There are quite a couple of emotions that are not really good when it comes to promoting sleep. And a couple of them are tied to the kind of relationships that you attract into your life. Feelings like:

• disappointment
• anger
• guilt
• and others

are quite frequently the result of bad relationships.

How does this impact my sleep?

All of the above emotions have the ability to bring us into a stressed state of mind that can therefore keep us from falling asleep quickly. Furthermore, they can lead to nightmares making our sleep gets partly interrupted and even feel unpleasant at times.

What should I know about relationships?

We tend to average out on the character traits that those people have that we spend most of our time with. So you could say that the most important relationships that you have to define your fate to a certain degree. Luckily we can control with whom we want to spend time.

Keep in mind – we tend to average out on what the 5 people have (wealth) or are (happiness, reliability) that we spend most of our time with!

Is there a way to check my relationships?

Sure. The first thing that you want to do is to see if people are adding up energy into your life or if they are sucking it out of you. A friend of mine used to call these people energy vampires and that is exactly what they are.

What shall I do with an energy vampire?

If you identify somebody in your inner circle that drains your energy – simply spend less time with him or her. Honestly, it’s that easy. You don’t have to chase that person out of your life or ban him or her completely. Simply take care that you spend less getting drained.

Then replace the new time with somebody that gives you energy instead.

How do I find people that energize me?

Best take some time to reflect if you are already the person that energizes other people. Here are a couple of great questions that you want to answer for yourself:

• Are you helping others to strive?
• Can you keep things a secret?
• Are you reliable to others?
• Are you truly interested in others?
• -> Add more things that are important for you here <-

By answering these questions honestly and applying changes to your behavior you will become the person you want to connect with. Guess what… These will be exactly the people that you will attract into your life in the future.

How does that all relate to sleep?

A guy called Maslow figured out that human needs are stacked into a hierarchy. He put this together into a pyramid that is known as the “Maslow Pyramid”.

Sleep is a core human need. As a consequence, you can find it in the fundamental part of the pyramid (together with food, air, clothing,…). The next step in the pyramid is safety and right after that come you will find relationships (friends & intimate).

Though it is essential for us to have our basic needs like food and safety covered to be able to maintain truly fulfilled relationships it also works the other way around.

Bad relationships can give our feeling of safety a hit. And that can drawback on our ability to sleep well.

What should I be doing now?

A very simple way is to figure out if the people that are closest to you are giving or draining your energy.

Then try to reduce the time you spend with the drainers and add up the time you spend with the energy gainers.

Don’t forget to do a self-check to ensure that you are treating others like you want people to treat you.

These simple steps are enough to get started. Keep in mind that building truly great relationships take some time and it is worth every minute you invest in them.

Sending you love & superb sleep
Michael