This affects more than most people realize. This particular situation is one of the more serious lack of sleep experiences that you will ever hear of. Unfortunately or maybe not, the doctors have given up on their patient.

Here are some recommendations that were shared. Although you may have heard of some, there are twists and different applications that you may not be aware of.

Sleep Hygiene

If not already, you will need to set a time to sleep and stick to it. Sound familiar? Well there is more. Part of this routine is planning and visualizing the sleep. If you have the same emotions I have, you are thinking, does Jonathan Steele have two heads. I cannot imagine what if feels like to imagine doing it.

This is part of the problem. It is part of the way our brains are programmed.

You see, our brains are hard wired to run programs much like a computer does. Only thing, sometimes they get a bad program installed somewhere along the way. A program that says not to do what it would seem natural to do. That program, regardless of what is done to assist the sleep, either mechanically or chemically, has to be rewritten.

The rewriting process takes 27-31 days. Actually it takes 27-31 days of habitually doing something to develop a habit. A habit is nothing more than brain programming. So, if you could imagine sweet sleep, the kind where someone asks you how did you sleep and you say, ” I can’t say, I was asleep.” The kind where your last thought was going to sleep and your next thought is waking up and it is morning. Try to create an image of what you would want it to be.

Once you have the image, the next thing is to write it down. You do not need to be Hemingway. You only need the brain / hand thing to reinforce the mental / neuro connection of what you want.

Following this you will want to do a simple procedure that has several names. I use the term Z tracking eye movement. This I discovered quite by accident. You see, as a nurse, I was mostly in the float pool. So it became easier to do total assessments of all of my patients than to do just the limited assessment of the discipline or floor of my assignment.

One day a supervisor was following me on my rounds. I asked her what was going on. She explained that my outcomes were better than any of the other nurses in one discipline and management wanted to know what I was doing different. (Actually every nurse in this field had at least one patient die if not two. The risk of death was 2 in 100. None of my patients in over several hundred died. Two should have but did not.)

Almost a year later it became apparent that the Z track eye movement thing was one of the things that made my patients more compliant and less stressed during my watch. This was usually a 16 hours on, 8 off, 16 on and then maybe 8 off and a final 8 shift rotation.

So, the Z track eye movement thing…..before you go, read the section below and then come back.

On this page…Scroll down to the Z Track Eye Movement / EMI subheading

Once you try this, (note: please do it sitting down and alone so people do not think your losing it) do this in the morning after you get up. You could try it at night when you cannot sleep but especially do it in the morning.

On completion (you may feel a bit of a buzz or a bit dizzy) then start imagining your first night of real sleep. In other words, start programming your brain. Since our brains are organic, new programs do not always re-write over night. Some times, in trauma they do. But to get them to do good things takes time. One friend who we reprogrammed her from constant negative thinking, took over several months. Of course she did not know we were doing it to her. But that is another story, a wonderful one with a happy ending.

Next, do all you previously heard about your daily routine.

Additionally, avoid fluoride in the water, anything with MSG, only drink organic milk (the growth hormone Prolack is in regular milk), and aspartame and Spenda. You probably already know to avoid sugar, do not eat anything five hours before sleep, and do not take a hot bath prior to trying to go to sleep. Unfortunately this may disrupt your personal hygiene schedule.

Think of yourself as a scientist. You are the test subject. You are going to try several things to see which work. It will take a bit of time to reprogram your brain so you will need to stick with these for at least a few weeks.

Dietary Supplements

From the same people who have the cherry juice I use and recommend, they have a pill that has a part of milk that makes you relax. It was tested in McGill and if memory serves me, it was found to be clinically the same a Valium only not addictive. It is called PNT 200 (the trademarked name)

That being said, I only use it when needed an no more. You can decide for yourself on this subject. I know of a few who have taken it daily and have no problems when they forget or stop. Personally my thoughts are that once our body is tuned up, we can maintain it with diet, exercise and thoughts. Every once and a while we may get a bit of rust or corrosion that needs extra help, such as a supplement to care for it.

Click Here to get the PNT 200 I do not know if it will work for you but it sure does for me. Please feel free to call me personally for details.

Then the Cherry juice. This I do use almost daily. However, I intentionally skip a few days before starting it again. That is, unless the lack of sleep beast rears its ugly head. Then I take it at night and every night, usually an hour before I go to sleep. It has always worked by the second or third night. Then after about 15 days of doing it, my pattern is usually pretty good. Then back to my few to 5 days on, two days off schedule.

By the way, you will take about two table spoons and put in a glass of water. I think each can has about 1500 cherries in it so you will get more than if you tried to eat just cherries.

This pattern is not from the cherry juice people. This comes from working with allergy sufferers. The docs recommend never eating the same food more than three days in a row with two days off. Otherwise you could develop an allergy. This is not to say you will. This is just the wisdom of the allergy doc’s. So I modified it for myself to make it easier to remember. My on days are Sunday through Thursday and off Friday and Saturday.

Click here for more about Tart Montamorecy Cherry Juice

Hope this helps you.

Best wishes on a future of good sleep.