A Mindful Way to Healthy Sleep

•   In week one, you'll learn about mindfulness, in theory and in practice, and how it benefits sleep.
•   You'll also learn the basics of meditation with simple and easy-to-follow instructions, and you’ll be guided step by step through a 15-minute mindfulness meditation.
•   In the overview of insomnia, you’ll learn how “hyperarousal” interferes with sleep and the role mindfulness can play in reducing hyperarousal.
•   You'll have access to handouts to help you learn, sleep diaries to guide you on adjusting your sleep schedule (taught in week 3), and a meditation recording to download to practice with each day.
•   Mindfulness practice for the week: Sitting with the breath meditation - 15 mins

•   In week two you will learn about the 7 principles of mindfulness and how they can benefit sleep.
•   We’ll look at the common challenges people face when learning to meditate and how to overcome these barriers.
•   You’ll be guided through a Body Scan meditation to increase body awareness which is important for stress reduction.  The Body Scan guided recording can be downloaded to practice with each day.
•   To begin setting up good habits for healthy sleep, you’ll learn about “sleep hygiene” and “stimulus control”. These important components of CBTi create a healthy foundation for sleep to occur naturally.
•   Mindfulness practice for the week: Body Scan – 30 mins

♦ In week three we’ll cover the basics of sleep science so you’ll understand how sleep works.

♦ You’ll learn how support the natural processes of sleep by following a set a guidelines developed by sleep experts over the past 20 years.

♦ The sleep diaries to work out your optimal bed times and get-up time to make sure you’re getting the best sleep quality and most consolidated sleep. 

♦ The mindfulness practices this week will focus on mindful movement, including a walking meditation and a simple yoga sequence (mindful stretching).

Mindfulness Practice for the week: Mindful stretching (yoga) alternating with the Body Scan

♦ Many people don’t realize that our attitudes towards sleep, the way we think about it and respect it, influences how well we sleep.

♦ The main focus of week four is to help you develop the healthiest mindset for sleep.

♦ You’ll learn to identify whether your attitude, beliefs or thoughts about sleep are having a negative effect on sleep, and what common thoughts contribute to the cycle of insomnia.

♦ You’ll learn how to recognize a range of unhelpful thinking styles and shift any negative patterns of thinking to take a new perspective on sleep.

♦ It is very difficult to change negative patterns of thinking without a strong awareness of the how thoughts flow through the mind. Awareness of thoughts will be developed further in your mindfulness training this week.

♦You'll learn how to relax the mind and body with two relaxation exercises called abdominal breathing and visualisation.

Mindfulness practice for the week: Your choice of sitting meditation, Body Scan, Yoga or walking meditation.

♦ In Week 5 we’ll be getting into the nitty gritty of dealing with difficult emotions.  Feelings such as frustration and anxiety are really common in insomnia and often part of the problem.

♦ You’ll learn how to work with these difficult emotions without letting them overwhelm you, or interfere with your sleep.

♦ You’ll learn the subtle difference between reacting and responding and the enormous difference this can make to managing daily stress and dealing with insomnia.

♦ You’ll learn two types of mindfulness practices that can assist when dealing with difficult emotions: the RAIN practice and a Three Minute breathing space.

The mindfulness practices for involve one of the previous practices, plus the RAIN and Three Minute Breathing space practices.  You can also experiment with practicing meditation in silence.

♦ Week six is about creating lasting changes in your life to prevent relapses of chronic insomnia.

♦ You’ll discover how your energy is being spent each day and how you can boost your energy levels with nourishing activities and proper rest breaks.

♦ It’s easy to fall back into old habits, so we’ll look at ways you can sustain the changes you’ve made during the course.

♦ You’ll also be encouraged to write up a plan to prevent relapses of chronic insomnia as well as how to manage setbacks if they occur.  We’ll review all the skills and techniques taught in the course for you to you add to your plan.

♦ You’ll learn more about how to bring your mindfulness skills into daily life to reduce stress in your day and increase your mood and general wellbeing.

♦ You’ll be provided with a list of resources to help you stay connected to your mindfulness skills in the future, and continue your learning.

Mindfulness practice: Body Scan or choose your own