you. One possible option is to focus on the sensations inside your body: anchoring your consciousness to what you are physically sensing, rather than thinking, helps to slow your brainwaves down. This in turn spreads the energy of your attention throughout your entire body, and helps initiate the sleep process.

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Transferring attention in this way can be difficult for many people, as we spend so much time in our minds, rather than in our bodies. But as you work on practicing this skill, it will becomes easier and easier.

Another strategy might be to focus your attention on things that you associate with pleasant sensations and ideas, such as a favourite book or memorable holiday. At The Sleep Expert, we have developed a number of strategies that actually mimic the process of falling asleep, gently guiding you into a sleep state, one step at a time.

By learning to enjoy going inward, you can allow one of the barriers keeping you from healthy sleep to dissolve.

KEY FIVE: Adjust your lifestyle for better sleep.

Fine-tune the various factors in your daily life that can affect your ability to sleep soundly and peacefully.

Your approach to diet and exercise, your environment at home and at work, and your general levels of stress are all integral to how well or badly you will be able to sleep. However, there is no ‘one size fits all’ rule with regards to how your lifestyle affects your sleep, and it is only one piece of the puzzle in the first place.

Unfortunately, a lot of the advice related to the lifestyle factors affecting our sleep can be false or misleading, and the central problem is that different stimuli can have different results on different people. For example, it is commonly asserted that watching TV before bedtime is ‘bad for sleep’ – yet for many people, zoning out with their favourite series can actually help them turn down the volume in their minds and eventually nod off.

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With regards to screen time, it is actually more important to block out the blue light from your device or TV. This can be achieved by using display-altering software designed specifically for this purpose, or by placing a physical filter over your screen. Kooky as it may seem, there are even glasses and goggles available that only transmit light in the sleep-friendly part of the visual spectrum.

Other biggies in the lifestyle category are to minimise stimulants, do some weight-bearing exercise, and make a point of including plenty of relaxation, laughter and connection time into your day. Happier people typically sleep better, because they produce feel-good serotonin during the day, so that it can turn into the sleep/relaxation hormone melatonin at night.

Although there are common lifestyle factors related to how well you sleep, the most important quality is to

be adaptable and focus on the overall goal, rather than getting caught up in rigid dogmas.

“Elina’s approach is really different and powerful because it focuses on breaking down stress-inducing patterns of

behaviour in our daily lives. It truly is a holistic approach.”

– Anna, London, UK

KEY SIX: Build a healthy mindset around relaxation and sleep.

Sleep fear has become a real phenomenon in today’s world, where depression and anxiety are at an all-time high.

People who struggle with sleep often worry during the day about not being able to sleep

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at night. Others literally lie awake worrying about not being able to fall asleep, or that they will wake up in the middle of the night. These thoughts alone may produce sufficient stress hormones to prevent your body from falling asleep, making sleep fear a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A closely related problem is that many people today believe taking time out to relax is ‘wasting time’. How often have you been made to feel guilty about getting the rest you need? As young adults, we’re often pressured by the glamour of a party lifestyle; when we have kids, we instinctively put their needs before our own; if we work in a particularly ambitious or competitive industry, we might be told that ‘lunch is for wimps’.

Learning how to shift these patterns can work wonders for a good night’s sleep. If we don’t prioritise exercising our ‘relaxation muscle’, we can lose our ability to indulge in the rest we need, when we finally have the chance to do so. When we are deeply relaxed, we produce bliss hormones in our body, giving us a subtle ‘high’ – these are the hormones which help us drift off into a nice deep sleep.

It might take a lot of unlearning and rediscovery to start associating rest with bliss once again. But this goal is definitely possible, and one way to achieve it is to consciously make it a priority and ease yourself into the habit of honouring your need to rest.

If you do suffer from sleep fear, it can be very difficult to let go of, which in turn makes it so hard to sleep, and the vicious cycle begins again. This is why implementing all seven pillars at the same time is so important – as you begin to sleep better, and your sleep confidence grows, your anxieties around sleep will naturally diminish. To make this easier, we can offer specific and effective techniques at The Sleep Expert to help people reduce their fear of not sleeping.

We need to start thinking of sleep as the wonderful, positive and healthy birthright that it is, instead of making it symbolise yet another source of stress in our lives.

We need to start thinking of sleep as the wonderful, positive and healthy birthright that it is, instead of making it

symbolise yet another source of stress in our lives.

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KEY SEVEN: Set your emotions free

If you’ve been bottling up your feelings all day, they will not let you rest until you acknowledge them and let them go

Our emotions can be described as ‘energy in motion’ – so if we habitually block their flow, we can build up an enormous amount of ‘pressure’ over the course of the day. Anxiety in particular can cause a massive accumulation of nervous energy in the body. Even though the vast majority of situations you might perceive as threats are not really matters of life or death, your body can’t tell the difference.

If you’ve been constantly winding yourself up to fight or flee throughout the day, then unless you actively do something to release that energy, it’s like trying going to bed on a full charge of survival instinct. The problem is, you can be physically exhausted, but all that unexpressed nervous energy causes a glitch in your natural recharging process. It is as if you’re trying to recharge a battery that keeps returning an error message, mistakenly thinking it’s already full.

The only thing it’s full of is built-up emotional energy: fortunately, there are a number of ways you can neutralise this error, allowing your body to relax and prepare for sleep. One thing that can help is physical exercise, but this isn’t always the solution. There are other techniques available, such as neurogenic tremoring, that are aimed specifically at releasing this energy. Once it’s gone, your nervous system can return to a state of balance, and you can sleep again.

A pattern I often notice in my clients is their tendency to repress their emotions. If something makes us feel anxious, hurt or angry, it’s rare that we can simply take immediate action to resolve what we are feeling. As a result, many of us try to compartmentalise our emotions so we can move on with our lives. If you think of such emotions as signals that you are under threat, and you’ve pushed them out of your mind, then they will not let you rest until you’ve given them the attention they demand.

Especially if you’re a person who tries to keep everything under control, you might be inadvertently impeding the natural flow of your feelings. Another solution you can try straight away is to consciously check in with your emotions,

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and explore whether there are any you have bottled up or repressed during the day. If there are, feel into them, make a deliberate choice to let them flow through you, acknowledge them, and let them go.

This is an incredibly valuable skill which most of us are never taught, and by becoming more connected to our emotions, we can release the ones that are stopping us from sleeping soundly.

In order to sleep well, we need to have our mind, body and spirit in alignment: if we don’t realise there

are feelings of anxiety trapped in the back of our consciousness, they can stay stuck and prevent us

from falling asleep.

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CHAPTER FOUR

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Because the root causes of poor sleep are so intertwined, the only way to address them successfully is to take a

combined approach.

It is true that once in a blue moon, a single, straightforward change can make all the difference to a person’s sleep problems. For example, if they have a habit of consuming caffeine too late in the day, then addressing this factor alone may solve the problem. However, that hypothetical example is the exception that proves the rule, and in the vast majority of cases, resolving insomnia isn’t as simple as correcting a vitamin D deficiency.

The human body is a delicate ecosystem, and rarely is this more noticeable than in the field of sleep health. We can’t just fix one small aspect of the problem and expect everything else to fall into place, when the individual factors that affect our ability to sleep are interconnected and interdependent.

The only ‘single’ issue common to most people’s sleep struggles is a lack of awareness.

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In today’s society, many people are disconnected from what their body is trying to tell them, so they don’t even consciously realise when they are stressed or anxious, for example. When one of the factors that is damaging to a person’s sleep is particularly pronounced – such as a racing mind – the usual response is to focus on trying to solve this problem, without the awareness that it’s only one part of a complex and interconnected web.

The result may be a partial or temporary improvement in that person’s ability to sleep. Unfortunately, because the other pieces of the puzzle are missing, they remain unaware of the way in which the root causes of their sleep troubles are all meshed together, and the problem inevitably returns. I have seen this time and again with my clients, and it can be very discouraging. But it’s no wonder they can’t see the big picture if they’re only working with one piece of the puzzle!

The good news is that this puzzle consists of only seven pieces.

As soon as you have them all in your grasp, the big picture will jump straight out at you! It’s true that the theoretical concepts underpinning the solution are rather involved and intricate once you start looking at them in depth, which is why we’ve done the hard work for you.

The Sleep Expert System will help you resolve your sleep struggles in a way that is simple, easy and enjoyable! I love seeing the joy and understanding on my clients’ faces once they have that light-bulb moment about how all the pieces fit together.

From there, all the changes support one another, allowing you to reimagine and redesign the way you sleep.

“I thought I was signing up to get help with my insomnia but I got so much more ... I feel calmer, less stressed and more in

control of my life.”

– Carmen, Canberra, Australia

As an added benefit, the process of learning to know yourself better will enrich your overall quality of life!

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CHAPTER F IVE

THIS REALLY WORKS!

Taking a multifaceted approach has helped literally hundreds of people to attain real results, even after trying

just about everything else.

Now that you have a better understanding of why your endeavours to reclaim your sleep might have been disappointing in the past, why not try some of the ideas in this book to help you take the first steps back towards the land of dreams?

Knowing how to reinforce the seven pillars that ensure quality sleep, and helping people achieve this goal quickly, easily and seamlessly, is what we do best. No two people respond the same way to the techniques we use, and that’s why we need to consider your general health, mindset and personality, and the circumstances of your life when tailoring a program that is perfect for you.

Contact us now for a free Sleep Breakthrough Session to find out how we can help you on your journey to reclaim your

ability to sleep well.

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It doesn’t have to be a struggle! We have the experience and understanding to support you by making this an easy, pleasant and rewarding process.

Here is what you do next.

Go this this URL and reserve your session on the next available date. Please be mindful that during this book promotion, the calendar fills up quickly. So, go here now so you don’t have to wait 3-6 weeks for the next appointment time. If you can’t wait another day to get a good night’s sleep, go here now:

https://secure.scheduleonce.com/TheSleepExpert

“Elina didn’t just improve my sleep – she changed my whole life.”

– Lindsay, NYC, USA

You have nothing to lose but the shadow of weariness and exhaustion of poor sleep

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Elina Winnel is a world-renowned sleep and insomnia expert with a fresh, innovative and revolutionary solution to naturally treating sleeping difficulties. Helping thousands of people across the globe reclaim their sleep and transform their lives.

About The Author

Connect with Elina today for a FREE SLEEP BREAKTHROUGH SESSION

via the below contact information.

PHONE: Within USA: +1 323 529 3002

Australia & International: +61 1300 830 640

GENERAL ENQUIRIES: support@thesleepexpert.com

WEBSITE: www.thesleepexpert.com

Contact us here: http://thesleepexpert.com/contact/

Book your session here: https://secure.scheduleonce.com/TheSleepExpert