SLEEP PATTERNS: THE ROLE OF CIRCADIAN RHYTHMSIt is now believed that one major role of the circadian timing system is to organize our bodily processes and systems so that they occur in the proper sequence. In this way those functions that depend on each other can be coordinated, and those that are incompatible or that might interfere with each other can be separated. As suggested above, I like to think that the circadian system acts as a factory manager who schedules workers, ar> ranges the delivery of goods, determines production, and orders shipment of final products so as to achieve maximum efficiency. To demonstrate the point, let’s assume that a high body temperature is incompatible with secretion of a given hormone. The circadian pacemaker might coordinate the lowering of temperature so that, among other reasons, the hormone can be released to function properly. The pacemaker allows enough time for the hormone to complete its task, then brings the temperature back up to enable other body functions to operate at their peak. This is admittedly a simplified example, but it illustrates the point.Jet lag, which was covered in greater detail earlier (pages 51-58), appears to be largely the result of disruptions in our circadian cycles caused by our attempts to adjust suddenly to a new time zone. There are other, potentially more serious ramifications as well. It has been shown, for example, that one- and two-car accidents tend to occur, not during rush hour as you might expect, but at those times of day (between midnight and 7:00 A.M. and between 1:00 and 4:00 P.M.) which coincide with certain low points in our physiological function. Some researchers attribute this statistic, at least in part, to those circadian rhythms which dominate during these hours and which tend to make us vulnerable to unwanted sleep. Also, investigators ascribe some airline crashes to the circadian disruptions that are a known occupational hazard for pilots on long flights or flights at odd hours. And in the previous chapter I mentioned the fact that some cardiac diseases and other afflictions such as cranial hemorrhage are more likely to strike during the night, while some of our circadian defenses are down.*98\226\8*

STRESS BREAKDOWN TREATMENT: USING DRUGS FOR STRESS-CAUSED ANXIETY SYMPTOMS
In our society, the use of sedative drugs to reduce feelings of anxiety due to stress breakdown has become a major health problem. Sickness and death due to the use and abuse of alcohol, our first sedative drug, wastes huge amounts of the gross national product every year and has been recognized as one of our society’s major problems. The use and abuse of prescribed drugs is also giving us cause for great concern; it is becoming more obvious that many doctors prescribing sedative drugs for people under stress are doing so without a clear understanding of the nature of the condition they are attempting to treat.The drugs known as sedative drugs prevent the anxiety response from occurring when the nervous system is overloaded. They also interfere with the processing ability of the brain; therefore, while people may be relieved of anxiety from first stage stress breakdown by taking a sedative drug they will also be functioning less efficiently.
*47/129/5*

1. Talk to yourself. Talk to yourself in your mind as if you are talking to someone else, and tell this someone else to relax. There is no need to move your lips as this talk is in your mind. This self-talk is important as it actively keeps that single spotlight working on the relaxing ideas.

2. Repetitive talk. The repetition of relaxing ideas is sleep-inducing and conveys a protective effect on the mind. This is like a mother rocking her baby to sleep. The repetitive rocking movement induces confidence and regularity in the baby’s mind and hence induces a secure feeling. Any unexpected movements or actions are arousing and threatening to the mind.

3. Use pronouns of the second person. Do not say 7 am going to relax’; say ‘You are going to relax’. By saying ‘you’, you encourage detachment from yourself and your associated anxieties and worries. Hence it is like telling someone else to relax, although this someone else is really you and your body.

4. The law of reverse intention. Avoid words and phrases like ‘sleep’, ‘insomnia’, ‘sleepy feeling’, and ‘waking up’ as these cause anxiety for those who have a sleeping problem. This is the law of reverse intention; the more you want to sleep, the more the word sleep wakes you up. This is because, for the problem sleeper, the word sleep is charged with enormous anxiety and the mention of the word has an arousal effect on the sleep centre. Use words that are relaxing, like peaceful and tranquil, slack and loose, heavy and warm, comfortable and calm, easy and nice, deep and down, good and let go, and so on.

5. Lie in bed. Do this exercise in bed at night and every night without exception. Lie on your back, with the arms beside you in a symmetrical position. Do not wriggle and turn, as movement may generate anxiety and stimulate the mind. Most other forms of meditation also require stillness in the body.

6. Do not reject unwanted thoughts. Whenever you feel the mind is intruded by unwanted thoughts, do not reject them, as the idea of rejection means focusing on them. You should ignore them, let them flow past you. In fact, once you notice them you should immediately actively focus your spotlight back on relaxation. The unwanted thoughts will disappear gradually, as they are no longer focused on.

7. Talk to your body part by part. Tell each part of your body to relax, from the feet up to the top of your head. Do this repeatedly again and again. The feet, the legs, the thighs, the stomach, the chest, the back, the shoulders, the arms, the hands, the neck, the head, the face, the eyes, the lips, etc. Then you should restart from the feet again up to the head, and repeat this many many times. Also, when you are telling a part of the body to relax, try your best to experience that feeling at the same time. Hence when you tell your legs that they are heavy and slack, you must try to really feel the heaviness of your legs, and let them flop on the bed all by themselves. As you keep the spotlight on the relaxing part of your body, you are in fact shifting the sense of awareness in your mind to that part of the body.

8. Shifting from the THS mode to the sleeping mode. This shift normally happens unconsciously. Do not get worried or impatient that you do not feel the sleeping mode coming on. This shift from the THS to sleep is an unconscious act, and no one can tell himself that now is the moment of shifting from the THS to sleep. Just stay in the THS as long as is necessary and you will drift into sleep without knowing it. This is because, when you are in the THS, the arousal activity of the cerebral cortex is minimal and you will have less and less effect on the sleep centre. The sleep centre will trigger off natural sleep at anytime while the cerebral cortex is engaged in the THS.

9. Do not despair if it does not work initially. It may take a bit of practice before you are familiar with the technique. Perseverence is the key to success in self-hypnosis. Just perform the self-hypnosis religiously every night. Remember, even if you are not asleep, you are having all the rest you need if you just stay relaxed. However, no one can stay relaxed continuously in the THS mode, as the THS is the precursor of sleep.

10. Physical relaxation is the same as mental relaxation. There are two schools of thoughts as to the relationship between the body and the mind. Some people think that the body and the mind are completely separate and that, if the body is relaxed, the mind can still be tense. My belief is this; the mind is housed inside the brain, and the brain is made up of nerve cells that are in direct communication with the rest of the body. The mind commands the body to relax; when the body is relaxed, the mind has to be relaxed also.

*101\174\4*

discourage people from seeking the help of a psychiatrist. The point I wish to make is that in many cases the significant conflict is really quite superficial and well within the capacity of the patient to resolve it, if he will only make a serious attempt to make his behaviour agree with his values.

On the other hand many patients are disturbed by conflicts that are deeply unconscious and thus quite inaccessible to the patient. However, it is well for the reader to know that those disturbed by deeply unconscious conflicts form only a minority of the patients coming to consultation in ordinary psychiatric practice.

I now come to the most important observation about psychological conflicts. It is this: that it is simply not necessary that all our conflicts should be resolved by discussion for us to obtain peace of mind and function as mature individuals. Psychotherapy in general and psychoanalysis in particular have become such a vogue of our present culture that many people lose sight of this simple fact. When all is said and done, psychoanalysis by its very nature is an artificial procedure. It can be helpful, but its easy access may make us forget that man in the process of evolution has developed within himself a mechanism for dealing with excessive anxiety and pain. It is to the reawakening of this mechanism that I would have you turn, rather than to the endless search for the unconscious conflicts of childhood.

*123\57\2*

In our brain we have mechanisms which keep in control our primitive, instinctual urges. We control our eating so that we do not indulge our appetite for food to its full extent. We control our sexual desires. We have a similar biological urge to act aggressively to anyone who acts aggressively to us. This is a built-in biological protective mechanism to help us survive in the physical rough and tumble of primitive life many generations ago. This aggressive urge is still within us, but in ordinary life we have learned to control it fairly well.

If we come under stress, the orderly action of our brain cells that control our primitive aggression is disrupted. The result is that when we are under stress we may easily act much more aggressively than we normally would. And, more important, we may act aggressively in inappropriate circumstances or situations where a calm and considered response would have served us much better.

«I told the boss what I thought. Should have done it differently. Just calmly. It was silly, silly, silly. »

«I hit him. Yes. I hit him. So small, I shall never forgive myself.»

Man or woman, the reaction is the same. The particular reaction which is evoked just depends on the circumstances in which we are placed.

‘Baby bashing’ is just a particular example of the release of aggression through stress. There is often a major problem such as an unexpected pregnancy, and an associated problem that the woman is not feeling too well. There may be a background problem of her husband drinking. And the stress reaction is finally precipitated by the baby’s persistent crying. Her aggression can no longer be contained. It bursts forth. She hits the child.

*52/98/5*

What can I do?

« I am old. Enfeebled. Would do something, but I can’t. What can the aged do? »

The aged can do this. And I have seen many a one who has done it. The older phase is the time for sorting things out. Of letting some inner understanding come to us. And with it, when this understanding comes, we have a tranquility which we did not have before.

You may ask, ‘What kind of doing is this?’ It is the doing of something deep in the laws of nature.

The older person who achieves tranquility with age has an effect, a deep effect, on others. This is a doing of something quite profound. And it may come without the aged one’s knowledge as to what it is all about.

What might have been?

«Old and living alone, that’s me. Plagued by thoughts. What might have been? What could have been? What I did not do. What I did not do too well. The thoughts crowd in a stream of restlessness, and I cannot sit still.

‘Discomfort and pain make me irritable in a way I have not been before.»

The messages that crowd our brain from the events of past years lose their intensity in the friendly company of others. Companionship, with the pleasant nattering of old people, of one with the other, with the recollections of times past, helps the brain to settle.

Let our mind run easy. Practice it at those times when the discomfort is less pronounced. By letting our mind run easy, our perception of discomfort and pain becomes so much the less.

I am useless

«Young people don’t understand. It is unlikely that you have even thought of being useless. Just utterly useless. But I am old and this is reality, and it plagues my mind. The rosebush in the garden serves a purpose. So it is with the grass in the fields. What purpose do I serve? Nothing. The idea of uselessness shadows my thoughts as does the noose with the condemned man. »

Life is giving and taking. There are many good takers and some good givers. Those that have been givers must learn that a time comes for their role to change. To accept as well as to give. When you learn to accept as well as to give, the crowding thoughts of uselessness no longer make such a background cause of stress.

*17/98/5*