The Transforming Power of a Sixty Second Gratitude Spiral

Ever found yourself desperate to fall asleep, but all the bad stuff from your day keeps going round and round in your head?

Want to find an 'off-switch' for all that, which has the added bonus of helping you to create an abundant life that you love?

Then the Bedtime Gratitude Spiral could be just what you're looking for.

Sometimes in life, especially when we're stressed, it can be difficult to fall asleep. It's as though the worries of daily life just keep going round and round in your head.

We tend to fight those thoughts, wishing they would go away and resisting them with all our might. But that doesn't work - instead it feeds those thoughts and keeps them at the centre of your attention.

So what can you do?

Here is a simple technique that costs nothing, but can help you switch your Monkey Mind's radio station to a more upbeat frequency - as well as helping you to create the life you have been dreaming of.

Bedtime Gratitude Spiral

The last thing we're thinking about at bedtime - and the last emotion we're feeling - can have a major impact on the quality of our sleep and even our dreams. It's as though those final pre-sleep thoughts give our mind the unconscious message about what we want to focus on for the next few hours. It then tends to send us dreams that match the emotions we were feeling as we fell asleep - and we're also likely to wake up with those feelings, too.

So it makes sense that mindfully creating a happy mood as we fall asleep can make a big difference. And it's easier than you might think.

One of the simplest ways to achieve that is to think about things you're grateful for. It's amazing how quickly a couple of things you feel thankful for can grow - triggering other things you feel grateful for and creating an ever-growing spiral.

Note: It's not about pretending that everything is OK, when life is feeling tough. It's not about "rejecting" any worries or negative thoughts you're having. It is about mindfully allowing happier thoughts to creep in and have centre stage for a while.

1. As you relax in bed, think about something that you feel grateful for. This might be people, experiences, opportunities, weather - it's up to you!
2. Once you have identified something specific, allow yourself to gently rest in the feeling - the emotion - of feeling grateful.
3. Really dive back into the experience that you're remembering - seeing what you would see, hearing what you would hear, feeling the physical sensations you would feel.
4. Allow the intensity of your gratitude to ramp up, perhaps imagining you are turning a dial to increase it.
5. Then think of something else you feel grateful for and repeat the process. You'll notice that the more things you think of, the more things you can think of to think of!
6. Keep finding more and more things you feel grateful for until you feel the shift in your mood or - most likely - fall asleep. zzzzzzzz...

Once you're used to doing this, to help cement the new habit, reminding yourself to do it each night, pick something you do shortly before going to sleep to act as a trigger. For example, if you read a book before falling asleep, you might like to choose the act of closing the book and putting it down, to remind you, or maybe it's turning off your bedroom light, or putting your head on the pillow.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clare_Josa