It is not uncommon that I get complaints about sleep from my clients. It is understandable that when you come home with some major disagreement with someone at work, or try to sleep when you just had a major fight with your spouse, or experienced a panic attack while on your way home from work, sleep might be a problem.
If you’re one who believes that there is a way for you to have sleep on demand, I have news for you. You can’t demand sleep! Sleep comes when you get tired. If you haven’t yet caught the irony of this article’s title, here’s what it tells us, “You can’t sleep when you’re at war with sleep!” See if you can remember the last time you were primed for a fight or a competition. If your goal is to win the fight or the contest, then there’s that sympathetic nervous system that gets activated, whether you like it or not. It prepares you for action! And how do you think being prepared for action works to make you sleep? Probably impossible.
One of the more common pieces of advice that we get for falling asleep is to prepare for sleep with certain rituals. So much so that the preparation itself becomes so elaborate and the subject of our focus, that one thing is for sure, once something does not fall into its proper place, then you can’t sleep! Oh! I didn’t get the proper darkness right or the bathroom ritual went the wrong way. If sleep becomes something that you need to prepare for every night, then see if you manage to fall asleep when your sympathetic nervous system is primed for action! The sympathetic nervous system is what our bodies call upon for situations that demand action, like when we’re about to get hit by a bus. Try falling asleep while you see a bus hurtling down the street towards you. It’s called falling asleep for a reason…it’s not something within our control.
More often than not, you will struggle with sleep if you believe it is something you can get on demand! What the third wave of cognitive behavioral therapy or what some would call mindfulness-based cognitive therapies suggests is that we can be present in the moment and attend to whatever it is we are attending to. So instead of focusing on the struggle with sleep, or whatever it is that you need to do in order to sleep, we can choose to focus on what it is that we are doing at the moment. Metaphorically speaking, we can stop and smell the flowers.
For sleep problems, one can focus on how your pillow feels like behind your head, or the mattress on your back. You can even focus on your body sensations with a scan of your body from your toes up to the top of your head. Notice that when you do this exercise, your mind will come up with thoughts not just of what it is that is keeping you from sleeping, but also thoughts about what you are doing at the moment too! What’s this? This is crazy! This isn’t going to work! Notice those as thoughts as well, and then just go back to your body sensations.
As Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness, “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”
Bottomline is the less willing you are to have these difficult thoughts and feelings, the more they will come to haunt you. Just notice it as part of how you have learned to cope with such thoughts and go back to what you intend to do on your bed at night. See where this takes you!
Do you need counseling for depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship (marriage, family) problems, insomnia, anger management problems, infidelity, teen parenting issues, grief processing, addiction, procrastination, work performance, and even weight issues?
We are here to provide you with evidence-based approaches that are backed by reliable and valid scientific research!
We provide both in person and online video counseling for your convenience.
Please text (preferred) or call:
Mobile Number: +63 917 886 5433 (LIFE)
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Our offices are located in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.
CMS Clinic
2nd Floor Back to the Bible Building
135 West Avenue, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
and
M Place South Triangle
8004 Mother Ignacia Avenue, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Interview with Chinkee Tan and Christine Bersola-Babao on MagBadyet Tayo about financial conflicts in relationships, October 23, 2023
Nathaniel Chua is a member of an international organization called the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). He is also now co-chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Special Interest Group (DEI-SIG) of ACBS. He is the first Non-North American co-chair of the group.
Nathaniel Chua has a Master’s Degree in Counseling and continues to learn more of the most cutting-edge approaches to working with the human condition.
Below is Nathaniel Chua’s first virtual talk held on November 17, 2023 in front of an international group of therapists from Low or Middle Income Countries (LMIC). He is the first from the Philippines to do this:
What is One Life Only Counseling about?
You can be assured that your information with be kept completely confidential.
You will be respected regardless of your religion, gender preference, ethnicity, economic status, and even your personal lifestyle and values. We are LGBTQIA+ friendly!
Your counselor will not impose their values and beliefs on you.
We use a scientific model of counseling that has precision, depth, and scope. Below are bullet points to let you understand better what we mean by this:
By precision we mean that our approach to counseling tells you how these mechanisms of change work. It is not enough to say that a sense of self-awareness is what creates changes in people’s behavior. Our approach tells us how self-awareness works as one step within a set of processes that can lead to lasting change.
Depth means the approach we use does not conflict with other theories and models of therapy. In fact, many other approaches can be used as forms of treatment towards greater psychological flexibility. Our approach for instance does not conflict with findings in the area of attachment theory, gestalt therapy, psychodynamic therapy to just raise a few examples. It cuts across other levels of analyses.
Finally, by scope we mean that our approach comes from the discovery of the smallest set of processes that cuts across multiple mental health concerns from anxiety and depression to personality disorders to psychosis, etc. It is a transdiagnostic approach that seeks to understand what many of the symptoms or syndromes come down to, so these processes can be targeted to address many, if not all of the disorders listed in different diagnostic systems.
We are also probably the only counseling service in the Philippines that follows a certain philosophy of science with certain a priori assumptions about human nature. With this in mind, we offer a holistic consistent approach to life’s challenges that is a-ontological, monistic, and pragmatic.
Furthermore, ineffective behaviors are addressed by their classes and functions, therefore making our model of therapy parsimonious and much easier to apply to daily living. Most of our clients are empowered to use the skills they learn in therapy to apply to a multitude of challenging situations without having to rush to a therapist to address specific concerns. If you remember Einstein, everything can be explained by one simple equation, E = mc squared! In other words, we do our best to be ACT-Consistent or as some other experts would call it, we practice, ACT Fidelity!
The approach we use is also one that is endorsed by the World Health Organization as an effective psychological tool for coping with any kind of life crises! It can be described as a kind of psychological vaccine that has been found to be effective in improving and promoting mental resiliency in the face of many, if not all kinds of life challenges.
Here’s a paraphrase from Dr. Steven C. Hayes in my interview with him on April 5th, 2022:
“Here’s what the World Health Organization, the best public health and scientific group in the world says about this protocol, this extensively tested protocol is helpful for anyone who is stressed, for any reason, in any circumstance.”
Since 2019, we have been very excited to offer this type of a radically different approach to therapy that is not just about relieving symptoms, but also about helping people towards creating lives imbued with meaning and purpose.
Here’s a video about what makes One Life Only Counseling Services different:
Recent certificate given to Nathan Chua for presenting a talk about couple’s therapy in front an international audience of therapists from Low or Middle Income Country (LMIC). He is the first and so far the only one from the Philippines to accomplish this.Interview with Julius Babao and Christine Bersola Babao, October 25, 2023Interview with Dr. Steven C. Hayes, the developer of ACT, April 5, 2022Interview with Dr. Andrew Christensen May 14, 2022Guest resource person with Boy Abunda on his show The BottomlineOne of several TV appearances on Sakto with Marc Logan and Amy Perez
July 2024 interview on Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho about jealousy and anger
Here a video of Nathan Chua’s appearance on a “Dapat Alam Mo” Episode:
Here’s a solo interview of Nathan Chua with an ACT Matrix Expert and Counselor from the United States, Jacob Martinez:
Interviews with the experts:
Here are two interviews with the two experts that have had a huge impact on my work in recent years. They are with Dr. Steven Hayes and Dr. Andrew Christensen. Here are the videos:
