I encourage all my clients to develop a mindfulness practice if they haven't already. Here, I will review one of the exercises that you might include in your mindfulness practice -- doing a gratitude list.
Your gratitude list is three things you are grateful for today. They can be the same things or similar things you were grateful for yesterday, as long as you are grateful for them today. I encourage you to relax, perhaps do a little focused exhalation breathing, and create your list in the last hour before going to bed. You can make it part of your healthy bedtime routine to improve your sleep hygiene.
If you have difficulty with waking in the night and not easily going back to sleep, consider writing your gratitude list down and putting it by your bed so you can review it again as you are going back to bed.
If getting back to sleep is not a problem for you, just say your gratitude list out loud. Either way, saying it out loud or writing it down, will force your thoughts through your speech centers and you will have to process them much more completely than just thinking about it. That processing helps.
Note there is no need to keep your lists even if you are writing them down. It's all about today. Right here, right now, what are you grateful for?
Wishing you peace, health, happiness, and joy. Allen
