We ordinarily think of sleep as a cure for physical fatigue.  And, indeed, it is.  Yet, sleep benefits the central nervous system as much as – if not more than – it benefits muscles.  A hard day at work can be physically taxing, mentally taxing, or both.  Most jobs involve specific functions, and these functions are often repetitive.  The repetition may not be physically performing exactly the same movements, but instead, it’s the repetition of mentally focusing on the same area.  Fatigue often starts in the brain.

Your body doesn’t truly rest as long as your mind is churning or emotions are boiling or simmering.  Sitting down or otherwise changing patterns of physical activity can be a relief for an overworked musculoskeletal system.  But real rest begins in the nervous system, and the secret to true, body-restoring rest is to allow your mind to relax – release it from a steady grind of work thoughts or worries.  Your mind and nervous systems need rest as much as the rest of your physical body.  Sitting leisurely in a recliner may appear to relieve tension from a hard day’s work, but when the mind goes full-tilt while the body relaxes, that’s not resting.

Sleep allows for mind and body rest.  Yet, many people wake as tired as they were when they went to sleep.  All too often, problems of the day spill over to become problems of the night.  Your body may be in a resting position, but both your mind and body are tense.  This tension can interfere with cell-replenishing, energy-restoring rest.  Your thoughts and emotions affect your level of brain activity.  When you go to sleep at night thinking about the problems and emotional upheavals of the day (or the past), these are the “sensory” signals your brain uses to determine the physiology appropriate for the moment.  And since your brain doesn’t understand the difference between internally generated stimuli originating from mental images and external stimuli originating from the five senses, it responds equally to both.

Intense emotions and their physiological responses are recorded in your subconscious.  So, when you go to sleep amid intense emotions, the appropriate responses are “glued” in your subconscious.  These memories of physiological responses can have a lasting effect on how your body functions – and how you feel.  That’s why it is important that you put aside your worries and frustrations before you crawl into bed.  Consciously replace them with strong positive feelings.  And, because the “gluing” process works as well with positive information as it does with negative information, positive resting thoughts adjust your physiology for restful sleep and calmer wakefulness. 

Link to Morter March Monday Rebroadcast: