You’re lying in bed, tired but not sleepy. Thoughts spin round your head as you stare at the invisible ceiling. You fluff up your pillow – perhaps that will help. You turn over – perhaps a new position will enable your mind to switch off. You count sheep – surely you’ll drift off now…
But instead, you become even more alert and the night grinds onwards and it’s only towards dawn that you eventually doze only to be woken two hours later when the alarm goes off. How are you going to make it through the day? You’re exhausted, constantly yawning and can’t concentrate. Your eyes feel red and gritty and want to close all the time, even while you’re driving. You’ve become a danger to yourself and to others.
Research shows that a staggering 40% of women and 30% of men in the Western world are actively seeking help because of insomnia and there are many more who suffer in silence. Partly, insomnia is to do with our modern lifestyle. It is estimated that we sleep, on average three weeks less over the year than our grandparents did at our age. And the effects of sleep deprivation are beginning to show. We are becoming more nervous, we feel out of control, we’re unable to relax or make good decisions and our blood pressure is rising. Lack of sleep is also making us get fatter.
So what can we do? The orthodox medical route is via drugs but if you don’t want to take pills then science is beginning to offer some fascinating alternatives. One of the keys to understanding sleep patterns lies in our brainwaves. When we are awake, they oscillate at 13-30 hz (cycles per second) and are known as Beta. Below this is Alpha, an oscillation of 8 – 12 hz. In Theta, 3 – 7 hz, we experience the first stage of sleep known as as Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and finally, in Delta, 0.5- 3hz, we finally achieve that oh, so blissful state, deep sleep, in which our minds finally rest and our bodies heal.
Brainwave technology is one of the latest and most interesting discoveries to help the exhausted. Research into brainwave entrainment began in the 1930s when the use of flashing lights proved that the body’s internal rhythm patterns were controlled by moon phases, day lengths and seasonal temperatures. Now composers are creating sound tracks which incorporate natural sounds with electromagnetic pulses so that, at last, we are able to control our own brainwave states at the push of a button.
Help offered by the world of sound doesn’t end there. If you prefer live, acoustic sound, then tuning forks can offer relief not only for sleep disorders but also dyslexia, dyspraxia and learning difficulties. Tuning forks work by using binaural beat rhythms. When a different frequency is played into each ear, the brain will not only hear them separately but will also add them up and, most critically, subtract them. In this way, a high Beta brainwave can be entrained to a lower, sleep state in a gentle, pleasurable and profoundly relaxing way.
So don’t despair if you can’t sleep. There is help at hand. Discover the extraordinary power of tuning forks and Acoustic Brain Entrainment. Oh, and remember to smile. As Richard Harding Davis said: “No civilised person goes to bed the same day he gets up.” With a little help you’ll be able to retrain your brain into a healthy sleep pattern. Otherwise, Eric Morecombe and Ernie Wise will have the last laugh:
ERIC: You know, I heard something this morning that really opened my eyes.
ERNIE: What was it?
ERIC: My alarm clock!
Sweet dreams!