Music prescriptions to help with insomnia

Most of you know I work at a hospital playing therapeutic music for ICU patients.  What this ends up meaning is that I help the patients relax and sleep by using music as a science. This means that the listener links up with the slow rhythms I play and falls asleep.

I'm aware that many people suffer from insomnia. Many report that they are able to fall asleep but wake up during the night and are unable to fall back to sleep. There are ways to help with this and below I will give you some ideas to try.

First I will say that getting a good night's sleep can be an effort. It may mean altering your current lifestyle somewhat in order to ensure you can create good sleep patterns in your life. For instance, I try to go lie down in bed one or more hours before I want to be asleep. So if i want to be asleep by 10, I go to bed at 9:00. Here are some other things:

Starting a new sleep routine:

• Try cutting back on watching TV  before going to bed and instead try doing some light inspirational reading. TV can be very stimulating and I find it very hard to go lie down after watching the news or an TV show. Our brains are still working out the details. With a book, sometimes the quiet focus can relax and help us slow down.
•  Begin your bedtime routine much earlier than you wish to be falling asleep. If you have had children or cared for children, you see that we can't suddenly announce, "ok it's time for bed" and expect them to go and fall asleep within 30 mins. We usually have to introduce the idea a long time beforehand by giving them a bath, getting them in their pajamas, reading to them, etc. It takes effort to help a child unwind. We are no different! We need time to unwind from the day. Give yourself that gift to slow down and unplug from the world.
• You might like to purchase some nice, relaxing new music to listen to as you lie down for the night. I think it is a good idea to have new music that you have no past baggage with (that would get the mind thinking) and something that you associate with resting and sleep. I will list some recordings I like a lot at the end.

If/when you wake up during the night:

•  Something you might try is to adopt a mantra you can say quietly in your mind. If you've ever taken a yoga class, then you are familiar with the chanting music that has short, repeated phrases with repetitious music. I prefer to say a sanskirt mantra of something simple like "Om Shanti,  Shanti, Shanti" which means peace.   The reason for the sanskrit is that in these mantras, the emphasis is on the vibration of the words, not the literal meaning of them. We want to bypass the thinking mind as much as possible. If you have something simple you can use for a mantra (you can google this topic and find many of them) it is helpful. 
  
• The mind is like a border collie dog and it is wired to work and its job is to problem solve. One of the biggest hindrances is when we wake up and our brain kicks right in with things like, "did I send that email?" "will I be ready for the meeting tomorrow?" etc etc. These kinds of thoughts are like "hooks" that can get us all wound up and it is hard to shut down the endless chatter. So that is why I use the mantra to avoid that happening. It gives me something to focus on and the effort of the focus makes me fall back to sleep.
• Don't look at the clock!   It really does not help us to know what time it is. In fact, it only creates more anxiety and more "hooks" to get us wound up. "Oh no! it's 3:00 am and I have to be up in two hours!!" This does not help.  Focus on the mantra or relaxing music.
• You might try using a silk eye mask to ensure it is completely dark. I have light coming in my room and any kind of light tends to make me wake up or sleep lightly. The eye mask is so light you don't feel it and it helps to induce a deep sleep. 
• Above all, try to be gentle with yourself about it. Treat yourself as you would a child who wakes up in the middle of the night. You would be kind and reassuring and maybe sing them to sleep or turn on a CD.

Here are some CDs I really like and use over and over. I recommend using one CD you like for at least a month at a time. This way, your body gets the message when you hear the music, "it's time to sleep now." I prefer music without words or words that are not in English so that my mind is not "hooked' into a storyline.

David Darling "Cello Blue" --beautiful, peaceful cello music 

Singh Kaur "Guru Ram Das" --healing chant with Kim Roberston accompanying on harp

Eckhart Tolle's Music to Quiet the Mind-- a nice compilation of relaxing music

Just about anything by Snatam Kaur--she has such a beautiful voice.  Here is her rendition on YouTube of a beautiful Irish song, " May the Long Time Sun"