New Renascence Trust

A Good Night’s Sleep

A good night’s sleep is one of the primary secrets of health and well-being.  When we are young, we tend to take our nightly sleep for granted.  It is only when we have a ‘bad night’ for whatever reason, that we begin to value the blessing of sleep.  Depleted without its magic touch, we become rather like a run down battery.  Our bodily mechanism becomes listless and inert.  This gives us some idea as to what part sleep plays in our lives.  Through sleep we become connected up with some sort of mysterious dynamo that recharges our depleted ‘battery’, regenerates our powers, renews our physical and mental energies. 
For many unfortunate people, sleeplessness has become a habit.  They are haunted by the fear of not sleeping, and that fear makes a vicious circle.  They cannot sleep one night, and worry that they will not be able to sleep the next, and actually it is this fear that robs them of sleep.
There is a way that can bring relief to those who are up against the nightmare of sleepless nights.  As fear is the cause of most of our troubles, discovering some means of release from fear, can bring a new lease of life.

Banish Fear

Fear seems generally to hover round some lurking emotion hold-up that we lack power to overcome—like we are helpless before the enemy, whatever the enemy may be.  We always have a Power at our disposal that can overcome fear.  The negative miasma of fear can be cancelled out by a positive affirmation.  So affirm:  “I am not afraid of not sleeping, I have confidence in the Power of Life, and waking or sleeping I have this Power available to me.  I trust in this contact with the Power—I work in it awake and rest in it asleep.”
Some may say that insomnia is in the family, that it is hereditary.  Those seemingly innocent words ‘insomnia’ and ‘heredity’ are really doses of psycho-mental poison with which we stupidly inoculate ourselves.  It is important to get rid of these dangerous, spell-binding words which only aggravate our fear; reject them as if they were poison!  We can do this now.  Just make the decision to refuse to use the word ‘insomnia’ again, even privately, which means cutting it out of our thoughts as well as our vocabulary.
This is not a difficult thing to do, provided we approach life with a healthy attitude, and do not take a negative condition seriously.  If we have a healthy attitude to, say, food, we do not begin before each meal to discuss the unhealthy negative—indigestion.  Instead, we believe in the power of the Life-giving force to work in our body, so a good meal is not spoilt by a bad thought of coming trouble.
A similar process is at work in almost everything we do.  Who takes part in athletics with the negative thought they are liable to sprain an ankle, or break an arm?  Healthy thought produces healthy action, and that builds confidence, and confidence gives rest.
The same is so with sleep.  But probably because sleep to some can be a more mysterious process than digestion, or running or jumping, fear invents complications.

A Friend to be Encouraged

But mystery though it be, confidently approach sleep as a friend to be encouraged, rather than a fugitive to be anxiously pursued!  Sleep is a magic experience; in sleep we go to an unknown realm, in which few of us are conscious.  It is wise to prepare ourselves for this great adventure by giving our Spirit some food as it goes out from a tired body and troubled world.   A positive thought is often enough to release us from the trials and stresses of the day and to enable us to awake the next morning, revitalised and refreshed. 

From the book ‘Greater Than We Know’ by Ian Fearn.