if you're one of the people who struggles with symptoms caused by abuse and neglect in childhood
and you have a hard time getting to sleep you are so not alone complex ptsd is something
that can generate stress in your mind and in your body even when there's nothing to
stress about have you ever had that you get racing thoughts or a fast heartbeat
or you might have a hard time sticking to a sleep schedule or quieting down at the end of the day
and if you have distressing thoughts even if you fall asleep at a good time you can wake up
worried and right back in your cptsd symptoms in the middle of the night so we don't want that
good sleep is totally important for you learning to notice that rough and discombobulated feeling
that your old triggers can bring up and for you to learn to calm those triggers to get
re-regulated i'm anna runkle also known as the crappy childhood fairy and i teach people how to
calm the symptoms that so often flow from trauma in your past and in this video i'm going to teach
you how to set yourself up for that nice deep easy sleep that is so important for your trauma healing
now some of what i'm going to teach you is standard stuff which we all need to be
reminded of sometimes and some of it is unique to the program i teach for getting relief
from the anxious and angry thoughts that can keep you distracted and emotional during the day
and that can keep you too stressed and amped up at night to get a really deep sleep so this video has
three parts i'm going to go over some basic steps that you can take to prepare for your bedtime and
then i'll teach you my own approach to calm your mind and get those distressed thoughts out before
you go to sleep and finally i'll give you some guided relaxation that you can use to actually
go to sleep while you're watching this so starting right now this video won't have any more ads in it
and i'm going to suggest that you look down at the lower edge of the player window where there's
a little toggle switch to turn off autoplay you might have to hover there with your cursor to see
the autoplay toggle so make sure that's off and that way if you do drift off to sleep you won't
be waked up by some new video with ads blaring after this one ends so go ahead and turn that off
now when you're preparing for bed there are a few common sense things to do you might
be already doing them one is to leave the period of hours like three hours or so before you sleep
as calm as possible and that means finishing your dinner at least three hours before bed
as well as anything alcoholic that you might be drinking with your dinner you don't want to have
those during the quiet hours you want to make sure that you stop any kind of work work on a computer
or writing or tidying up or whatever it is that you do in the evening make sure you stop that
two hours before bed and then i don't know about you but this is the hard one for me
turn off all screens one hour before bed and you know i love watching tv in bed probably more than
anyone i know but getting deep sleep means that all that drama and killing and fast action is too
much so the last hour is saved for connecting with your cat or your dog or your partner or talking
or reading or using the writing technique that i'm about to teach you i'll do that in a minute
now you know all the good tips for creating a sleep friendly room you want to keep it cool
keep it dark keep it quiet and personally i'm so sensitive to light in the room that i
unplug everything with an led light and in the summer when it gets light out early even though
i have blackout curtains in my room i sleep with a hand towel folded over my face is that weird
and to screen out noise i keep these i keep this little container of ear plugs next to my bed and
i like the clear white putty kind that's made of silicone and i think they're the most effective
they're they screen out more noise for me than the foam kind but i know a lot of people prefer the
foam kind because they're more comfortable these feel kind of like you know you feel a bit clogged
or something so you might want to try different ones okay you might have other little tricks you
use but before you turn the lights off here's the writing technique i told you i'd show you now many
of you watching are already my students and you've learned the full daily practice if you haven't
learned it yet you can at another time go into the description section of this video or any of
my videos and find the free techniques called the daily practice and if you're in any of my courses
or coaching programs you know i recommend using these together twice a day to quiet distressing
thoughts and calm your ptsd symptoms so even if you're doing the daily practice twice a day
i don't recommend you do meditation a third time but you can do a writing you can sit down
and write your fears again a third time okay so that's what this is i'm going to show you
a very simplified version using a pen and paper to get any troubling thoughts out of your mind
before you sleep and you're going to need the pen and paper like right now so if that's not handy
for you i invite you to just pause the video while you get those and then we'll start again okay okay
so you're ready on your piece of paper i'm going to ask you to write i have
fear and then write whatever troubling thought happens to already be on your mind maybe it's
i have fear i'm not going to be able to sleep or i have fear i didn't get anything done today
or i have fear i spent too much money this morning and fear i'll never get ahead in life
whatever the fear is that's troubling you right now go ahead and write it
don't make it too long don't go digging for things in your memory
just write whatever troubling thoughts are there right now because those are the ones
that are likely to agitate your mind when you're trying to sleep so let's get it out of your mind
now if you've gotten that fear completely written on paper go ahead and write a second one
and then a third all right you're gonna write three fears just for this example i have fear
whatever it is and then i have fear whatever the next thing is and i have fear whatever the
next thing is but just write whatever troubling thought is on your mind and then when you're done
just keeping it very simple go ahead and write i release these fears now if you're a person who
believes in god i do or you have a higher power of some kind you might want to write
please remove these fears i find that comforting that's the simplified version right of writing the
technique i teach of writing fears and resentments this one's just fear very simple simple closing
and you might write just one fear you can write 20 whatever you need to do but when you're done
be sure to let them go and then tear up that piece of paper get rid of it what you're doing here is
taking these troubling thoughts and taking them out of your mind and onto paper not so that you
can remember them or read them tomorrow it's so you can stop thinking about them they're
probably going to come back tomorrow that's okay but for now you just earned a little free time a
little vacation from those troubling thoughts so i want you to also keep that pen and paper
by your bed when you sleep if you're the kind of person who gets ideas or remembers to do items
at three in the morning i do i keep my phone by the bed so i can use it as a little light
if some big thing comes into my mind and isn't gonna let me sleep and i will sort of lean up
on my elbow grab my pen and paper and i write it down and then i know i can i can see that tomorrow
that'll be waiting for me tomorrow and i put it back over on the bed stand and if it comes back
into my mind i can remind myself that is on the bed stand i will check it out tomorrow and this is
partly so i can remember the idea but it's mostly so that i can just relax and go back to sleep
okay so you've got a dark room that's cool and quiet if possible and long ago you finished eating
and drinking and watching tv and now you've gotten your anxious thoughts out they're on paper you've
got pen and paper by the bed in case you need them and this is the part of the video where i'll walk
you through a mental exercise that will help you transition from waking time into sleeping time
and my husband taught me this method he calls it fish face and he learned it from a video on
youtube that was made by a fighter pilot and i guess pilots have to learn to sleep
anytime anywhere so they have a technique for falling asleep and honestly i've never seen
the video i just know fish face alright so if you're ready go ahead and lie down really it's
go ahead and lie down in a comfortable position for sleeping and you're going to be doing some
relaxation so laying on your back is probably ideal with your head on a pillow and your blanket
pulled up the way you like it and your hands at ease everything just very relaxed and you
can begin by taking in some slow deep breaths one two three four hold for two and then out two three
four and pause two and in two three four and hold two and out two three four
okay you're going to breathe on your own now which i know you know how to do
and i want you to pay attention first to the muscles in your face around your eyes
your temples
your forehead
the muscles of your jaw
and as you just keep breathing your nice slow deep breaths let those parts of your face
just completely relax
let your jaw fall open a little if that's what it wants to do
let all that tension around your eyes just go soft and relaxed let the inside of your throat relax
let the muscles of your mouth and cheeks relax
you can even let your ears relax
and that slow relaxation is now just spreading around the back of your head
down the back of your neck
around the front of your neck just soft relaxed breathing
down across your shoulders you can let that softness spread around your chest
relaxation spreads into your belly
your arms
your forearms your hands
and then it just pours slowly like a warm wave in slow motion
down through the rest of your back
your hips
you're behind
the muscles of your pelvic floor the very tops of your legs so relaxed
the fronts of your legs are relaxed
the backs of your legs are relaxed your knees are so relaxed
your shins
your calves
your ankles
now your feet your beautiful complicated feet are just letting it all go
all the way through the tips of your
toes
you are just so relaxed
and you're breathing
maybe your breathing is a little slower now a little easier
but you can put your attention on the slow steady breaths
and instead of thinking about the cares of your day
you're just noticing how you breathe in two three four hold two out two three four and so on
you release all the effort just letting
go safe and sound
soft and relaxed
and if little thoughts or worries start to appear then just find a part of your body
that could use a little more relaxation
it could be your face so you're gonna relax it
put your attention there still doing slow breaths two three four hold two
one two three four and pause two in two three four and hold there you go keep breathing
easily into your safe deep sleep
you