Five Tips for Sleeping Better at Night

As someone who tends to get insomnia easily, I've tried a range of different exercises and methods to help my brain relax enough to allow me sleep. When I was younger, I can remember my father telling me to "count sheep" before bed until I dozed off, but, unfortunately, this really didn't do anything except remind me that I can count well! As I've grown older, however, I have stumbled across many methods which supposedly aid sleep—some of which seem to work.

For anyone who is struggling, I have compiled a list of tips to combat that dreaded insomnia. I hope they work for you guys as they've definitely been helpful in regulating my sleep patterns.

1) Pick a set bedtime and keep to it:

Ideally, getting to sleep before 10pm is the most beneficial for your body. Studies have shown that the best time for your body to get optimum rest (and heal itself) are those crucial couple of hours before midnight. Our brains thrive on routine and a set bedtime will mean that your brain will start to differentiate between when it should be relaxing...and when it should be thinking! At first, it might be tricky to break the habit that your brain has developed, in terms of not sleeping, but please do not be tempted to get up if you can't sleep. Stay in bed and keep your eyes closed. If you do this for a couple of weeks then your brain will start to recognise when it should be sleeping and establish a new routine.

2) Increase your magnesium and calcium intake:

Often, sleep deprivation is caused by calcium and magnesium levels getting too low. If you want to ensure a restful night's sleep, either take foods that are rich in magnesium (like dark leafy greens, pine nuts, sesame seeds, fish etc) and calcium (like cheese, milk, yoghurt etc) or pick up some tablets from your local health food store.

3) Breathing exercises:

A really handy exercise for relaxing your body enough to sleep is to breathe in for six seconds, hold for three, and then release for seven seconds. Keep doing this until your mind quietens and you get into a nice relaxed sleep.

4) Turn off all laptops, phones, consoles etc at least an hour or so before bed:

Bright artificial lights, in general, are well-known to decrease sleep quality and duration. If you want to ensure that you get a restful sleep, you need to turn off all of these screens an hour before bed—and keep them away! (Do not be tempted to reach for that mobile!)

5) Keep your bedroom tidy:

An untidy bedroom often equals an untidy mind. Your thoughts are far more likely to be calmer and more collected in a tidy environment, rather than in a messy room. Eliminate clutter physically and you're subconsciously telling your brain to eliminate clutter from your life internally, too—and often that will have a powerful effect in helping you to feel more peaceful.

Extra tips:

As a general rule, lay off heavy meals or sugary snacks/drinks before bedtime, too. If too much sugar or carbs are in your bloodstream, you body will end up with an excess of unused energy and struggle to relax. As a general rule, a nice glass of milk and honey before bed can do wonders.

Recently, I've also discovered that if I eat a banana in the day then I sleep much better, too. The banana regulates the blood sugar levels and stops them from spiking in the evening, which gives me a much better chance of getting some sleep!

Hope this helps. If you have any added tips, please feel free to leave them in the comments below!

F x

How to Become Emotionally Independent in a Relationship - Part 2

Last time, I started to explain how to become emotionally independent in a relationship. I really want to help anyone struggling with this so today we're going to go through a few simple exercises that will help keep you grounded in the present time. By living in the moment, you should feel more relaxed and less worried about what might happen in the future with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Your thoughts will be absorbed in what is happening in the present moment, rather than on concerns about what might happen in the future.

So, how do you live in the "now" and stop worrying about the future?

I've outlined a few techniques and exercises below which I hope will help teach you mindfulness and distract you from worrying about what's going on in your relationship.

1) Connecting with the people and objects around you:

If the weather is fine, take a few minutes out of your day to go for a walk outside. Focus on what's around you, paying attention to any road signs you see and making an effort to notice the tiny details e.g. the different types of flowers in a hanging basket, the windows above a tatty shop building, the golden name plate on a park bench etc. By doing this, your thoughts should quieten and you should find it easier to enjoy living in the moment.

Whenever you feel that your thoughts are becoming chaotic with worries and concerns about your relationship, place your hands down on your thighs and focus on the weight of them. Notice how each finger feels against the fabric of your clothing and keep focusing on that until the thoughts quieten.

To help you further, have a quick look at the people around you when you're outside. Remind yourself that—just like you—those people have laughed, cried, smiled and known a lot of the emotions that you're experiencing. This will help connect you more with the people around you and take your mind off of your current worries.

2) Breathing techniques:

Meditation and breathing techniques are really helpful for easing worries. Whenever you start to panic or feel insecure, calm yourself with relaxing meditational music and good breathing techniques. 

Breathing Technique: Hold your breath for the count of four seconds, inhale through the nose for seven seconds, and then exhale through the mouth for eight seconds. Repeat until you feel calmer.

3) Resist the urge to check in on your partner all of the time:

I know it's hard when you care about someone and are itching to hear from them...but try to stop yourself from texting your partner all the time for reassurance. Even more than that, if you do send a text, do not follow that up with another text if they fail to respond. Give them some space and do not chase. It can be quite emotionally draining to receive text messages from partners who are constantly seeking reassurance so try not to fall into that trap.

If you think that you might struggle with this then have a "go to" group of friends who you text whenever you feel yourself itching to message your significant other. Your partner is much more likely to respond if you don't chasing him/her for an answer.  

4) Believing in yourself

It's really important that you try to build up your own self-esteem. You have to believe that you are worthy of your partner. The fact is that he or she chose you for a variety of reasons. You have to trust them and have faith in your own self-worth. If you trust their decision and value yourself then everything else will fade away.

5) Make time to do something you love or develop a new hobby:

A little space in a relationship is healthy. You and your partner both need a few hours where you can do something separate from each other—something you both love. It also means that you both have more  things to talk about when you come back together. If there was a hobby that you enjoyed doing before you got with your partner then I suggest taking that up again.

Above all else, remember that your partner is in love with you. Love isn’t about needing proof or evidence—often it’s about having the faith and courage to believe that your partner truly loves you. Trust that your significant other wants you.

How to Become Emotionally Independent in a Relationship - Part 1

Alright, so Valentine's Day is coming up and I've decided to tackle something a little bit delicate today. The fact is that it is very easy to become overly reliant on a partner and depend upon them a little too much. You enjoy their company, you love them a lot, and you want to spend every minute of your time with them.

Great. What happens when you overdo it though? You might find that your partner is pulling away, paying less interest to you, and showering you with less affection than you used to get. In desperation, you inundate them with more loving words and make the effort to spend more time with them. You literally reschedule all of your events so you can be around them. However, this is only met once more with your partner pulling away further and seeming more disinterested than ever.

Why is that? Well, the truth is, by trying to keep your partner close to you...you're actually pushing them further away. That's because you're not giving them the space they need to grow and to think. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is a human, too, and the truth is that they have their own life and their own dreams. They want to know that they have the space and support to do the things that they want to do some of the time.

By holding onto your man or woman tighter, you're effectively saying that you don't think you're worth as much as your partner. You are devaluing yourself when you're actually worth just as much. People want to feel like they've got a great catch (and your partner chose you because you are that great catch) so, by devaluing yourself, you're effectively telling them that you don’t think that you’re worth much. By devaluing yourself, you’re effectively telling them subconsciously that you don’t think they chose a “good catch”.  Men and women want to know they've made a good choice—that they've got something infinitely precious—and they definitely felt that for you at the beginning of the relationship. Put this way, your man or woman wouldn't have entered into the relationship if they didn't think they were making a good choice. To ensure they keep feeling that, you simply have to trust them and act the same way you did during the initial stages of your relationship.

It's more than that though. By clinging, although it's unintentional, you're creating an unfair pressure on your partner. They know on some level that you aren't happy and that you're struggling—and the pressure is on them to fix that. The trouble is, often your partner simply doesn’t know how to fix the problem and that can create an unfair situation. Your partner loves you; your partner absolutely doesn't want you to be sad...but he or she might not know how to make things better for you. To be honest, your happiness cannot solely rest on your partner’s shoulders anyway.

The truth is that only you can fix your situation. It sounds cliché but you have to work on yourself. Your partner was attracted to you for a reason and—in most cases—that doesn't change. The only thing that changes in a relationship is the way people behave. Perhaps something happened that triggered self-esteem issues within you and made you doubt yourself. Maybe that's spiralled out and made you believe you aren't worthy of being loved by your partner. This is false. You are worth that love. Your partner chose you. Nothing has changed.
 
I want to help you learn to detach from the chaotic thoughts and fears circuiting around your brain. I want to help you learn to have self-worth and love yourself. If you can love yourself, you make it so easy for everyone else to love you.

So, how do you do that? Well, first of all, please check out my previous posts '5 Tips on How to be Happy' and '3 Tips for Improving Self-Esteem'. These posts won't do the job for you but they will help you. The key is to build your own sense of worth up once more.

To save your relationship, you also need to take a step back. It sounds counter-intuitive when you're panicking about losing your partner...but try to give them a little breathing space. You might be itching to text constantly but you need to stop yourself. I know that might seem really hard and I know that it might panic you but this is for the good of your relationship.

Besides, don't you want to be able to breathe easily again and feel that same sense of confidence that you felt when you and your partner first got together?

You can do that. To help you, I'm going to do my very best to give you exercises which will improve your confidence and help you to be more mindful. If you're in touch with the present time and your current settings, you're not worrying about your relationship and its future. This should help to relieve some of the pressure you feel and help you learn to be a lot calmer.

This blog post has run on a bit too long. I'll cover mindfulness and give you some really helpful tips in my next blog. In the meantime, please remember that you are stronger and worthier than you think. Trust and believe in yourself.

F x

5 Tips on How to be Happy

My last two blog posts have focused on ways to alleviate anxiety and build self-esteem. Today, I'm going to give you some tips on ways to achieve happiness. First of all, I need you to understand that—although I will do my best to help—the work must come from you. Only you have the power to make yourself happy and realising that is actually one of the first steps towards achieving lasting happiness.

You see, you doom yourself the moment you rely on other people as your source of happiness. You need to be able to create your own happiness, rather than relying on set events or people. Likewise, you can't depend on future events to make you happy. If you're always looking forwards in hope then you aren't living in the moment and you aren't acknowledging the good you already have in your life.

This may be hard for you at first but you need to release all ideas of the future holding all your happiness. You will be happy in the future—however, if you follow these tips, you can also be happy whilst living in the now.


1) Understand that you are in control of your life and your destiny:

Often, we despair and believe that we are trapped by circumstances. This is not the case. You are in control of your own life and you have the power to change anything that makes you feel unhappy. If you believe that you have no control and if you feel like the victim in a chain of circumstances, you trap yourself into being the victim. Everything we do—even choosing to do nothing—is a choice. If someone does something which upsets us but we don't say anything, we've made that choice not to say anything.

It is your life and you always have control of it in some way.


2) Change your thinking:

Often, we spend a lot of time wishing that things were different. We might find ourselves longing for change or spend a lot of time missing a certain someone. For example, if you've gone through a tough break-up then you might be longing for your ex or desperately wishing for someone to love you again. This is not healthy as it just creates a negative thought process which tells your brain that you are lacking something and that you don't have that. The more you wish you had something, the more you're creating a scenario where you don't have that something. Thoughts are things. Someone who is forever saying that their life never goes right will create a life that never goes right. We attract what we think into our lives.

The good news is that we can change these thoughts. You have access to everything you could ever want but you just need to tap into it.

To do that, you need to start changing the way you phrase things. Do the words 'I don't have' or 'I never' tend to cycle around your thoughts or spill out of your mouth on a daily basis? Do you feel desperate and constantly say to yourself, 'I need this' or 'I want that'? It's important that you catch yourself whenever you start to feel like this. You can access everything you could ever want—but to do that you have to release all feelings of desperation and need. You need to be at peace with who you are now so that all the good things can start coming into your life. When you release the negative, you create a pathway so that the good things can start to come into your life. The faster you release, the faster you manifest positive things into your world.

Think of it like this: Pretend for a moment that negative thoughts are like the night sky. You've gotten a little lost and you're trying to find your way along to get to where you want. However, you're stumbling around in the dark and you can't seem to find a road. The more you panic about getting onto the road you want to take, the darker the sky seems to get. Eventually, you can't see to do anything through that pitch-black night sky and none of the things you'd like seem to come your way. However, by shifting your thoughts to a more positive level consistently, you're effectively handing yourself a torch and allowing shafts of light to illuminate the way again so that you can find the path you want to tread.

Using the present tense, switch your thoughts around to 'I have' or 'I am filled with' etc. because then you're stating that you already have the things you want in your life. In this way, you are telling your brain that everything is okay and you are clearing away any barriers which might have blocked you in the past from having those things in your life. This will help you manifest the good things you do want much faster and your brain will stop thinking that it has been lacking something.

3) Positive Affirmations:

I mentioned this when I spoke in an earlier blog about improving self-esteem. If your happiness has been blocked because you don't feel confident enough then telling yourself positive statements each day will work wonders.

For more details on positive affirmations, check out my previous blog post here.

 
4) Find at least one thing to feel happy or grateful about each day:

Find something in your life that makes you feel grateful and write it down. This could be anything from a friend making you laugh to the sun shining whilst you're out shopping. However simple the thing you're grateful for might be, just write it down. Writing down the things we're grateful for helps to remind us of the positive points in our life and will make us feel better about how we're living.

For Christmas, a friend bought me a 'Happy Box' so that I could jot down one thing every day which made me feel grateful. The 'Happy Box' works sort of like a piggy bank: Every day, you drop into the box a 'happy' note containing something which has made you feel grateful. In later months, if you need a boost, you can crack the box open and look back over all the things which have made you happy. It's a great idea which I've been trying to use daily.

 

5) Catch yourself whenever 'Mr. Doubt' or 'Mrs. Fear' shows up in your brain:

However hard you try, there will be points when you find yourself plagued by fears or doubts. This might come in the form of a doubt niggling at the back of your brain—or a clenching of fear in your gut—which tells you that you can't achieve something for whatever reason. Simply allow those thoughts to enter your brain, acknowledge that you've had them, and then release them. In this way, you accept each thought but you don't give them power. Slowly, those doubts or fears will start to fade over time and you'll feel much happier as a result.

How to Calm Yourself During an Anxiety Attack

The following blog post features some of the exercises which I have used in the past to calm myself during an anxiety attack. Most people experience some anxiety attacks in their life-time―and some can be more extreme than others. I remember a particular episode when a panic attack was so bad out in public that a friend had to come into my toilet cubicle to look after me. My friend sat with me and helped me to focus on my breathing until the attack finally left.

One of the scariest things about anxiety attacks is that we feel we can't take in enough air or control how fast our heart seems to beat―and this is because our breathing changes and gets shallower. By following the breathing exercise below, you'll be able to regulate your breathing, get more oxygen to all parts of your body and calm yourself down.

Trust me, these do work. Last year, I experienced a plethora of anxiety attacks and felt insecure a lot of the time, but I've been working hard to rectify this and the effects are very noticeable. The following tips are designed to help you during an anxiety attack; however, I also want to help you so that you can stop experiencing those anxiety episodes altogether.

Anxiety comes from feeling out of control. When we start to fear that something is going to happen (or someone else is going to do something) which is beyond our control, we panic and that can lead to spells of anxiety. The important thing to remember, though, is that you are always in control. You might not be able to control the circumstances surrounding you...but you can control how you react to them.

Remember, you are not alone. There might be times when you feel utterly lost in a dark labyrinth but that is not reality. In reality, there are friends, family members or support groups available to help you. There are so many self-help books and articles on the web, too. Although only you can ultimately overcome the anxiety attacks, there is a lot of support out there to aid you. 


1) Breathing:

Breathing immediately gets harder during a panic attack. You feel like you aren't getting enough air in, so you panic even more, and end up taking in shallower breaths at an accelerated rate. The good news is that you can stop this cycle.

Simply breathe in through your nose for seven seconds, hold for three seconds, and then slowly exhale through your mouth for eight seconds. Focus on the counting and repeat this technique until you feel yourself calming down. This will help you to get deeper breaths and will give your brain something else to focus on during the attack.


2) Work on loosening those tense muscles:

When we feel anxious, we can tense up without even realising it.

Press your chin down onto your chest and hold for five seconds before slowly bringing your head back up once more. Next, pull your head back and stretch your neck. Roll each shoulder gently until the knots ease.  The feelings of constriction in your upper body are simply caused by your muscles tensing up ―and you have the power to control that and relax those muscles.


3) Release the thought which is making you anxious:


I realise this is easier said than done. However, there are ways to release the negative thoughts and there are certain techniques which can stop the anxiety from taking hold of you. Remember, you control your body and your mind. You have the power to fix it.

So, how do you release the thoughts? There's a variety of ways. When I knew I was about to panic about some irrational fear, I used to change the scenario in my head to one that was OTT and extremely silly. For example, if I was afraid of being told off for something then I would imagine that person shouting at me in a Donald Duck voice. If you can laugh at your fears and make them as silly as possible then the thoughts stop being quite so real and you can move on from them.

During a panic attack, it also helps to actually listen to your thoughts. If you're panicking then stop fighting the thought and acknowledge that your body is having a panic attack. Don't try to push the thoughts away. The harder you try not to think about it, the more your brain will want to think about it.

For example, I'm going to tell you right now that you absolutely must not think about a hippo wearing a pink tutu.

So, what's the first thing your brain pictured just then? Probably a hippo wearing a pink tutu. That's because telling your brain it cannot do something automatically makes it fixate even more. You have to be a bit sneaky and allow yourself to think about the problem. That doesn't mean sinking into the problem, of course. You're simply hearing your brain's complaint and then letting it go. You've listened to yourself and now you have no reason to hold onto that thought anymore. You can release it.

Something which I've found helpful is mentally asking, 'What are you trying to tell me, body?' By listening to yourself, you acknowledge the thought and can let go. You give yourself the power to remove the fear.


4) Ground yourself:

Grip hold of the objects around you at the time. Notice how your feet feel when they're touching the carpeted floor, concentrate on how heavy your palms are when they're resting on the tops of your jeans, and live in the moment. Be mindful of everything around you and you will slowly be able to pull yourself out of the panic attack.

Tip: Try this technique whenever your mind starts to drift. In time, your thoughts will focus on the now, rather than fearing what could happen in the future. 

4) Meditation:

I know meditation isn't for everyone but there's no doubt that it can have a calming effect on the brain. However, if you―like me―struggle to empty your thoughts then I recommend listening to music to help. I was most prone to panic attacks before bed, as my brain had more time to fixate on worries at that point, so I tend to put on some light relaxing music before attempting sleep.

In particular, I find Louise Hay's subliminal messaging CDs particularly helpful. Not only is the music highly relaxing, but her subliminal messages can also fix any issues with self-esteem or anxiety.

For more information on Louise Hay, check out her website.

3 Tips for Improving Self-Esteem

Only you can improve your self-esteem but―by following these tips―hopefully that will become easier for you with each new day.
 

1. Write down and say positive affirmations daily:

Often, if situations are particularly stressful, we can get into a rut of negative thinking. Thoughts rattle around in our brains on a demon circuit and seem to get trapped there. Once a negative thought pops into our brain, we tend to fixate on it and find it hard to let go.

Using positive affirmations daily can help change this pattern so that you feel better about yourself. Instead of saying 'I can't do this because...' change your thoughts to 'I can do this!' If you believe something can happen, you open yourself up to being able to make it happen. Similarly, if you believe something is impossible then you can doom yourself to never getting what you want. Shake away any mental blocks you've created and believe.

As Audrey Hepburn rather famously said, 'Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible!' '

Write down a list of positive things to say about yourself each day. Remember to use the present tense for all of your affirmations and choose your words carefully. Avoid words which hold negative connotations and make sure your affirmations are positive statements. To work properly, your affirmations need to be read out like facts. This will help you believe them more.

As a starting point, I found some of the following affirmations helpful:

I am successful and motivated
I achieve my dreams
I am worthy of love
I welcome happiness into my life
I choose to be happy
I make the right choices for myself
I trust myself
I forgive myself for any past mistakes and let go of anything that might keep me from achieving my dreams.
New opportunities and possibilities come to me easily

As a tip, if you feel a pleasant warm sensation when you say the words then they're right for you. If you feel a clenching in your gut then keep working on the phrasing until the words feel better. You want to feel good when you read your affirmations so that your brain will associate those words with feelings with happiness.

Once you have your list, spend a few minutes every morning and evening saying your affirmations. Believe in the words and your own self-worth. You have the power to make yourself happy. Everything you need is within your grasp.


2. Trust and believe in yourself:

Ever wondered why some people seem to be so successful whilst others struggle? Part of the reason why is often their attitude. They believe they can get something and so they receive it. It's called the Law of Attraction and I'll go into that in a bit more detail in a later article. Basically, believe that you deserve the very best and good things will come to you.

3. Don't compare yourself to other people:

If you constantly compare yourself to other people, you will never be happy. You are a person in own your own right and you are the perfect form of yourself. Be content with who you are and don't feel insecure. The fact is that the people around you probably love you and want to be with you for who you are already.


Bonus Tip:

4. Smile at yourself in front of the mirror daily:

This may sound strange but if you spend a few minutes each day smiling at yourself in front of the mirror then you will start to feel happier in general. It's a mistake to think we only smile when feel happy. Often enough, we can feel happy because we're smiling.

For people with a low body image, standing in front of a mirror and smiling can make all the difference. By smiling at your reflection, you're telling your brain that you are happy with the way you look―and this will help you to increase your confidence.