Linda Stark Change Agent

10 Ways to Better Sleep

2010-05-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

Difficulty sleeping seems to be at epidemic proportions. Have you ever heard of so many people suffering from either trouble getting to sleep or else staying asleep? Just listen to the commercials on T.V. and hear all of those ads for sleep remedies. Well is it any wonder that we have trouble sleeping with all that we feel we have to do on a daily basis.

Don’t we wish that we lived in more simple times?

This newsletter is meant to be informational and educational. It should not be considered a substitute for medical advice. If you snore, stop breathing during slumber, jerk, have traumatic dreams or sleep walk please seek medical assistance.

For all others I have listed 10 things that could assist you with going to sleep as well as staying asleep. If sleep still eludes you consider seeing your physician or setting up several appointments with me. I provide detailed, step by step instructions for getting to sleep/staying asleep, one relaxing CD and one sleep CD. In hypnosis you will see yourself falling asleep easily and waking up at a comfortable time. Through hypnosis you will see just how easy it is to transition into a good habit of a great nights sleep.

Feel free to try the following:

1. Give yourself 45 minutes to 1 hour to transition into a good nights sleep so that you can detach from your day time routine.

2. Ways to make this transition are to nurture yourself by taking a long soaking bath, listen to soft music, read a cozy or educational book or have a relaxing conversation.

3. Consider ear plugs as they cut down on external noise and can give you a sense of comfort while you listen to your own body's sounds.

4. Be gentle with yourself while trying to go to sleep.

5. Work on your concerns during the day, perhaps while driving turn off the radio and just go over your thoughts.

6. Just prior to bedtime, sit down and make a reminder list, concern list, and to do list, so that you don't take any of this to bed with you.

7. Expose yourself to sunlight and the outdoors daily weather permitting.

8. To stay cool during the summer fill a man's cotton sock with rice, rubber band the top and stick it in the freezer. After it is cold you can place around your neck and head and it will cool off your whole body. It will stay cool about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

9. Don't go to bed starving, have a light snack prior to bed time if necessary.

10. If you are still having difficulty going to sleep or staying asleep consider utilizing hypnotherapy sessions, sleep and relaxation CD's.

Classes dealing with insomnia to start in May. Please call Linda for fees,days and times.

10 KEYS TO HAPPINESS

2009-01-05T20:27:00.000-08:00

Enjoy being outdoors, or if you don’t enjoy it act as if. Start being a part of this world. We all need some alone time especially if we work with people constantly, but being out of doors connects us to the outside world as well as nature. Go for a brisk walk and then I dare you to just tell me that you don’t feel better after wards.
We all have mental lists of things we dread doing. I know as you read this all kinds of things pop into your mind. You just can’t imagine the effort it takes to keep pushing all these things to the back of your mind and then just as you think that they are safely buried in the recesses of your brain they just pop up again in your conscious thoughts again. Just get started make little inroads and then you wont have to work so hard shoving it back again and again. Remember that you eat an elephant on bite at a time so pal, just take that first bite and then a little more everyday and soon all of these tasks will be completed and you will feel great!
Do something for yourself that you would like another to do for you or give you. Treat yourself to a massage or give yourself a gift certificate to one of your favorite stores. Give yourself a treat of a pedicure and make sure that they give a good foot and leg massage. You are special, so start acting like it.
Make a list of at least five things that you are grateful for. You will find that this will automatically make you feel good.
Write down the things in your life that are getting in the way of you really enjoying your life fully.
Here is where the work begins. Go through this list and put a star next to the things that you are willing to do something about and to change. Put a date next to it and when that date occurs you are ready to begin to feel lighter and less burdened.
Play hooky from work. Take a mental health day and remember that you don’t need to get sick to have a day off. If you take a day off when you are sick you might have to stay in bed and that’s no fun.
Stand in front of a full length mirror. Take a good look at yourself. Notice not what you don’t like, but what you do like. Start with your hair and go down inch by inch all parts of you and find any thing that you like and remember to end with being grateful for this body that you have, because you couldn’t do life without it.
Smile for the entire day even if you are alone. You may feel very silly with this one but we can only feel good after a day of smiling.
Get into the holiday spirit no matter what the date is. Go out of your way to assist people. These could be friends or strangers. It is a win-win situation. The person that you assist will feel good that they count in this world and you will feel good having been a part of the other person feeling good.

Make this a year of no guilt

2009-01-04T20:07:00.000-08:00

We all spend too much time feeling guilty whether it is about spending too much time at work, maybe not enough time at work. Perhaps we continually over eat or over spend. Maybe we smoke and know what it is doing to our health. Maybe we don't give our children enough quality time.
Every time we feel guilty it seems to give us a big hole in our belly that needs filling and then we often fill it with doing more of what created the hole in the first place and so it goes. Let’s try instead to see ourselves sitting on our own shoulders observing ourselves, not in judgment but just purely observational. The next step might be to figure out something that we could do to rectify the original guilt with something that fills our hole instead of enlarging it.
Make this a year of no guilt. Whatever we do, let’s do it with a feeling of it being a learning lesson so that we are now doing less of whatever habit has us in its clutches. Let's do whatever we are capable of doing that instead of making us feel guilty it now makes us feel good. What a concept! We deserve to do what makes us feel that we are worthwhile and good.

Compassionate Coaching

2008-10-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

Wouldn’t it be great if you had a compassionate friend who was a really good listener? Someone you could talk to about the things you would like to improve in your life. Someone who knew how to help you make lasting changes. And, this intuitive, nurturing and supportive friend would make you feel anything was possible. You could tell her your private challenges and she would show you the path to reinventing yourself. That’s what working with me is like!

I have been a helper all my life. Combining classic coaching, education and relaxation techniques my clients often see astonishing results. I have a degree in Social Services, taught parenting classes and coordinated parenting groups. A Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist and behavioral coach, I have assisted hundreds of people to make deep, lasting life changes.

Like many people, I struggled with my weight most of my life. In 2002, I decided to have stomach bi-pass surgery. After only losing 50 lbs. my weight loss came to a screeching stop and I felt that the progress I had made was in jeopardy. After trying a popular weight loss program I experienced only more frustration. Not wanting to try another diet, I knew I needed to lose weight without dieting and deprivation. Then I discovered an ad for hypnosis in a local magazine. My previous experience with self-hypnosis was productive in dealing with minor aches and pains. Using hypnosis, I experienced phenomenal success with weight loss. No diets, deprivation or guilt! I soon went back to school and became a Clinical Hypnotherapist and have been practicing hypnotherapy combined with coaching ever since.