Simple Sleep Solutions
JP Nicolais
Author Bio
I’m a recovering small business owner and nonprofit exec who has a passion for creating life solutions especially for life’s basic needs. I grew up in Pennsylvania but spent most of my life in Washington DC until our family move to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to engage in my fundraising work. My wife and I live in a small community with our 2 Jack Russell’s, Pip and Sophie. As I began looking for ways to help individuals I was coaching regarding career and life issues, I realized that many of them suffered from insomnia but didn’t have tools to deal with one of their essential needs. I shared with them the technique I painfully and slowly discovered, and decided to create a book to teach others how to create their own personalized path to improved sleep. I now work as a business and nonprofit consultant, and do volunteer work as a career coach. I love to help people make major changes in their lives.
I started becoming a book fanatic when I was 5, and was a child peruser of encyclopedias and travel magazines. Discovering Arizona Highways was a revelation because the area where I lived seemed to be perpetually cloudy. Writing was not a natural journey because I was more of a verbal community, but during my high school and college careers, I was forced to write various fiction and nonfiction, but I never became very excited about these exercises. I guess I’m really a writer by accident. My real goal is to provide people with healing and empowering information and solutions, and writing is the vehicle I use to communicate with others.
Description
My book is not really a book, but a quick training manual on how to improve sleep and profit from your dream world. For years I suffered from insomnia and tried all kinds of experiments–in the middle of the night–to avoid hours of tossing and turning. After many futile attempts, 1 night–2 am or so–in the mid-2000’s, I launched my 10,000th sleep trial as rodent #2525. This experiment involved visiting the neighborhood where I grew up in Pennsylvania, walking around talking to people I knew, and touring the houses of neighbors and friends. In so doing, I discovered that before I finished the walking and talking, I fell back to sleep. The light went on in my head and I felt a sense of anticipation and discovery like my first successful bike ride. So I tried it again and again. Over the years, I developed it in many ways especially by inviting people from my present life to walk with me. I was especially focused on individuals with whom I was having conflict either personal or business: a disagreement with my
wife or a client who was resisting my sales charms. So I was getting a double benefit: more sleep and solutions to problems: a happier spouse and a new client if I implemented what I imagined during the night. By adapting the technique I discovered and adding their own experiences, a reader can develop his or her own sleep solutions. It’s simple, natural and can be changed as your life changes. The possibilities are unlimited. Like baseball? Replay a game. Like cooking? Prepare your favorite meal. Like dancing? Dance with a famous DWTS pro. and so on. The most important key to success is an active imagination. I also offer readers a free phone consult if they are having difficulty getting started with the technique. A friend, who’s a psychologist, has been successfully in incorporating the technique into CBT [cognitive behavioral therapy].
Because sleeping and dreaming are bedfellows, I persuaded an expert on dreams to provide some guidance on unveiling the mysteries of dreams and helping readers become comfortable with the dreams or lack of dreams.
Book excerpt
Chapter 1: The Beginning
Most of us, including me, have spent a lot of hours awake when we wanted to or could have been sleeping. Why does this happen? How can we improve our situations and wake up refreshed, alert and ready to ease into or charge into our day?
Years ago, I was having a really bad stretch of insomnia, sleeping 3 hours 1 night, 6 the
next, 3 the next etc…..You get the picture.
I started trying to figure out what was wrong, and how I could make my days and nights more pleasant and less painful. So I started a long exploration of several decades into the mystery of sleep.
I’m going to share the best of what I learned over many years, and give you one flexible
solution in detail that I’ve been using for over a decade. It works for me over 90% of the
time.
I want you to use my solution, adapt it to your situation or come up with an entirely new
solution that works for you. Feel free to share your solution with others through me on
Twitter @SASPublishing or via email at sleepsolutions@outlook.com.
Here we go.
Chapter 2: Sleep Enhancers and Demons
The Enhancers
I’ve discovered that the following actions and attitudes promote restful sleep. The more of these that you can incorporate into your life, the better you’ll sleep:
• A clear conscience
• Having a purpose or mission in your life
• Caring about others – spouse, children, parents, friends, employees, pets – your choice.
• I call it the ‘We Factor’.
• Spending time before bedtime doing something enjoyable, alone or with someone: a walk, a talk, a massage, a prayer, etc.
• Caring about things—garden, lakes, streams, a cause
• Moderate exercise—triathlons not recommended near bed time!!
• Moderate eating and caffeine use prior to bed time
• Discussing your sleep issues with someone you trust
• A comfortable bed: I’ve been using the Sleep Number® Bed for 7 years, and I find that
my sleep is restful and I rarely experience morning back pain.
The Demons
Lurking inside and outside of us are the following energies and actions that inhibit sleep:
• Excessive stress and worry (Contact me immediately if you can avoid either one completely.)
• Nicotine
• Heavy consumption of caffeine and alcohol
• Overwork and ‘over play’
• Search for the perfect medical cure—not to be confused with consulting a medical
professional about your sleeping issues.
The Wisdom of Dr. Peter Lambley
I discovered this fi ne English psychologist and author in my search for sound sleep and cures for insomnia and related nocturnal disruptions. These wise suggestions are from his
book, “Insomnia and Other Sleep Problems”, published in 1982. It is out of print but is
available on used book sites such as www.half.com and www.abebooks.com.
Here are some of his insights and recommendations:
• Sometimes, you can’t avoid interrupted sleep—you’re a new parent, you have a major test or
presentation coming up, you’ve just had surgery, or you’re ill and coughing violently.
• His simplest and most obvious insight: Sleeping problems are the result of waking
problems.
• Most sleeping solutions are in the sleeper’s hands.
• Sleeping problems are most prevalent among urban dwellers.
• Sometimes, you should leave insomnia alone and deal with the problem that’s keeping
you awake.
• Sometimes, you should welcome insomnia as a creative experience, and sometimes you
should consult a physician.
Book Cover https://everywritersresource.com/selfpublished/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SImple-Sleep-Solutions-Cover.jpg
Genre Non-Fiction