This is one of the documents available to participants of the Healthy Sleep Project...The Healthy Sleep Modeling Project
IASH: Institute for the Advanced Studies of Heatlh
Section 1: The Big Picture
We'll
be modeling people who sleep well to find out how exactly they, as
individuals do it. One person we know wants to model flight attendants
and pilots who sleep well despite constantly changing time zones.
Someone else wants to model people who sleep well in new environments.
Another person is going to model the "5 minutes before going to bed".
There are many ways to approach the project. Once we have some good
information, then we'll develop NLP processes so other people can learn
to do the same thing. And we'll share our work at the next IASH
conference in October of 2010.
Section 2: Working in Teams, Working with Other Teams and Working with All the Modelers
Working Well As A Team: How
does your team want to work together? Our picture of the project is
very open; if one person on your team wants to model one thing, and you
want to model something else, that's OK. Work in a team of two (or
three) when possible. If you and a teammate want to model different
aspects of healthy sleep, help each other model.
Team Logistics: How often do you
want to meet? And where? Does anyone have a video camera or a tape
recorder? Do you want to model 2 or 3 people in a single day or do you
want to spread them out? When do you want to schedule down time or
vacations?
Working With Other Teams:
Although teams are geographically dispersed, we can benefit from each
others work and skill. Once your team has some basic information on a
model, another team could help clarify it. Or, if you hit a rough spot, another
team may be able to point you in a useful direction—and vice versa.
Perhaps you even want to ask another team to be your "buddy team" from
the very beginning of the project—or not.
Working With All The Teams:
By using the Project General Discussion
board, your team can ask a question of all the modeling teams. That
way, if you get "stuck", you may be able get a useful suggestion or two
from other teams.
Section 3: Getting Ready to Model
- Define Healthy Sleep and Choose Exactly What to Model
- Choose Your Modeling Methods
- Contrast or Not
- Put Aside Your Assumptions
- Find Exemplars
Define Healthy Sleep and Choose Exactly What to Model: Create a definition for healthy sleep, then decide what your team wants to look for: People
who fall asleep easily and wake up feeling good? People who sleep well
in new environments? People who sleep well with an irregular schedule? etc.
Choose Your Modeling Methods:
Decide what modeling methods you would like to try first. Modeling
sleep is going to demand some creativity, and there are several good
ways to model. The first method you use may or may not find what you're
looking for; be flexible and try different approaches.
Contrast or Not? Think
about whether or not you want to model for contrast. For example, if
you are modeling pilots and flight attendants who sleep well despite
time zone changes, would it be useful to model one or two pilots who
have trouble sleeping to provide contrasting examples.
What Modeling Methods Does IASH Recommend? All of them. Several
of the most important people in NLP have strong opinions about how to
model, and they are not always in agreement. We suggest you try several
methods until you find one that works best for you. There is a special
message board, Resources and Library,
where the modeling teams can post notes about articles, books, etc.
that they have found to be useful.
Put Aside Your Assumptions
We all have conscious and unconscious
ideas about what healthy sleep is. For the purposes of modeling, it can
useful to elicit those beliefs before you begin to work with an
exemplar. If you're not careful, your beliefs--especially your
unconscious ones--can influence the model you are eliciting. You can
distort the final work by accidentally using the modeling to confirm
what you already believe.
To put aside your beliefs and assumptions, first elicit your beliefs and then "recode" them as possibilities rather than as truths.
Eliciting Your Own Beliefs
For many people this is easier to do with another person. Ask yourself,
or have another NLPer ask you, "What do you know is important for a
good night's sleep"? Follow up with "What do you have to believe (or
have to assume) in order to believe that?" Repeat a few times until you
get to the fundamental ideas you have about sleep.
Recode Beliefs as Possibilities
You can use submodalities or spatial anchoring to recode your beliefs as possibilities.
Using Submodalities
Elicit the submodalities for something you are "open to doubt" and then
recode your sleep beliefs with a swish pattern or by "mapping across"
so that they are recoded as something you are "open to doubt".
Using Spatial Anchoring
Pick two places on the floor. Stand on one spot and think of something
that you are "open to doubt". Notice your breathing, posture and body
symmetry. Step off the spot and break state, then repeat two or three
more times. Then stand on the other spot and spatially anchor a belief
about healthy sleep there. Carry that into the "open to doubt" space.
Notice the changes and then repeat for the other beliefs you have.
Finding An Exemplar: Send
a short letter to colleagues, friends and family that explains what
modeling is, and describes the kind of person you are looking for.
Section 4: Overview of Typical Modeling
- Find an exemplar with a skill you want to model.
- Interview exemplar and schedule a follow-up interview to refine your work. Many experienced modelers record or film the interview.
- Go over your initial notes, and/or video or audio recording with a friend who understands modeling. What questions do they have? Where are you yourself unclear about the model?
- Conduct a follow up interview with your exemplar to clarify the model.
Section 5: Modeling Warm-ups (optional)
If any member of your team hasn't
modeled in a while, you might want to warm up your modeling skills.
That way you can practice working together and try different modeling
methods before working with an exemplar. Here are two ideas.
- Model something easy as a warm up drill, like getting dressed in the morning. This can be fun as you get to see how everyone does it differently.
- Model
your teammates for healthy sleep, even if they don't fit the criteria.
This may also help you choose the modeling methods that you actually
want to use with your exemplar.
Section 6: Reporting Your Progress
Please plan to have someone on your team
post monthly progress reports to the general discussion board for the
Sleep Modeling Teams.
A progress report includes:
- A brief report: Include when you met, what you did, and when you'll meet next. For example:
Our team met last week and we narrowed down our "possibilities" list
to: "people who sleep well and get up feeling great the next morning"
and modeling "the five minutes before going to bed". We also modeled
how each of us got dressed in the morning as a warm up. We're meeting
again in three weeks.
- Questions your team might have: For example: Have any of the other teams considered using the LAB profile for this?
Section 7: Time Frame: The
schedule below assumes that your team will meet once a month for 7 to 9
months to get some great models to work with. Of course, your team may
work faster than that but we need to make these dates in order to be
ready for the next IASH conference.
- April 2009 through February, 2010:
Modeling: That gives your team plenty of time to try different
approaches until you find what works best for your particular
situation. There's also time to schedule breaks. Does your team want to
take August off, or the month of December?
- March to July 2010: Develop and test NLP processes so that others can learn to sleep in the same way as your exemplars.
- August 2010:
For those of you willing to share your work at the conference, write up
your notes and handouts so that conference team can put them on a CD.
(Because not everyone is familiar with the details of copyrighting your
work, IASH will be sending out an e-mail to explain the basics).
Section 8: Anything Else? We have
tried to be as specific and detailed as we can but of course we may
have missed something important, please let us know if there are any
questions you or your team has.