#507 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello and welcome to Jason Newland dot com. My name is Jason Newland and this is let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

There's nothing for you to do. I'm just gonna waffle on for an hour and that's it really. I'm just gonna talk about stuff.

Nothing particularly exciting but just things. Things and more things that aren't really relevant but you know it's okay because part of the reason for doing this is to allow your mind to relax. To allow yourself to kind of switch off you know.

Switch off for a while. Allow yourself to let go of all that crap you know. All that negativity.

All that stuff that's of no use to you. You can just let it go for a while. Just enjoy the moment.

Enjoy feeling relaxed. It's an enjoyable experience. I mean I think years ago I used to struggle a little bit with relaxation because I used to try and force it.

You can't force it. It's like a fart. You should never try and force it.

It's a natural process that you can encourage. You can want it. You can wish it.

You can expect it. You can allow yourself to experience feeling relaxed you know by opening your mind to the simple fact that just by sitting still or lying down that your body automatically knows instinctively to start to relax. And it's something that's really natural.

Back in the old days maybe 20 years ago I didn't realize that it was a natural thing. I didn't realize that it wasn't this huge obstacle to overcome you know. It wasn't an Olympic tournament to get to the point where you could feel relaxed.

It's not. You know I mean to be fair there's times when it might feel like that. But generally relaxation is a very simple process that happens naturally.

And then sleeping is something that requires relaxation in order to then move into falling asleep. It's one of those weird things. It's a process.

It's a process. And really trying to fall asleep without relaxing or without allowing yourself to relax is like drying your body before you get into the bath. You know or into the shower.

There's no point rubbing your body with a dry towel before you get into the shower or the bath. It's there for afterwards. I like the way I said that.

Afterwards. And I think we put so much pressure on ourselves sometimes. And it just doesn't seem fair.

Do you know what I mean? It's like oh I must relax. I must be able to relax. I must be able to fall asleep instantly.

Well there's not that many musts. There's a few. There's a few things that will happen whether or not you want it to.

It might not be when you want it to. You know if you try and force it. But simple fact is you will need to eat food.

You will need to drink water or a liquid. You will need to sleep. In fact it's even further than that.

You will sleep whether you want to or not. You will fall asleep. I'm not saying that in like a really authoritative hypnotic suggestion.

You will fall asleep now. I'm not doing it like that. What I mean is we have no choice but to fall asleep eventually.

Because our bodies, more our brains and our bodies cannot go without sleeping. There's a certain point and I reckon it's probably different for different people. I'm pretty certain that somebody trained in the armed forces for example.

You know a 22 year old paratrooper could probably stay awake for longer than I could even when I was 22. You know if someone's trained themselves. I mean some people that play computer games can stay awake for a long period of time.

Although recently someone died playing a computer game because they didn't eat or drink or sleep for so long. Their body collapsed. Their organs shut down.

So probably the water rather than the food. Because apparently we can go pretty much a month without eating. Apparently.

I've tried to go about three hours once. But water and liquid is something that is very, you know, that we need. It's a necessity that we have to have every day.

And sleeping. Some people can go a couple of days without sleeping. So they think.

But we don't. That's the weird thing about it is I didn't realise this. But it shouldn't really come as a surprise that as humans we're not always aware of what's going on.

And we're not. For example if you're lying in your bed for six hours. You might actually believe that you've been awake the whole time.

You've been laying there with your eyes closed in the dark. And you feel like you're always awake. But if you was attached to a sleep monitor.

It would tell you that you did fall asleep. It just. You're not aware of it.

You're not aware that it happened. You know even someone. Unfortunately people that drive and don't allow themselves to get the proper sleep can end up having accidents.

You know falling asleep at the wheel. And it's you know you'd think wouldn't you really that with our self preservation inbuilt that our minds would not allow us to fall asleep or close our eyes when we're in a moving vehicle like driving a lorry or a car with your family in it. You think that you know from a hypnotic perspective I was always taught that your unconscious mind is there to protect you at all times.

So clearly I mean that is the case. I do believe that is the case. But clearly the need to sleep is way more powerful than pretty much anything else.

It just kicks in on its own. Something that you cannot prevent. When you realize that actually it's going to happen anyway.

Doesn't that kind of. Don't you think it feels a bit different. It's like wait a minute.

This is going to happen anyway. Ah. Why am I making such a big deal about it when actually don't necessarily have to do anything because it will happen.

Ah but here's the thing. You will fall asleep if you lie in your bed but you may not get enough sleep. You'll get enough sleep to be well.

To function. You know. Or from a health perspective your brain will get enough sleep.

It should get enough sleep in order to function. But maybe not at the level that you need it to. Because if you're tired all day long you clearly haven't had enough sleep.

Yet if you hadn't had enough sleep for your health then well it doesn't happen because you have to sleep. Your body will shut down. Your mind will shut down for maybe an hour or two.

And I had a friend years. He was a boss actually but he became a friend and it was a long time ago. 30 years ago.

And he was a former RAF pilot during the Second World War. And he told me that. I mean he came out of a lot of rubbish anyway.

But I can't believe this. He was a storyteller. Very funny.

Very funny stories. But on this occasion he said. He was serious and he said that the pilots didn't get hardly any sleep.

They'd maybe get an hour or two. Three hours sleep and then they'd be back in their planes. But I think part of that was because they would be celebrating landing safely.

Literally landing safely. That was one of the things that he told me. That the way to become a pilot was actually you had your basic training.

And the successful ones were the ones that were able to land the plane without crashing. Taking off was also dangerous but landing was the big one. And those that were able to land were able to become good pilots.

I thought wow. So you know he'd be in the evening probably drinking. Having fun with his other friends you know in the Royal Air Force.

And then he'd have a couple of hours sleep and he'd be out early in the morning. So it's. And he said you can function on that.

He wasn't a psychologist. He wasn't an expert on the brain or anything. But he did say you know from a. He was a younger man of course back then.

He was I think he was probably in his 20s. So he was younger. So it's going to be different for people at that age.

I've stayed up all night and got an hour's sleep. Been drinking all night. Got an hour's sleep and gone to work.

I would not try and do that now. I've got to find a job first. I've got to just randomly turn up somewhere still drunk.

Can I work please. Just for the morning. Just so I can talk about it on my podcast.

So it's different for different people. But the fact is he. He said the brain.

His brain only needed a couple of hours. Maybe an hour and a half sometimes. But it needed that.

Couldn't go without it. And those that didn't do it would fall asleep in their planes. Which just goes to show even more so.

If you can fall asleep whilst piloting a plane with an enemy aircraft possibly coming towards you. Then that just shows that we could fall asleep anywhere. Which kind of takes away the idea of.

Well I can't sleep because there's a dog barking in the distance. Or there's a train near the disorder. Someone's neighbour's telly is a little bit loud.

I used to be like that. Exactly. I almost needed things to be absolutely silent.

Now I don't. I can sleep during the day. Very easily.

I can sleep pretty much any time. And that's useful considering I'm making recordings to help people sleep. I don't have any problems sleeping.

But I have done in the past. And I'm a very light sleeper. But you know it's easy to say.

Oh go to sleep. There's noises. Don't worry about it.

But early on I was asleep whilst laying down. And a big engine started in the garden. Yesterday it was lawnmowers.

Today I was thinking well it can't be lawnmowers. The grass doesn't grow that quickly. But it was a gutter cleaner.

So someone had this big rod. And he had this rod in his hand. And he was basically squirting into the gutter to clean the gutter out.

And the machine I guess was to pressurise the water or something. So that was something that I decided not to try and sleep through. Because it was loud.

Really loud. Now if it was like that all the day. All day every day.

I wouldn't be able to sleep through it. I could wear earplugs. But I would end up having to go down and destroy the machine probably.

If I'm honest. I couldn't put up with that for too long. It's alright if it's during the day I can't really complain.

But if that had been at 3 o'clock in the morning and I was in bed. It wouldn't just be me out there. It would probably be the whole neighbourhood out there saying what the hell do you think you're doing.

So isn't it interesting that someone could fall asleep in a plane because they hadn't had any sleep. So the brain would actually shut down and decide to go to sleep. It kind of proves that actually that we're going to go to sleep.

Aren't we? Lying down on your bed you're going to fall asleep. Even if you're not aware of it. So that's the weird thing about it.

I'm thinking well how do we become aware that we've fallen asleep. If it can happen when we don't realise it. And I suppose part of that reason would be if you had someone next to you or watching you.

Then every time you fell asleep they could nudge you, wake you up and say ah you fell asleep. You told me you couldn't fall asleep but you were asleep. You were definitely snoring.

Which is what they'd say to me. I actually discovered I had sleep apnea about 30 years ago, 20-25 years ago. I had a girlfriend and in the morning she said you know what Jason.

I said you don't have to keep calling me Jason. It's only me and you here. I know who you're talking to.

I didn't say that because I was scared. And she said you know what, last night I was watching you sleeping and you stopped breathing for about a minute and a half. And then you was coughing and choking.

I was like okay. Did it occur to you to maybe wake me up? Instead of just sitting there watching me dying. Did you consider just, oh if I'm not breathing maybe nudge me so that I do breathe.

She didn't seem to see the funny side. Couldn't understand it. Mind you she did actually ask me to sign some insurance.

All she was doing was trying to get me to lie on my back. I said don't turn over because otherwise you'll start breathing again. Just stay on your back.

Dear oh dear. So falling asleep. If you're on your own sleeping or your partner is asleep.

Then you're probably not going to notice. Or possibly you can. But once you know for sure and this is a fact.

I'm not saying that every single night everyone falls asleep every single night. There's you know lying awake for six hours or eight hours. Of course it's possible.

It's less and less likely the more often you do it. So you know if you can stay awake I don't know for one night. Then and you're awake all day.

And you've been awake all day previous to that. The next night you're going to drift off. Even if you're not aware of it.

And I think sometimes I notice I've been asleep if I kind of jolt awake. Or I don't know where I am. And I think there's a possibility that we might.

You know when you you can start dreaming instantly when you're asleep. Doesn't take. You don't have to wait any considerable amount of time.

I mean I start dreaming. If I lay down now I could be dreaming within a minute or two. Or if I close my eyes.

Even talking. I can drift off. When I make a sleep recording.

I mean for example if I did a countdown. Let's say I'm now going to count down from 50 down to 1 or 20 down to 1. And every time you know every time you hear the number. You're going to feel twice as relaxed or twice as sleepy.

And then I slowly count down like you know 20. In fact I normally do 20. I normally go 20, 19, 18.

I normally like spread it out a bit. So 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. You see what I mean. There's when I do something like a countdown like that.

Quite often I find myself drifting. Starts to just daydream in a way. And there's not really any difference between daydreaming and dreaming when you're asleep.

Your mind has drifted away. And you're focusing on something totally. It might be different to your current situation.

But you may be daydreaming about something concerning what's going on for you right now. So you may be daydreaming about falling asleep whilst you're lying in your bed. And you may wonder even though you feel more relaxed than you did before you decided to listen to my voice.

And allow your body, different parts of your body to relax naturally. You can now feel, you may feel surprised at how easily you can relax. At how easily your mind can drift.

And I don't know why but I quite like it sometimes. And the hardest part for me is when I'm making a sleep recording whilst laying in bed. It becomes almost impossible for me to open my eyes.

And I do have, or I did have a tendency of falling asleep. Actually full on snoring, falling asleep. I did one recording which was only supposed to last about 20 minutes, maybe half hour.

And I think I was recording myself for about two and a half hours. And pretty much after the first 10 minutes was just me snoring. So I couldn't really, I'm not sure if I could use it.

But I kind of wonder if when I make a recording where I really fall asleep. And I'm just, or you know my mind drifts. I wonder if that same energy is being able to be translated through my voice.

Through the podcast to those listening. Can perhaps share the experience with all of the other listeners. Share the experience of feeling relaxed throughout your body.

Feeling calm and loose. And it seems to me that almost inevitable that people and the more people around the world that listen to a recording. It almost, it feels to me as if the recording becomes more powerful.

The energy, there's more of it to share with all of us you know. There's more to share. And I think when it comes to positive energy or positive thinking.

Is the more you share it, the more you get back. Because it never depletes. Just in the same way as your natural ability to sleep soundly never leaves you.

You know that natural born ability to just fall asleep. Pretty much whatever you're doing. If your brain needs to relax completely.

Then that's what's going to happen. So the idea really is to not get to that extreme position where you haven't slept for two or three days. And then your brain will just shut down.

In order for you to sleep. And the brain's not going to shut down completely. But it will forcibly take that sleep.

So although we can't force sleep. Our brain can. It's one of those, I think it's just a fact of life.

Is you will fall asleep at some point. So my argument, if it was an argument. My argument would be, well why not choose for yourself where and when you fall asleep.

Choose for yourself and decide for you that falling asleep is something that you want to do. Maybe it's something that you're expecting to happen when you're lying in your bed. And positivity is much louder than negativity.

It's much more powerful. The only problem is when it comes to human beings. Is we seem to have a tendency to be more open to listening to the negative thoughts.

Compared to being open to listen to and absorb all of the positive thoughts and ideas. And even as I'm talking now, I've got my eyes closed. And I really, really feel tired.

But not tired as in lazy or just, yeah. I'm feeling, feeling tired. And it's nice.

It is. I don't want to pretend it's not nice. But it does, yeah.

It is nice. So I quite, I suppose it's one of the things that I very first discovered when I learnt hypnosis 20 years ago. Was that, well 21 years ago in fact.

22 years ago, blimey. Wow, where's the time going? It was 1998 January when I bought my first hypnosis book. So in fact, it'll be 23 years in about 2 months.

Or 3 months time. Yes, it's nearly 23 years in 3 months time. Wow.

And one of the things that I really found impressive. For some reason it stayed with me. Is the idea that any feeling that you experience can be changed.

And also any experience that you have experienced in the past. You can, if you choose to, re-experience that feeling. And generally that would take a little bit of thinking beforehand.

But I can see the benefits of that. Especially for someone that maybe has a habit that they don't, they want to stop doing. Yeah, if they could still experience the same feelings.

Without indulging in that particular practice that may be harmful to them. And there's a nice potential there I guess. And when it comes to feeling relaxed.

Just by thinking of a time in the past when you felt relaxed. So it could be a holiday, it could be a time sunbathing. It might be, we all lead different lives.

It literally could be anything. Just a time in the past. And there's probably, hopefully thousands of these different experiences.

Or maybe some of the same experiences. And when you talk about these things. Or if you remember that particular experience of perhaps lying by the pool.

You know the swimming pool at the hotel maybe. And you've got your sun cream on, your skin is protected. Maybe you need a bit of sun cream on your back.

And you're looking out for someone to help you out. Someone just like me. That would be a good job wouldn't it? Putting suntan lotion on, well maybe not always.

So I and you can think of times from the past. And actually experience a degree of how you experienced it previously. And then there's, I quite like the idea of, you know, because you can think about a time you was relaxed.

Or you can think about a time when you lie down in your bed. Fell asleep so quickly. So quickly.

And maybe you remember a time where maybe all you did was count from 20 down to 1. And every time you counted down you felt more relaxed. And your mind would drift even further. For even... And something else I quite liked about hypnosis was the possibility of changing, making physical changes.

For example, changing the way you feel with visualization techniques. As well as other little ideas that I have. That may be useful.

So sometimes it can be nice to almost give yourself permission to... As I was talking there, I drifted off. Drifted off. I'm trying to focus on what it feels like.

It's weird, you know. That feeling of drifting. Because it feels... It's so natural.

It's a real natural process. And the feeling of it... I guess it's kind of a little bit like things become foggy. I don't mean like my thinking.

But the mind just becomes... It's like when you look into a street. Like this morning actually. Couldn't see much because it was very foggy.

And that lack of sharpness of the picture. I know it's not a picture. But you know, I'm looking through my eyes.

There was nothing moving. It could have been a photograph really, to be fair. This was at maybe 6 o'clock this morning.

6.30. And when it was... Because it was probably misty. It's probably a better word than foggy. Misty.

I don't mean all the differences. There was nothing sharp to really kind of visually to grab hold of. The lamppost was there.

But it was almost not there. Plus it's grey. So it's a similar kind of colour to the mist.

And because it's... I guess you could say it's like a defocused. So if you've got a camera. Remember the old cameras where you could defocus.

But when you're trying to focus you end up defocusing. Or a telescope. Microscope even I guess.

I don't suppose many people walk around with microscopes in their pocket. Or a telescope in fact. Or an old fashioned... Well not old fashioned cameras.

People still use cameras. But I know a lot of phones now isn't it. Newfangled phones.

There's something about that picture being misty. So that it's no longer really a picture. It is but it isn't.

It's very fluid. And it no longer grabs my attention. And I think that's what is happening a little bit with the drifting.

Where my attention is not being grabbed. You know I'm not... It's... Another way of looking at it is like this is a picture but... I'm trying to maybe hold on to it. But I keep slipping because it's maybe slippery or icy.

And I can't... I can't be part of the picture because it's not... It's not allowing me to. But it's separate. And I just bounce off of it or slip off of it and... End up thinking about something else that maybe I'm not really aware of.

And I just allow the natural processes within your mind to just do their thing. As you drift firstly into deep relaxation and then spreading naturally. Converting.

Becoming. Sleep. And that's what I think it might actually be.

It's not that we... We actually become the feeling. For example relaxation takes over us. It is us.

You are relaxation. And then from that leads to the drifting and you are sleep. It's almost not something that you're doing.

It's something you're becoming. Something you're becoming. And I quite... I quite like the sound of that.

The idea that if you become relaxation it means that you can of course sit in a chair. You can of course lie down and feel relaxed. But it also means that when you become relaxation it opens possibilities where you can feel more relaxed more of the time.

Without needing to explain why or even needing to know why you feel more relaxed more of the time. So yeah it's nice to just enjoy these feelings. And to just be at peace.

To just be at peace. And it feels so nice. And really really comfortable.

Now this brings me to the end of this recording. Thank you for listening. And remember to be kind to yourself.

Because you deserve lots of love. Bye.