Head Miles: Busy mind and Imagination

You are up and finishing off the day, going to the toilet, turning out the lights, put your JPs on and then lay down into a nice bed. You think after a long day "wow it's nice being vertical", but then something happens. You close your eyes and try to rest, relax, and sleep, but the mind just gears up the over drive, put on the turbo supper charger, and you are strapped in as a passenger on a roller-coaster ride of thought.   We all have experienced this, but there are times when it just seems worse than other times. I remember listening to a psychologist talking on the radio as I was trying to sleep. I did not agree with everything that was talked about in the interview, and then suddenly my mind went crazy answering some of the issues, and interrogating my memory for the references that contradict the information being talked about on the radio.   There was another time when I was trying to sleep, my mind was working me through an entire workshop based on the Hero's Journey, which I am doing the research for now and putting together the recourses for the work shop.  This restless night happened only a week ago. Although only last night, I had another restless night, and my mind was only picking random stuff to think about, however it still kept me awake.   Further more many people have the same types of restless nights, but the thinks that are being pondered are driven about negative, self persecuting thought, or concentrating on the persecution, and oppression, that they are suffering from others. Thinking about how to get them back, what should have been said to a response to a cutting remark, or just convincing you're self that every one else is right. I know one person that was brain washed by a psychiatrist that did a great deal of harm in a person, it took me a long time to convince the client that the psychiatrist was wrong. This person stayed awake at night thinking that they were insane when in fact the voices that they heard were not in their head, but people talking outside the house as they walked past the house. So explaining that the episodes of schizophrenia only happened with severity on Friday and Saturday nights was a break through for the client. If only the psychiatrist would have investigated more, this person would have had a happier life for years.   Further more, people that are recovering from addiction also suffer restless nights doing head miles. The most common explanation for this is that the person in not bombed out on drugs, which frees the mind up to think. Which co-insides with the vivid dreams that feel so real that people awake, fearing to go back to sleep. For a recovering addict, restless nights are the hardest thing to get over, because the mind is thinking and collating years of information that it could not do because of the drug effect, affecting the ability to think. So now free from the affects of drugs, the brain goes into over drive, just to run sanity down, and then U-turn to do it night after night.

So how do we stop from thinking so much, or at least turn head miles into head meters?

 

The best thing is to get out of bed. Don't teach your sub-conscience that the bed is the place to think. Now you can pick several from options that suits you the best, ie. try each option, then pick the one that works best for you.

 

• Tell your self that there is time in the morning to think about the issue in the morning. And while you are up have a cup of chamomile tea, which is a sedative component in the tea.
• Have a note pad near by the bed or a voice recorder, sit up and record your thoughts. This action re-enforces the mind that the thoughts are placed somewhere that can be retrieved for later use. Then the thoughts do not need to be repeated over and over again so you remember it in the morning.
• Get up and play a brain taxing game like a crossword, Sudoku, find a word, or drawing. This can use up the energy that is keeping you awake and dispelling that energy.
• Do a grounding meditation, that brings you back to the now. How to do this is by closing your eyes and trying to pick where sound you hear are coming from and what they are. Another one I use sometimes is to imagine an energy field around your body (aura) and move it around, have it flowing through the body and pulsate around and through the chakra points.
• Grab a boring audio book or one that has a nice voice reading the audio book that you have listened to before, and listen to it. This is using our childhood created memory of our parents reading to us of a night. The soothing voice helps, but do not listen to an audio book that you have not listened to before, because you will then stay awake to get the story. I use this method a lot, and it helps me. I don't recommend reading a book, unless it is a boring book, like a text book. If the book is a page turner, you may be still be reading when the sun comes up. I should add that when you listen to an audio book, it can penetrate your dreams, thus you play out some portion of the audio book in your dream.

  We are blessed and cursed with a great imagination, and when we do head miles (aka. busy mind), it is our imagination going into over drive. So remember that much of what you are thinking about is the creative mind helping the logical mind explain the information gathered. Thus much of what you are thinking about is fantasy and speculations of the imagination. This is why one thought will morph into another thought. When the thoughts are negative, people describe this process as a "spiral into the abyss", because one negative thought accompanied with your imagination will build into the next negative thought, progressively worsening.   Here is a good like to a video that talks about head miles quieting-the-busy-mind-2