 Happy March everyone! Spring is just around the corner and we’re getting geared up to release some new and exciting projects that we’ve been working on over the winter months. There’s been a lot happening with us and we want to take this opportunity to bring you all up to date.  We have finally finished the recording studio! It was a learning process installing a drop ceiling and sound insulation for the first time. It took some time to complete but we’re really happy with the way it turned out. We’ve used wifi connected pot lights that can change colour with the Alexa app. So if we are recording a meditation about a beautiful summer meadow, we can make the room green. If we’re making a session about water, we can change the room to blue. It definitely helps us be in the right mood for the meditation we’re working on and we hope that comes through in all of the new meditations to come.
With spring around the corner, we’ll be able to get out and do nature recordings for some more “Speechless” sessions for Gold Patrons. Now that we live in the country we have several great spots to do some recording, including a couple of nearby waterfalls for some great white noise sessions. Meditations in the works: Pain Mitigation - Get temporary relief from pain and discomfort as you relax and fall asleep. This session uses powerful self hypnosis techniques to help you feel comfortable and disassociate from the discomfort. Attract What You Want - It’s easier to use the law of attraction when you clearly define and visualize what you want to attract! This sleep meditation will help you relax and focus on what you want while you fall asleep. Give Less F#!KS - Do you take on other people problems, issues or challenges? Do you worry about things you can’t do anything about? Stop giving so many F#!ks and get re-focused on your own stuff! You’ll enjoy feeling a lot less burdened and relaxed after you listen to this powerful guided sleep meditation. Instagram Relaunch Did you know that TracksToRelax is on Instagram? That’s okay, we’re still learning about social media ourselves. Come visit us to see what goes on behind the microphone. You’ll not only be able to sample meditations as they are released, you’ll see how we put the meditations together, listen in on upcoming meditations, catch the latest sleep comic, watch funny outtakes, as well as little blurbs to help you get to know us a littler better. You can also read our public blog at www.TracksToRelax.com/sleepblog New Ways To Subscribe We’re pretty excited to announce that membership to Tracks To Relax is now available on YouTube. Yes! You can now become a premium member on YouTube by visiting www.BedtimeMeditations.com. Membership is available at the Bronze, Silver or Gold level and you’ll get access to the same great meditations you do at the equivalent level on Patreon. We are still in the process of uploading our complete sleep meditation library to YouTube and we expect this to be completed over the next week or so. Additionally, you can also subscribe to our Premium Podcast on Libsyn at www.TracksToRelax.NET Memberships here are at the Gold Level at $9.99 per month and there’s also an option to join for 3 months at $24.95 which offers a savings of about $5. Breaker Audio Discontinued We recently received a notification from Breaker Audio that Patreon will no longer be supported on their platform. If you’ve been using Breaker to listen, then you may wish to change to using your Private RSS feed instead. For a list of compatible podcast APPs that will work with your Private RSS feed, check out this article: Support for Breaker will end Feb 29th. What our listeners are saying I use a Tracks to Relax meditation every night when going to sleep. I love deciding on which meditation to use every night. I vary them depending on mood. I have lost some weight and resolved some health issues recently, so I started yoga again last week. Thursday I went for the second time. Had a blast. Started walking to my car and thought... oh, I must have pulled a muscle. Nope. 9 hours later after a trip in an ambulance to the hospital I was home diagnosed with a kidney stone... my first. I didn't really sleep that first night because of the meds I took. I sat in a chair and just tried to doze., but once it was gone and I was needing to get back to normal sleep on Friday, I felt rather nervous about trying to sleep. I was afraid I would wake up in pain again. So I picked a very comforting to me meditation (I honestly don't remember which one) and slept just fine. Sleep has been good since then, If I wake in the middle of the night, which I do given the intake in water I'm drinking now, I pick another to listen to to go back to sleep. I'm kind of frustrated that I don't know what happens in most of the meditations because I fall asleep long before the end. But I am so thankful to have them. Thank you. - Ellen I began listening to this podcast at the beginning of this year. Never have I found someone with such a calming & relaxing voice to listen to before. I was so impressed that I joined as a silver patron & have been enjoying listening so much you don't even know. Last October I sustained an injury, coming home in complete darkness, and tripping and falling down on my face on the pavement. I could literally see nothing, and my foot got caught on something and I fell. It turned out I ended up getting a concussion, and with it a lot of pain, anxiety, worry, and stress on my mind and body. Worry and anxiety would flood my body in the middle of the night, and for quite a while I could find nothing to prevent it or to help me. Then I found this podcast, and every time I play a meditation or podcast, it is so relaxing that I am usually out within seconds. For a healing mind and body the rest and relaxation is so very important. I am so Grateful that I found this podcast. It has become a key part of my healing journey, and I make sure to mention TTR as often as possible in order to help this podcast gain followers, and to guide people to help themselves on their own healing journeys whatever they might look like. Thank you so much again, what you do is So very appreciated. - Bee My husband and I fall asleep to your voice every night. I have my favourites (without crickets or birds) that are 30 minutes or longer. I have listened to many relaxation recordings before I found you, and now I don’t have to search any further. Thank you so much for your work. - Laurie We can’t thank you enough for your kind words & having the courage to share your struggles and stories with us. Thank you ! Thanks again to all of you for your continued support. We literally could not do this without you and we appreciate you all more than we could ever say in words. We hope you can sense our gratitude for your support in each of the sleep meditations we create. Until our next newsletter, we wish you a relaxing and peaceful sleep. Alan & Nikki
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 It's no wonder people are tossing and turning as they try to fall asleep at bedtime. With so much stress in our lives, getting to sleep can be a challenge sometimes. When warm milk and counting sheep fail to end your insomnia, it's time to use the most powerful sleep aid available, your mind!
Bedtime stories are nice and can provide some distraction, but they aren't really designed to calm you mind and body or help you fall asleep. Sleep meditations can be much more effective for bringing about a state of relaxation and there are more sleep meditation podcasts available online now, than ever before. The problem is that many of these podcasts are just providing audio stories that vary in their effectiveness to help you fall asleep. Tracks To Relax Sleep Meditations are written by a Master NLP Practitioner/Master Hypnotist so that both your conscious and subconscious mind are engaged in the process of calming your mind and body. Basically, our sleep meditations are occupying your conscious mind while we provided positive suggestions for relaxation and sleep to your subconscious using a soothing tone that encourages these responses. The bottom line is that there's much more to our audio sessions that meets the ear. If you haven't had the opportunity to listen to a Tracks To Relax Sleep Meditation, you can enjoy one of our free sessions on our podcast at www.TracksToRelaxPodcast.com If you'd like to support what we're doing and also get access to our sleep meditation collection, you can subscribe to our premium content on Patreon, YouTube or Libsyn, the links to each of these is below. A special thanks to all our wonderful members, we are grateful for your support everyday and we feel privileged that you let us help you sleep better! YouTube Channel: Tracks To Relax on YouTube - Membership Signup Page Patreon: www.Patreon.com/trackstorelax Libsyn Podcasts: www.TracksToRelax.net  Just because it's "bedtime" doesn't mean your ready for bed. For many people it can be a bit of a challenge to calm our mind when it's time to go to sleep. One of the benefits of using Tracks To Relax Sleep Meditations is that it re-directs you focus and attention to more relaxing thoughts so that you mind can calm down. It doesn't take long before all those thoughts about your worries, problems and challenges fade away and are replaced by a beautiful beach, a relaxing waterfall, or a relaxing nature scene. These powerful meditations engage your senses and whisk you away from reality for a while, allowing you to relax completely and drift off to sleep in the process. Just slip on your headphones and click play on a Tracks To Relax Sleep Meditation and start looking forward to bedtime again. It really is the most relaxing way to end your day.
Free Podcast: www.TracksToRelaxPodcast.com Become a Patron (130+ meditations) : www.patreon.com/trackstorelax Become a member on YouTube: YouTube Memebership  Happy November to all of our listeners! We want to begin by apologizing for the delay in releasing this newsletter as well as making you wait longer than usual for new releases.
When we sold our condo and moved to our new home in the country in September, we thought it would result in a couple of weeks of disruption to our normal schedule However, this proved to be a fantasy. The truth was, there was so much to be done around this house before snow & cold temperatures set in. There were things that had to be updated, fixed or dealt with before the weather turned and judging by how November has been so far in Ontario, it’s a good thing we got stuff done. Lately it’s been snowy and cold here, but we are nice and warm with our new propane furnace (we changed from oil) and our very large wood burning stove in the basement. Finally things are mostly settled and we’re back to doing what we love, creating new sleep meditations for our subscribers! Thank you all for your support, your patience and your understanding during this longer than expected transition! What we are working on Tis The Season - A Christmas sleep meditation featuring Christmas music and an original poem to warm your heart while helping you relax. Motivation to Exercise - This long play intensive sleep meditation will help you discover the benefits of exercising versus the potential pitfalls of not exercising. We hope it will help you look at exercise time as a more positive experience and give you the encouragement you need to make it a priority in your life. This meditation will be released early for gold subscribers. Back To Sleep - Cozy Ramble - Suggestions to help you relax more and more deeply so you can get the deepest sleep possible before you need to wake up in the morning. More Fables - We’re searching our archives for the perfect fable to help you fall asleep and will be releasing the next episode in this series very soon. Bereavement Session We are doing research and in consultation with one of our associates who is training to help people with bereavement issues. We will be using what we learn to create a unique session to help people dealing with these feelings in the near future. New way to listen… We’ve added a couple of new ways to subscribe and listen to Tracks To Relax Sleep Meditations! TracksToRelax.net Hosted by Libsyn, this podcast platform makes listening to our sleep meditations straight forward and easy. Just become a subscriber and you’ll be able to stream all of the premium episodes easily in your browser. We also have plans to create a Tracks To Relax APP using the Libsyn Platform! When the app becomes available, our subscribers on this platform will be able to download it from the App Store or Google Play and listen or download episodes using the exclusive Tracks To Relax APP. Subscriptions are available for $9.99 per month or $24.95 for 3 months. Visit www.TracksToRelax.net for more details. You can also CHECK OUT ALL THE WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE HERE! What our listeners say Ellen’s Story “I have dealt with anxiety and depression for most of my life. When it's really bad, especially the anxiety, I have a very difficult time getting to sleep. I have found that guided meditations really help in this process. I used to make my own. However, since finding Tracks to Relax, I am not concerned about finding time to do that. The quality and variety of the sleep meditations are wonderful. There are so many to choose from that I have the ability to pick what resonates just for that evening. Whether it is the Positive Affirmations 3 meditation or the Campfire meditation, I can find something that feels appropriate. I really like that are meditations of various lengths too. I tend to head for the long ones because, until recently, I would wake a number of times before truly settling into the night's sleep. I'm having success with improving my sleep though, so I'm getting ready to try some of the shorter meditations. Looking forward to that.” Thank you for everything! - Ellen (Gold Patron) Brooke’s Story “I have PTSD and anxiety, along with those I have had years of insomnia. I listen every night! I don’t go anywhere without my headphones! TTR on Patreon has gotten me through rough flights, hospital stays, and sickness. I honestly don’t know how I survived without my meditations before.” - Brooke (Gold Patron) Until our next newsletter, we wish you peace, love, relaxation and an amazing sleep. Warm Regards Alan & Nikki www.TracksToRelax.com  Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have any problems or stress? Imagine climbing into bed every night, closing your eyes and instantly drifting off into a deep sleep. Then, in the morning, you awaken to enjoy another perfect problem and worry free day. Unfortunately, that's just a dream. The reality is that we do have worries, stress, anxiety and problems. During the day, we're so busy that we don't have time to focus on everything that's wrong or stresses us out, but for many of us, bedtime has become a time when all that worry, stress and anxiety fills our heads. Since we having nothing else to do but try and fall asleep, most people think about it a lot. Soon your mind is racing, your muscles are getting more tense instead of more relaxed and for some perplexing reason, you just can't get to sleep. You need something to distract your mind and channel your thoughts in positive ways that are conductive to helping you fall asleep and that's what our Guided Sleep Meditations are all about. Our thoughts and imagination are more powerful than you know and can affect our physical bodies in either negative or positive ways. When we focus our thoughts on our problems and worries, we get tense and agitated. But, if we re-direct our thoughts through guided meditation to relaxing and positive experiences, then our physical bodies will respond to those thoughts in ways that help us relax and fall asleep much more easily. "If you don't control your thoughts, your thoughts will control you!" When you listen to our guided sleep meditations at bedtime, your thoughts will be directed to positive experiences, thoughts and feelings that will allow you to take a break from stress and worry and relax more deeply than you may have thought possible. You may not know exactly when you fall asleep while you're listening to Tracks To Relax, but you'll awaken in the morning refreshed and alert with a more positive mindset and ready to handle whatever challenges come your way more easily. Here's what some of our Real Patreon Patrons have to say this month about how Tracks To Relax has helped them sleep better. Learn more about becoming a Patron and get instant access to up to 115 guided sleep meditations by visiting TracksToRelax.com From our Patrons: "I first heard of Tracks to Relax while searching for sleep podcasts on the Apple Podcast app. I just fell in love with the voice and the soothing stories that I had to become a Patron. Tracks to Relax has helped me so much through my pregnancy, and the first couple months of my new son's life. Instead of fretting over every little thing, I can turn my mind into peaceful mush and drift off quickly and easily. Thank you!" - Kaeli D. "I listen at night to soothe my bedtime anxieties. My mind races at night thinking of everything I need to accomplish or haven’t accomplished. I worry about loved ones and flip through a rolodex of faces, mistakes and regrets when I try to go to sleep in silence. Track to Relax gives my mind something to focus on and gives my body relaxation cues so I can truly rest and wake up feeling replenished. Thank you 💕" - Elle N. "Recently I had a medical issue where I had to end my medication abruptly, which resulted in insomnia and anxiety. It was a really rough 3 months of my life as I couldn't fall asleep without medication, and then would proceed to only sleeping for a few hours and then be wide awake at 4:30 am. I was anxious and exhausted and it was having a serious impact on my role as a stay at home mom. When I discovered your meditation tracks, I was elated that it put me at ease even if I wasn't able to fall asleep completely, and then eventually I was able to fall asleep with the help of your tracks. I still use it almost daily and look forward to hearing your soothing voice. Thank you again for being a life saver!" - Sue W. Become a Tracks To Relax Patron and start sleeping better tonight! Click here for more info.
iPads. iPhones. Androids. Laptops. 60 inch TVs. Work. Commutes. Layoffs. House moves. Screaming kids. Husbands. Wives. Divorces. Families. Even just writing this list is stressing me out! Stress is all around us, 24/7 – heck, if your reading this then you must be on some kind of device right now (don’t click off though…not yet!).
The American Medical Association has ‘noted’ that stress is the basic cause of all human illness and disease. That’s insane. That puts it up there with alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, cigarettes and crappy food. We need to chill the F out. But its tricky. It can be all but impossible to get away from this stress. It never really goes away. We can just try to ignore it and deal with it as best we can. Try and calm down once in a while. Try to get some really good, deep, restful sleep. That’s what I needed. A proper nights sleep. Relaxation. It was like I had forgotten HOW to relax. I honestly can’t remember what triggered me to try looking up this stuff. I must have had a bad day. I can’t even remember what I typed into search on Spotify. But somehow, the Tracks To Relax Guided Meditation Podcast found me. Obviously, I was dubious and skeptical the moment I heard the word ‘Meditation’. I’m not a hippy. I can’t cross my legs. I have no desire to explore my subconscious. I don’t give a shit if I breathe out of my nose or my mouth. But I gave it a shot. What the heck. It was pretty cool. A guys voice began telling me to relax. There was quiet, peaceful background music. Very tranquil. I rolled with it and played along. And as I did, I began to feel myself relaxing into the bed. He continued describing a journey down an escalator, describing the lighting, describing a walk down a corridor, down another escalator – all the while reminding me that I was feeling more and more relaxed. And – incredibly – I was... Read the full article on The Gem Detective by clicking here  Imagine spending the night in a wonderful treehouse that's located in a tropical rainforest. The sounds of nature is all around you, a nearby waterfall and soothing background music complete the relaxing scene. Tonight you are one with nature and all your stress and worries fade away as you become part of the environment around you. Deep relaxation and restful sleep await you with this new long play sleep meditation episode. Coming soon for our Gold and Silver Patrons.
 Millions of people have trouble getting to sleep and don’t look forward to bedtime. Lying there with your mind racing through all your worries and to do lists while you try to fall asleep can be quite stressful. When it starts to happen on a regular basis it can become very frustrating resulting in a pattern of insomnia which can be hard to break. Until now. The secret to falling asleep quickly and getting the deep sleep you need is to distract your mind while relaxing your body. One of the best ways to do that, is to use guided sleep meditations that incorporate language techniques that engage the imagination while providing subtle suggestions to help your physical body relax. Tracks To Relax specialize in sleep meditations that use advanced Neuro-Linguistic techniques that help the listener become more deeply involved in the meditation. What does this mean? Where regular meditations typically describe an experience only visually, Tracks To Relax meditations describes the things you can see, hear and feel in the experience. Some people are visual and find it easy to imagine pictures in their mind as they listen to a beach scene being described. Some people prefer to focus on the sound of the ocean waves because that’s what makes it more realistic for them. As well, there are people who would much rather concentrate on the feeling of the sand under their feet and the warmth of the sunshine because their sense of touch is easier to focus on. When we include all three senses in the experience we then have created a meditation that will appeal to everyone.  Once the listener is in the process of seeing, hearing and feeling an experience, we can then engage the listener further. This is accomplished by creating an effect from an action such as “And as you walk along the beach, listening to the sound of the ocean and feeling the sunshine on your face, you can relax a little bit more with each step you take.” The suggestion to relax is offered as part of the experience with the effect is of deeper physical relaxation. Usually within the first 10-15 minutes of the meditation, the listener simply drifts off into a peaceful deep sleep with little to no effort.
These are just some of the powerful techniques we use at Tracks To Relax to create deeply relaxing sleep meditations. If you want to get a better night’s sleep, look for these wonderful meditations on Spotify or iTunes Podcasts or visit www.TracksToRelax.com When we started creating the Tracks To Relax Guided Sleep Meditation Podcast we never expected our episodes would be listened to over 10 million times! We have to thank our over 400 Patrons for making this possible because without you, we'd probably be doing things a lot differently or not at all.
Patreon has provided us with the platform that allows us to generate the financial support we need to continue to create. Before we started our Patreon page, revenue was unpredictable and barely covering our costs. Now, with Patrons like you, we are growing and we're able to continue to create new guided meditations for you to enjoy! Later this month we'll be visiting the Isle Of Wight in England and creating an Ocean Side Sleep Meditation while we're there as well. Other sessions that are coming soon include "Island Of Solitude" where you are alone on a Tropical Island with everything you need! The "Dark Castle" were you visit that castle on the top of the hill (as mentioned in A Walk In The Forest) and discover what's inside, and also one that we're calling "The Screening Room" where you sit in a movie theatre and change whatever bad habit or behaviour you would like to change for yourself. We have big plans for the Tracks To Relax Brand and look forward to continuing to bring you new guided sleep meditations each month on Patreon. Thank you!, Thank you, Thank you for your support! Alan & Nikki Patreon.com/trackstorelax  Hummingbirds use torpor sleep to survive on the coldest winter nights, a type of deep sleep where the animal lowers its metabolic rate by up to 95%. By slowing it's body and body temperature down to a hypothermic threshold barely sustaining its life, the hummingbird uses 50% less energy. Luckily, we don't have to completely slow down our heart rate and cool our body temperature in order to conserve energy-- what we really need is proper stages of sleep.
There are 4 stages of sleep, including REM sleep; Stage 1 - Light sleep, you can be woken up very easily Stage 2 - Eye movement and brain waves slow Stage 3 - Brain waves are slow, synchronized and oscillating Stage 4 - Deep sleep which includes no eye movement or muscle activity Now, all animals sleep even though scientists are still uncertain of the exact purpose of sleep. A study on mice in non-REM sleep showed that sleep allowed space in the tissue of the brain so that cerebral fluid could flow and clear away toxins, which may explain why we feel "reset" in the morning. Most people end up interested in sleep science and sleep theory because of insomnia. It's absolutely astounding how many people struggle every night with falling asleep. Possibly the most interesting aspect of getting a good night's rest is the science behind mood congruence. When we sleep, we are consolidating information and strengthening our memories. Your level of personal positive attitude can be dependent on how much sleep you're getting. We develop a chemically induced memory of negative emotions, outlooks and self image that continually self-perpetuates as we continue to sleep poorly. Negativity is amplified when we're sleep deprived can can add to a model of depression in adults. Why do sleep meditations work so well to train new sleep habits? We associate memories with sounds and subconsciously construct our ideas about the world during our sleep cycles. This is why our meditations allow you to drift further away from consciousness and past the light sleep stages so that your subconscious can absorb positive life affirmations. Because of the stage where these ideas about positivity, gratitude, confidence, etc. are suggested, the brain has an easier way of creating connections and enhancing the information so that it can be useful in your waking life. The style of meditation trains your brains synopses to not be interrupted as the noise decreases and allows you to relax fully so that you can sleep soundly, and your mind can be reinvigorated by a good night of sleep. The science of sleep is incredibly interesting and this really only skims the very surface of why guided meditations can help you sleep better. To experience this easy method of training your brain and body, you can visit our Patreon Page to learn more. New this week is the podcast about Reflections of Change, as well. |
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