Sleep Well and Meet Your Needs

We all feel good when we sleep like a baby…

So why don’t we make sleep more of a priority in our lives?

As a practitioner of the Human Givens approach, I understand the importance of a holistic viewpoint when it comes to mental and emotional wellness. One of the most critical components of this perspective, which has been overlooked in 20th Century psychology, is the power of sleep and its role in enabling us to meet our emotional needs.

If you want to skip to seeing sleep tips, just scroll to the bottom of this article

At the heart of the Human Givens approach is the belief that we are all born with innate emotional needs, such as the need for security, autonomy, connection, and achievement. It is vital to meet these needs for us to enjoy good mental health and wellbeing. Sleep plays an indispensable role in achieving this balance.

The Importance of Sleep

Sleep isn't just a time for our bodies to rest. In truth, sleep is actually a metabolically active period. Crucial processing, restoration, and strengthening occur alternating between rapid eye movement (REM) phases and deep recovery rest in 90 minute cycles. It is in sleep that our brain processes the day's experiences, consolidates memory, and regulates emotions. All of these proccesses support our ability to function effectively during waking hours.

REM Sleep and Emotional Processing

One of the most significant elements of sleep is REM sleep, where dreaming most frequently happens. The Human Givens approach recognizes that during REM sleep, our brain works to "de-activate" the emotional arousal from experiences we've had during the day, discharging the emotions from our "emotional brain". This is why dreams feel so intense.

Why we dream

Emotions alocate energy to drive us to meet our needs. If that emotional energy is not completed to meet that need, it remains in our system. REM sleep discharges the activation metaphorically through dreaming.

Without sufficient REM sleep, our emotional brain can become overloaded, making it harder for us to manage stress and emotional upsets during our waking hours. This phenomenon explains why, after a poor night's sleep, we might feel more emotionally reactive or struggle to concentrate.

Quality Sleep for Waking Function

Regular, quality sleep equips us to better meet our needs in our waking life. Good sleep hygiene - as healthy sleep habits are called - supports our overall cognitive functioning, emotional stability, and physical health, all of which contribute to our ability to connect with others, achieve our goals, feel secure, and maintain a sense of control in our lives.

When we make sleep a priority, we create a positive feedback loop: quality sleep enables us to meet our needs more effectively during waking hours, which in turn makes it easier for us to sleep well. This cycle, in turn, contributes to our overall mental wellness and resilience towards achieving our goals in life.

Our waking performance is only as good as our sleeping recovery

All living things take a period of rest, usually through the night, in order to be active during the day. The better the rest we have, the more focused and energetic we can feel during the day.

Clearly, sleep is not a luxury but an essential part of our wellbeing. As a Human Givens psychotherapist, I explore the importance of sleep in emotional processing and meeting our innate human needs - it’s my job to try to understand what makes good sleep happen in line with the scientific consensus. If you are experiencing difficulties with sleep, stress, or emotional challenges, please do not hesitate to get in touch. It's crucial to remember that taking care of our mental health is as important as looking after our physical health, and sleep is a critical component of both of those aims.

Sleep Well, Live Well

Here are some elements to consider for your sleep.
For more detailed support, you can fill in this online questionnaire to find interventions to improve your sleep.

1. Sleep Schedule: Maintain a consistent sleep-wake cycle.(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11152980/)

2. Sleep Duration: Aim for 7 to 9 hours per night.(https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need)

3. Comfortable Environment: Optimize your sleep setting.(https://www.sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment)

4. Limit Naps: Short, mid-afternoon naps only (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21075238/)

5. Diet Control: Avoid large meals, caffeine, and alcohol near bedtime.^[[5]](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5015038/)

6. Physical Activity: Exercise regularly but not too close to bedtime.(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2992829/)

7. Relaxation skills: Utilize relaxation techniques.(https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/hnp/2016/00000030/00000003/art00005)

8. Digital Detox: Switch off electronic devices an hour before sleep.(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20501579211028647)

Please note that the information in this article is intended to be informative and does not replace professional medical advice. If you are having persistent sleep problems, consult with a healthcare provider or a Human Givens therapist.

Keywords: Human Givens, Psychotherapy, Sleep, Waking Functionality, Emotional Health, Mental Wellness, Essential Needs, REM Sleep, Emotional Processing, Dreaming

Fulfilling a goal? Or the goal of fulfillment?

Very often we think we know what we want, we feel that something is right for us. So we pursue it ruthlessly, but then we find that when we attain it that it is not only dissatisfying but fundamentally unfulfilling. We thought that attaining this thing or that state would bring us more happiness than it does. Or maybe we thought that achieving a certain objective may serve our lives in some way, making it more meaningful.

So here, from this vantage-point of having reached or tried to reach our objective, we may ask ourselves, what was the real purpose of that goal?

Why was I so set on that? How could I have been so naive to think that this thing or that action would bring me to a better place in my life?

As with all challenges, all problems, the first step to finding the solution is to ask the right question.

In this instance, we may wish to ask ourselves: what was driving my want, my need to put my energy into that goal? What drove me to make the decision to pursue that goal?

More often than not, we might find that our guidance system to getting our needs met was askew in some way. We may find for example, that we wanted that shiny new car, and worked extra hours to pay for it, only because we are lacking in some other area of life. A lack of status perhaps...

The good news is that no matter how unfulfilling an achievement is, the time was not wasted! Aside from deriving some development from the journey to the goal, take a look back over your reasoning for your actions. Observe the basis of your drive. Then you may be able to ascertain the real need that you were trying to satisfy; the actual ingredient that was missing that could make your life balanced and healthy.

When we know what that is, we have vital information for moving forward to an effective and more fulfilling life. And seeing as we've already engaged that drive, we can certainly engage it again to move towards a goal that actually gets us closer real fulfillment...

Breathe away stress

We've all experienced when our bodies or minds, or both, irrationally overreact to a situation.

What's going on?

Why is this happening?

What can I do to change it?

The stress response

All animals developed the ability to react instantly to their environment: approach or withdraw.

In its most extreme form, this translates to attack or escape. In its more nuanced form, it might be a curious sniff toward or a retreat away from questionable-smelling food.

It's these extreme forms of approach or withdraw that immediately activate within us to keep us alive and safe. After all, the brain knows we won't meet any needs for development if we've been eaten by a bear.

Nowadays, there aren't many bears chasing us - not for most of us, at least. Still, this "security system" in the brain activates these coarse responses to 21st century problems.

The brain and the body

This stress response, driven by the ancient security centers of the brain, causes a cascade of changes within the rest of the brain and the whole of the body.

A flow of neuro-circuitry is activated, triggering the release of hormones into the body to ready us to take physical action.

This response is great if we're about to get hit by a car while crossing the road, but less helpful when we're unable to connect to the WiFi or having a difficult conversation with one of our teenaged children. This is because these challenges require detailed problem solving skills rather than automatic response.

There is no such threat. The ancient security centres have misread the situation.

The ability to problem solve with within an understanding of detail and context is a powerfully developed human faculty. However, the security centres shut this down in order to be most efficient in taking quick action for us to be safe. In other words, avoiding overthinking in favour of acting quickly.

Fine if I'm in the middle of a road about to be hit by a car, but in most modern situations, we're not in that type of danger. There is no such threat. The ancient security centres in the brain have misread the situation and have responded unhelpfully by trying to protect us.

So what to do?

Once we've fostered an awareness of this unwanted emotional arousal, we can practice a skill that has developed over millions of years and practiced by humans for thousands. Science now helps us to understand that one particular breathing protocol best controls this unwanted security response: 7/11 breathing.

The Yogis of the Indian subcontinent recognised this breathing protocol 6,000 years ago.

It turns out that the Yogis of the Indian subcontinent recognised this breathing protocol 6,000 years ago, with many practicing yogis using it ever since. Now, in the 21st century, business leaders, politicians and even Navy seals use it to manage emotions and take control of unwanted physical responses. While we can't directly control our racing heartbeat, we can control our breathing, which in turn, slows down our heart rate.

Neuroscientists have discovered that when we breathe out for longer than we breathe in, we activate pathways in the brain that calm the security centres of the brain and body.

How does it work?

7/11 breathing doesn't involve you going to a convenience store and buying crisps or Slush Puppies.

The 7/11 protocol merely denotes the breath "in" being shorter (a count of 7) than the breath "out" (a count of 11).

Neuroscientists have discovered that when we breathe out for longer than we breathe in, we activate certain pathways responsible for sighing.

This particular neural circuitry calms our over-alert security centres , allowing our uniquely human powers to be poised for considering the right response to the challenges at hand.

How to do it

With relaxed shoulders, start off by breathing in to your tummy. Your tummy should expand while you breathe in. Then when you breathe out, your tummy can squeeze in toward the spine. squeezing out all the air. (For some, this may be counter-intuitive to how you might have been taught to breathe.)

Then, breathe in for a count of 3 and breathe out for a count of 5.

When that's comfortable, breathe in for a count of 5, breathe out for a count of 8.

When that's comfortable, breathe in for a count of 6, breathe out for a count of 9.

When that's comfortable, breathe in for a count of 7, breathe out for a count of 10.

When that's comfortable, breathe in for a count of 7, breathe out for a count of 11.

Continue as long as you like...

Taking time to master this breathing skill last thing at night is a good idea, as it also supports your sleep. Not just you going to sleep, but also increasing the quality of sleep you're likely to have.

Once you've mastered this breathing, it's possible to use it if ever you feel anxious or stressed throughout the day to calm the security centres of the brain.

I use this breathing protocol all the time with my clients - and not just teaching it to them, but practicing it myself to keep calm and to be better able to support them.

When we are calm, we bring our higher brain functions online to problem solve more effectively - including how to meet our needs. When our needs are met in balance, we can thrive with a life that works.

60% of staff turnover due to poor mental health

This article is adapted from MHS Training's post of the same name.

MHS Training is a company I have founded that trains staff in the model of mental health that I use in therapy.

Appjobs recently surveyed 2000 workers to explore their “job-hopping” habits. The average UK resident has changed their job 17 times with the job-hopping habit being most prevalent in London. Residents there have changed jobs, on average, 21 times in their working lives. Consider for a moment the cost of replacing a member of staff in the UK, for each role the cost sits conservatively at £12,000 per employee, a figure that is unlikely to include losses in productivity and the extra stressors caused within a team during transition. £12,000 is a considerable sum. All told, the average worker in London has been replaced 20 times at a cost totalling £240,000 to business.Clearly, employee retention must be a key focus for management. As Appjobs points out, management should strive to, “…ensure their workers are as happy as possible.”

But what exactly is “happy”?

At MHS Training we unpack exactly what that “happy” means and it’s not as simple as you may think. Using common-sense models of what a human being actually needs in order to be well and thrive, the Mental Health and Safety training empowers staff, management and leadership alike to create a working environment that meets needs and fosters a high performing workplace. My experience is that the insights that the Mental Health and Safety training offers contributes to lower staff turnover, and the reason why becomes clear when we look at the reasons why people switch jobs in the UK.

While the top of the list of reasons is low pay at 23%, stress is second place at 16%. Clearly stress is a mental health consideration. However, if we include reasons of boredom, bad company culture and lack of stability as mental health issues (which the Mental Health and Safety program

covers) then the total percentage of reasons for switching jobs due to mental health issues combines to a total of 38%.

When an organism fails to get its needs met, then its performance will suffer, and it will be unwell - like a pot plant wilting in a dark corner. If a worker is not getting all of their emotional needs met for mental health, then they will not enjoy a sense of wellbeing. Pot plants cannot hop away to a sunnier windowsill, but a worker can job-hop to another more conducive working environment, costing your business thousands.

If a worker is getting all of their emotional needs met in a workplace then they are more likely to enjoy a sense of wellbeing; organisms orientate towards places where they get their needs met…and where needs are met, organisms thrive. All of a business’s endeavour relies upon the mental health of its most potent assets – human beings. We know that if a person’s emotional needs are being met in balance, then that person will be mentally healthy, thrive and perform well towards their personal and shared objectives. The more mentally healthy the worker, then the better they will perform and the greater the return on your investment in their potential. If an organisation knows what the emotional needs of its workers are, then it can ensure, individually and as a whole, that those needs are met. Our accessible, jargon free training provides the opportunity to engender this pathway to high performance and productivity into the culture of an organisation. With coaching, consultancy and group training we empower staff, management and leadership with the tools and understanding for the creation of a workplace that meets needs. An example of how this works is through MHS Training's Connect for Performance workshop.

Many emotinal needs are met in connection with one another. When we connect with others then we are better able to meet our emotional needs and thrive. Many of our key emotional needs are met through community and connection with other human beings. These include the fundamental need to give and receive good quality attention, to feel a sense of belonging to a group and to feel that one is respected for their value within that group.

Indeed, not feeling appreciated accounts for 9% of respondents’ reasons for leaving their jobs. All in all, 22% of the reasons for moving jobs were accounted for by relational issues in the workplace, whether that was with management or colleagues (this at a cost of over £5m* to the businesses they left basically for ‘not getting on’ with colleagues or management). Our one-hour Connect for Performance workshop explores our innate ability to enjoy working with one another and how to maintain healthy relationships during times of adversity. These skills include reflective listening, stating needs and understanding and dealing with emotional language.

MHS Training's Managing Mental Health and Safety course gives managers greater tools to support their staff through a structured framework of protocols to follow, supporting staff to effectively problem solve for themselves, pulling back from stress to regain the joy of the challenge. When this range of our interventions is delivered to an organisation in a top down manner with core and peripheral training, there is greater empathy and shared meaning and purpose in the workplace. Previously disparate teams are clearly better at working together and supporting one another’s performance. This improves wellbeing and productivity and the “happiness” workers have in their job. Not only will that reduce the risk of valuable workers job-hopping away; it will improve their performance levels while in role, ultimately meaning greater productivity and performance towards your business’s objectives.

The top ten jobs for quitting due to stress:

1. Education - 22.9%

2. Arts and Culture - 22.7%

3. Travel and Leisure - 21.7%

4. Retail - 21.2%

5. Human Resources - 20%

6. Healthcare - 19.6%

7. Sales - 19.6%

8. Catering - 18.9%

9. Finance - 17.7%

10. Architecture - 16.7%

*1% of 2000 respondents = 20. 20 x 22 = 440 respondents who switched jobs due to relational issues x £12000 = £5,280000

Where anxiety stands in our way...

There is 1 in 5 of us who will suffer from an anxiety condition at any given year. This often leads to an inhibition in us achieving what we want to achieve, so why is it there? What is anxiety?

Evolutionary biology shows us that anxiety is an emotional signal telling us that that we need to act on circumstances in order to aid survival. But where there is persistent, unhelpful anxiety it is usually rooted in experience that has been stored as trauma.

For reasons I won't go into here, difficult experiences can be stored as trauma and can cause a malfunction of the method that the brain has evolved to help us to survive.

Whenever we experience sensory input, the brain instantly performs a number of complex procedures, all without us even noticing. This pattern of a traumatic experience is stored in a way that the amygdala (the part of the brain that acts like a super vigilant security guard to protect us at all times) can instantly register any moment that a similar situation is matched to that pattern.

When this 'threat pattern' is matched to a current experience the amygdala then sends out a high priority message to key areas of the brain that there is an urgent threat to our wellbeing. The person experiences this in the form of powerful emotions which flag that there is action to be taken. Glucose is sent to the legs and the autonomic system readies itself and possibly enacts a fight or flight protocol.

This is a phenomenally powerful and successful system and has enabled us to not be eaten by tigers or bitten by poisonous spiders for many a millenia. The problem is that we no longer live in the jungle, but we are over stimulated with experiences that our brains pattern match to and misinterpret as threatening to us more often than there are actual threats.

At the less debilitating end of the trauma scale, we might never get on a bike again having fallen off as a child. The amygdala is telling us not to get on a bike again as that is pattern matched as a threat to our survival and a risk not worth taking; emotions flood the brain to encourage us to action - run away or withdraw. Of course our rational brain knows better, but when the emotions fire the rational brain is inhibited.

At an extreme level, we may encounter an every day experience and react as though it is a matter of life or death. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a debilitating malfunction of the amygdalian 'security system' that can happen where extremely traumatic experiences have been experienced. An otherwise healthy ex-soldier may become a dribbling wreck at the sound of an old car backfiring, their brain having pattern matched it to experiences in a warzone.

Life coaches could use an appreciation of this neurological 'security system'; is surely critical to good practice. Yes, sometimes a person might just get back on the bike and ride out of sheer will, or through the power of our drive expressed within our imagination. Even relaxing deeply may enable a client to be able to face a situation where their emotions have been tripping them up. But where the trauma has been powerfully stored in the 'existential threat' category, and is causing unwanted reactions or aversions, the solution does not seem so readily available.

Fortunately, in the last thirty years a hypno-therapeutic technique has been developed that literally, and miraculously moves memories from the 'existential threat' storage category, to the 'not very important' storage category. It has evolved from the work of Milton H Erickson, founder of hypnotherapy, and probably the most important psychotherapist of the 20th century. Richard Bandler, one of the co-founders of NLP, helped to develop it and it has now been re-defined and refined by the Human Givens Institute. It is variously called the Rewind Technique, The Fast Phobia Cure, and the VK Dissociation Technique.

This technique has been clinically proven to be highly effective in the treatment of PTSD and a host of other trauma related conditions such at OCD, anxiety and even depression.

A critical advantage of this dissociative technique is that it does not risk further embedding the traumatic events as unhelpful patterns, as the client is in a highly relaxed state of REM consciousness. Indeed, the client's wilful access to the REM state, the mammalian brain's programming state, is vital to the functionality of the technique.

In conclusion, if any client that is suffering from behaviours that relate to traumatic memories or experiences, real or imagined, refer them to a therapist trained in this technique. NOT a talking therapist who may well dredge up the experience and reinforce the emotional tags on the original event.

A more comprehensive explanation of the technique can be found here:

https://www.hgi.org.uk/.../fast-cure-phobia-and-trauma...

The Truth About Resilience

Resilience is an increasingly prevalent buzzword that we find used in business settings, schools, doctor's surgeries and even in mindfulness classes, but what does it actually mean?

A dictionary definition for human resilience:

"The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness..."

Here we see a definition that suggests resilience as an optimal response to adverse conditions. Often it is framed as reliance to stressful circumstances. There are lots of courses that claim to 'build resilience', often through team work or systems of self awareness, perhaps the secondary, more material definition of resilience can also be informative:

"The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity."

This implies the ability of an object to stand up to the conditions imposed upon it and return to a its original state. There's no way that humans ever return to their original state after experiencing something in the environment, otherwise we'd always return to the state of infancy. Change is the universal constant, after all. Perhaps though we can ask the question of what state we wish to return to after an experience? What would we like to carry forward? What changes do we notice or would we like to see take place in ourselves after certain experiences?

Guiding change, therefore is the objective, and the information an experience gives us provides us the insight to change in a direction that is healthful. With this reframing of the stressful experience as something that builds us towards, not away from, our objectives, then we see that resilience isn't really the helpful buzzword that people tend to think that it is.

We are not just innately resilient, surviving almost everything that the world throws at us, we have the capacity, skills and resources to build out of any difficulty to aid our development.

Yes, we don't want to get bogged down emotionally in difficult situations, and self awareness and relaxation protocols aid us in this, but let's keep sight of the fact that those difficult conditions that we are experiencing are giving us fuel for growth and meaningful development. Then we will be able to keep sight of the fact that every moment is part of a bigger picture of our story, and that they will pass, and we will always be the better for them...