How are you sleeping?
If your answer is a groggy, frustrated, “What sleep?!”—then you are in the right place.
We’ve all been there: it’s 3:00 AM, you’re staring at the ceiling, and your mind is suddenly running a marathon. Maybe it’s replaying a stressful conversation, making an endless to-do list, or conjuring up random worries. You try to force yourself to drop off, but the harder you try, the more awake you feel. Hmpfh.
Here’s the secret: the goal isn’t to force yourself to sleep. The goal is to build the internal environment your body needs to let sleep happen naturally.
In the Peaceful Sleep Series, we’ll dive into the latest sleep science and practical habits, but more importantly, I’ll teach you the “Jedi mind tricks” (otherwise known as targeted meditation and relaxation techniques) to quiet a racing brain and downshift a hyper-alert nervous system.
Over four connected sessions, we’ll practice moving our awareness away from overthinking and into sensing, shifting the baseline of your nervous system to a regular state of peace.
In this series, we will cover:
- Rewiring your nervous system: Actively shifting out of “fight or flight” and into deep relaxation.
- Mind-quieting toolkits: Simple, highly effective breath and body practices (like breath-counting and body scans) that actually work when the mind won’t turn off.
- Personalized problem-solving: Unpacking and troubleshooting the unique habits or thoughts disrupting your rest.
AGENDA
- Class 1: What to do before bed (Setting the stage for rest)
- Class 2: What to do in bed (Navigating the middle-of-the-night wake-ups)
- Class 3: What to do during the day (How your daytime habits dictate your nighttime sleep)
3 Tuesday Afternoons
July 28, August 4 & 11
1:30 – 2:30
FREE!
Instructor: Michelle Stortz, C-IAYT, ERYT500, MFA
Note: To protect everyone’s privacy and encourage open, personal sharing, these classes are not recorded.
Questions? Reach out at M@MichelleStortz.com or call 215-242-1366.
Michelle, your Peaceful Sleep Series was such an inspiration! I learned so many techniques. My personal struggles are waking up at 3:00am, then the mind starts, and I’m unable to fall back asleep. I have been using the breath counting. This has been very successful and I encourage anyone to try this – it works! This has allowed me to fall back asleep peacefully and I’m feeling rested in the morning.
I really enjoyed the series. Thank you!
Colleen Blair
I must say that I have absolutely been sleeping better since incorporating the counting of breaths from 1 to 10 while settling down to sleep. It is amazing that such a simple thing is so effective. But, of course, it makes perfect sense that once the mind is focused on one thing that another idea can not so readily take it’s place. Thank you again for the best and easiest sleep I have experienced in years!
ESC, program participant
Thank you Michelle. The techniques you suggested have been helpful. What was most helpful to me was your calming presence as well as the presence of the other women in the group. Your explanations, answers to questions and guided meditations helped me feel at ease & positive. Thank you & Namaste .
Carolyn Carbone, Ph.D
Thank you again for this course. It was immensely helpful to me. I’m using the techniques and concepts nightly. I understand the gist of your teaching to be that the goal of these practices is not to fall asleep but to create the conditions that my body needs to make that happen, i.e., move awareness from thinking to feeling (sensing). I think that is a very important lesson to have learned along with the actual techniques, especially breath-counting, body scan and visualization . And I welcomed learning about the science of sleep and rest.
Susan C.
