About Lesson
Giving thanks just before bedtime can help promote better sleep as it uplifts the spirit and creates a serenity before bedtime (1,2).
There are a few ways to practise gratitude before bedtime:
- Lie in bed and ask “What am I thankful for today?” Ponder on the answer and let the feelings of gratitude fill your body. There doesn’t have to be lots of answers to the question and it can only be one thing you are grateful for. It doesn’t have to take a long time either, you can ask and answer the question in only a few minutes.
- Use the breath to breathe in something you’re grateful for and breathe out unwanted thoughts and feelings.
- Write in a gratitude journal, there are many journals available specific to gratitude but you can use any notebook and write out what you were grateful for in the day and what about it made you grateful.
- If your client is more visual they could create a gratitude board where they stick on images, photos, words which inspire gratitude and they can focus upon that before they go to sleep.
- Creating a gratitude jar where you write something you are grateful for onto a piece of paper and pop it into a jar at any time of the day. You can then pull one out just before you go to sleep and focus on the feelings of gratitude it creates within your body.
Gratitude Helps with the Following Sleep Disturbances:
- Stress + Anxieties
- FOMO
- Revenge Procrastination
References
- Alex M Wood, Stephen Joseph, Joanna Lloyd, Samuel Atkins (2009) Gratitude influences sleep through the mechanism of pre-sleep cognitions. J Psychosom Res Jan; 66(1)
- Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough (2003) Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 84, No. 2, 377–389