“Ask Tim” is part of a series we created to combine cognitive therapy and sleep. We teamed up with Tim Grimwade, our brand ambassador and a Cognitive Behaviour Hypnotherapist based in London, to bring us great teachings on how we can train our minds to help us live and sleep better.

Today we asked Tim how to deal with some challenges when the night comes:

How to relax and fall sleep when we have an enormous to-do list ahead of us?

Let's take a lesson from the fundamental ideas of Mindfulness. We tend to carry around with us, not just when we are trying to sleep, the anticipated burdens of events and challenges yet to come. These burdens, we may not be able to change. We can, however, manage them in a way that allows us to deliberately attend to them and, with equal intent, put them to one side.

To be mentally rehearsing or struggling against the items of our to-do list in the middle of the night can only be an obstacle to a good night's sleep, but how do we fix this when we really need it? To be more 'in the moment' is a broader mind-set change than something we can simply decide to do at bed time. If we practice this consistently when we are less in need of a retreat away from the to-do list then we will develop the skill to do it when it is of most use to us. Over time we can learn to be more mindful and thus untroubled by the demands of the next day.

Tim Grimwade practises are based in Mayfair and Liverpool Street who helps people deal with anxiety, sleep issues, phobias, addictions and other seemingly-involuntary actions. With a former career in banking, Tim understands the impact of anxiety and busyness our society faces. In search for life fulfilment he bravely left his established and comfortable job position to embark on a journey to help hundreds of busy Londoners to change bad behaviours and to find happiness.  

 Tim has a Diploma in Cognitive-Behavioural Hypnotherapy, accredited by the National Council for Hypnotherapy, the General Hypnotherapy Register, the Register for Evidence-Based Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy and approved by the British Psychological Society. His methods are long-established, peer-reviewed interventions and are aligned with the conclusions of, among others, the British Psychological Society, the British Medical Association and the American Medical Association.Tim’s approach to hypnotherapy is that we all have a hidden, undiscovered ability to choose so many of the things that we assume are beyond our control.