Sleep Smart

CHANGE YOUR BRAIN WAVES

Do you lie awake in bed thinking about your never ending to-do list and upcoming deadlines? Or, maybe you keep replaying a conversation where you wish you would have responded differently. 

Sleep is a superpower! 

Sleeping disorders stem from imbalances in brain waves. Knowing how to manipulate your brain waves will allow you to enter a more relaxed state and fall asleep more easily. 

Most people are operating in a high state of beta and delta, which are two corresponding brain wave states that play tug-of-war against each other. This causes problems falling asleep.

Here’s a breathing technique from Dr. Patrick Porter from The Art of Living podcast… you can listen to the full episode here. 

This technique can helps regulate the heart to work more coherently with the brain…and vice versa). Once you can regulate this relationship with your heart and breath, you can move out of a beta state and into the healing states of alpha and theta…. 

“To get into alpha, what you can do is you start to breathe in, instead of holding the breath, create a cyclic breath. Try to breathe out twice as long as you breathe in. This helps to regulate one of the most important organs in the body, the heart, which is the gold standard for measuring health in the body.

There’s something called coherency, which is how your heart communicates with your brain and your brain with your heart, which represents the rest of the body. As you get that relationship going between your heart and your head, what happens is the rest of the body falls in line.  That happens through breathing.

To get alpha–alpha, which is that creative, timeless state, start moving your body in ways you enjoy. When you’re doing something you really enjoy whether you’re walking or skiing or golfing, your body feels younger, you have more energy. Your power comes from that state and deeper states like beta.

You can manipulate your brain waves by taking a few deep breaths and measuring it.

If you’re driving down the road and you get stopped at a stop light, you have a three-minute opportunity to do some breath work. Because most red lights last about three minutes. So, instead of thinking, “Oh, I’ve got to get across town,” and start worrying and stressing out, just focus on the light and breathe.

What will happen is you will train the brain to move out of that beta state and into the healing states of alpha and theta.

Then, when you have to bump back up into beta to drive your car, your brain will just transition just like an automatic transmission would to get into there.

Once you learn how to get more alpha, then when it’s night time, you’ll be able to tune into that natural rhythm, the cadence.”