Good morning, dear friends 
Did you sleep well last night?
You remember those mornings that you absolutely refused to budge from under those covers and get out of your bed? How you wish you have a few more minutes, even half an hour maybe, to enjoy your bed and catch a few more winks? Now, hold on that memory……
According to some statistics, there is at least 10 percent of the world’s population that suffer from insomnia every night. Falling asleep or our quality of sleep even can be affected by many factors such as stress, too much caffeine within 6 hours before bedtime, illness, naps in the afternoon, and the worst of them all ===> a loudly snoring partner in bed with you!! 
What I am going to describe here to you is a method that I follow nowadays whenever I find myself wide awake and hard to go back to sleep, or just in falling asleep. More than a year ago, I often suffer from insomnia and I would get very worked up because I have to wake up at 6am every weekday to drive my kids to school and the later I fall asleep, the lesser sleep I’m going to get.
This is what you need to do. Try to empty your mind of all thoughts and worries, just relax. For me, I can’t even think and complain to myself that I have got only X numbers of hours to sleep before I have to wake up. RELAX and clear your mind.
One way to RELAX is to start by focusing from your head and moving down slowly all the way to your feet – e.g. first you focus on your head and your loosen or relax the muscles there. Do this part by part until your whole body is relaxed and loose. Stay calm in your mind. The reason we do this if because often, it is the stress, tension and worry that we can’t seem to fall asleep that is making the problem at hand even more difficult…..so relax.
Now, recall the memory that you have at the beginning of this post, whereby there were those mornings that you wish you still have some time to laze in bed? Good! Now is the golden opportunity for you to laze in bed – you have all the time in the world until the morning to laze around and enjoy your bed!! 
Mind you, this is such a wonderful feeling, knowing that you need not have to get up in minutes and you have many hours to do this.
Next, plump up your pillows, arrange your sheets and blankets nicely, slowly arrange yourself in bed and tell yourself this, “Ah…..now I am going to enjoy my bed.” Hug your bolster, feel the smoothness of your silk bedsheets……..luxuriate in the feelings of your bed, and just relax.
In your mind, just clear all thoughts and focus on your breathing or just how fantastic your bed feels …….. and lo and behold……..you go ….zzzzzzzzzzzz! Before you know it, your alarm clock is buzzing already to wake you up the next morning!
I give all the credit of this sleeping method to a monk I know, Ajahn Brahm, who taught this method for insomnia during one of his talks. Ajahn Brahm was a physicist in England, before he was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the 1970′s and he is now the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, Serpentine, Western Australia. He is also known as the “Seinfeld” of Buddhism and is well-known for his light Dhamma talks (in English), which are available in both video and audio at www.bswa.org. There are close to 200 talks there, and I particularly love his talks on “Relatiosnhips”. I had learn a lot about life from his talks. 
Oops….again I am digressing from the subject of this post…. 
Anyway, here is wishing you a good night’s sleep tonight!
Much peace, joy and harmony to all,
choesf
