404 – Sleep Not Found!

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Volume 9 - Issue 11 - Mar 2020

Dear <<First Name>>,

Welcome to the March newsletter from BWIS.

This month we are thinking about sleep... How soundly do you sleep? How well do you understand what affects the quality of your sleep?

Best wishes from Steve, Sue, Charlie, Martin, Phil.

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In This Issue
404 - Sleep Not Found
News and Events
Inspiring Quotes
And Finally...

404 - Sleep Not Found!

Not being able to sleep is the nearest (writes Sue) I have ever got to feeling suicidal. It shocked me that at 3.00 in the morning I could get to feel so desperate, alone, and scared about how I felt that ending it all crept silently on to my options list.

Human beings need regular and good quality sleep to stay alive. We need to make it high priority, as much as eating and drinking healthily. Our mental health is bound to suffer without good sleep. The lack of it can literally make us go barmy.

When I was having sleep difficulties there were challenges in my life, but nothing to make me so mentally unwell as to wish not to be here. If only I’d known then what I know now.

We need Deep Sleep to restore our physical bodies. Then we need Dream Sleep to restore our minds. This is REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which refreshes us through dreaming, by resolving emotional arousal that we did not sort out during the day. It lowers our stress levels back to normal to leave us fresh and alert for the next day’s challenges.

Insufficient REM (or too much ‘bad stuff’ in the day to deal with in a night’s sleep) leaves us jangled… stressed, tired, irritable and demotivated, all signs of depression. So depression can be seen as a sleep disorder: after a bad night it’s even harder to get up and sort out what’s stressing us. Insomnia can have physical triggers too, like pain or hot flushes.

In this month’s Life Lounge we’ll focus on what goes on in our days, and how we can adjust that to sleep better and break a negative cycle.

To learn more about the theory of dreaming and how it keeps us sane, look at this free video: https://humangivens.com/college/why-do-we-dream/.

News and Events

LIFE LOUNGE
7.00pm at Quay Place Ipswich 2^nd Thurs each month. On Thurs 12 March it’s How to Get Better Sleep. Book your place at The Life Lounge. If it’s your first visit, just put FIRSTTIME in the code box and join us for half-price.

Coach Group
Open to all qualified coaches, meets at Ipswich Quaker Meeting House. Mon 6^th April 6.45 for a 7.00 start, finish by 9.30. Contact Steve with any questions.

E GYM - The Listening Circle
Drop into the E.Gym at Quay Place, 3rd Weds at 6.30pm, for some free 'emotional keep-fit' (and to find out about peer support). Next event Weds 18 March or contact Sue.

Inspiring Quotes

“The reasons we don’t sleep are the usually the same reasons we don’t truly live in the day” - Michael Xavier

“Sleep doesn’t help if it’s your soul that is tired” - Various

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others” - Marianne Williamson

Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep - the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.” – Shakespeare, Macbeth

People who say they sleep like a baby don't usually have one - Anon

And Finally ...

The Monday Morning Question: every Monday morning ask this question:
“What is the one thing I can do this week, that will have the most impact in moving me toward my Vision?”.
The answer will drive your week.
(What do you mean, you don’t have a Vision?)

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