Kathryn Pinkham on Rewiring Your Brain to Sleep Well

The motto for World Sleep Day this year is ‘Regular Sleep, Healthy Future.’ With this in mind, we want to help kickstart your journey to better sleep with our highly skilled sleep specialist and founder of The Insomnia Clinic, Kathryn Pinkham.

Today Kathryn is with us talking all things positive thinking around your sleep and how it can be used to boost sleep quality and supercharge wellbeing.

So without further ado, here is Kathryn’s three step plan to rewiring your brain to achieve better sleep:

1. Notice your thoughts

Even if you feel like you are a bad sleeper, Kathryn recommends taking note of how often you say these things to yourself. Why? Because every day that you say these things, you train your brain to not only sleep poorly, but to continue that cycle as well. She says don’t beat yourself up about it or be unkind to yourself about having negative thoughts. Instead, stop and notice them, and dissect each thought a little bit. Ask yourself, how is this thought making you feel?

2. Reframe your thoughts

Kathryn’s second step is once you’ve started to notice a negative thought, to reframe how you’re saying it. So, rather than saying ‘I’ve always been a terrible sleeper,’ try to reframe it to ‘I don’t always sleep brilliantly.’ Rather than saying ‘I can’t cope with less sleep,’ think about this. What does I can’t cope really mean? If you’re still getting to work, getting your kids to school and feeding yourself, you’re coping. You may not enjoy how you’re feeling, but you’re definitely coping!

3. Think like a good sleeper

Finally, once you begin re-framing these statements and seeing if you can change how they make you feel, Kathryn explains that you need to start thinking how a good sleeper thinks. If you want to feel like a good sleeper, you need to think like one! Start by making a list of the things you would need to think if you wanted to feel like a good sleeper. For example, ‘even if I don’t sleep well, I will cope tomorrow’ or ‘I always get some sleep and I’m doing the right things to improve my sleep.’

Want to help your team conquer their sleep struggles for good? PepTalk have teamed up with Kathryn to develop our very own sleep programme with the NHS approved techniques to kick your sleep issues and boost wellbeing. Want to find out more? Visit www.getapeptalk.com to inquire today.

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