If there is one thing that I have noticed, it’s that stress plays such a huge part in everybody’s lives. When you’re stressed it can affect your mind, your body and most importantly your health. You can’t sleep at night,
because your mind is racing with everything you are worried about, everything that happened that day, or the bills you are struggling with.

As everyone with an illness knows, anything that already impacts on our much needed sleep, makes us feel Ill for a long time to come, keeps flares going for weeks, and makes life extremely miserable.

There are many different techniques and not everyone will work as well for you as others- it's a case of trying each one until you find one that makes you feel the most relaxed. It also helps if you can have some alone
time, maybe if you have kids they could be in bed or at school. If you happen to doze off to sleep, then you can be satisfied that you found a technique that works well for you.

The key to ALL of these techniques, is to be in a quiet comfy place where you can lie down, and concentrate on slowing the rate of your breathing.So breathe in slowly to a count of 5 and then back out again for another
count of 5.

What worked best for me was to imagine a place where I felt most at peace- like a beach, the hot sun, the lapping of the waves, the seagulls and the wind gently blowing a cool breeze over me. For you it might be a meadow, a
mountain or a waterfall, it doesn’t matter where it is, as long as you find it peaceful and can imagine it in detail.

1) Lie in a nice comfortable room, if you have a nature sounds clock or something similar, you can turn it to ocean waves, spring rain or whatever fits into your “peaceful place”. Close your eyes, concentrate on your breathing, counting to 5 as you breathe in, and again as you breathe out, until your breathing starts to become slow
and rhythmic. Start to imagine your peaceful place. If it’s the beach, feel the warmth of the sun, hear the waves crashing on the shore and the seagulls, feel the breeze, maybe see that sailboat on the horizon.

Ok, now that the scene is set visualize one of your feet and just will it to go to sleep or to relax. In your head slowly say either sleep or relax. The first time you do this it could take a while before you actually get this to work, but the more you do it the quicker it happens. Once your foot is totally relaxed and asleep, move to your other foot, and gradually work up your body a bit at a time- your feet, then ankles, lower leg, upper leg, torso, etc., until you reach your head. Your head is going to be the hardest to make “sleep” but practice makes perfect. By the time your head is “asleep” you should be hovering somewhere between asleep and awake.

2) Another technique is becoming aware of your body, noticing which muscles feel tight or achy. Again find somewhere quiet and comfy, lie on your back, clench your fists tight for about 15-20 seconds, then visualize the rest of your body becoming relaxed,. Visualize your fists clenching tighter and tighter, then as you release your fists, visualize a nice breeze blowing over your body, making each muscle relax.

3) Yet another technique, is to concentrate on an item. Maybe pick a flower from the garden, a pretty autumn leaf, a piece of jewelry, a favorite picture of a favorite place. Concentrate on this object, breathing slowly in and
out. Concentrate as hard as you can for around 2 or 3 minutes, then put the object down and close your eyes while you continue to concentrate on your breathing, until you feel all the stress flowing out of your body through your nose and mouth. You need to try to stop any other thoughts from entering your mind, just concentrate all your energies on your object. You should feel totally relaxed at the end of this, if you start to feel stressed again, you can do this as many times as you need to.

4) If you are good at visualizing, try to visualize whatever it is that is causing your stress, If it’s a person see them in detail, if it’s your illness, see it as something real, something you can touch. The key to this is seeing all the detail, colours, light, shade and size. Now as you visualize this picture, see it start to shrink, getting smaller and smaller,
until it fits in your hand, then on your finger, then shrinking even smaller until it’s the size of a pin prick on your finger, until it has completely disappeared. Your stress should be disappearing at the same time as the
picture.

I hope at least one of these helps you find a way to erase some of the stress that we all feel, and helps you to get a good night's sleep.

Written by: Wendy Jones © 2008, www.butyoudontlooksick.com