Thinking about hypnotherapy to help with Insomnia?

Insomnia help Insomnia is the feeling or inability to go to sleep or to stay asleep through the night.  The amount of sleep you require each night varies from person to person.  Most people need around 7 to 9 hours, though children need more and older people need much less.  Sleep of 5 or 10 hours a night is common and perfectly normal.  In addition, a little-known fact is that it is perfectly OK to wake for an hour or so in the middle of the night.  The notion that we need eight hours sleep in a block is an invention of industrial society.  Sometimes, if you can lie there calmly and without anxiety or your mind racing, dealing with “insomnia” is as simple as relaxing.  So insomnia is not defined in terms of a certain amount of sleep, but in terms of how you feel as a result of the sleep you get.

There are two types of insomnia.  Primary sleep disorders and Secondary sleep disorders.  Primary sleep disorders have a physical cause in the central nervous system.  Some Primary sleep disorders are Sleep Apnea, Nocturnal Myoclonus and Restless Leg Syndrome (to name but a few).  Secondary sleep disorders can result from causes such as depression, pain, anxiety, and lifestyle change.  Hypnosis is most effective in dealing with problems of a secondary nature.

It might surprise you to learn that the majority of insomnia sufferers sleep for around 6 hours per night.  It feels much less because it is typically ten minutes or so of dozing sleep, a minute or two of wakefulness, and so on, repeated.  The time awake feels endless, but actually there is typically enough good sleep to give you a mimumum nights sleep.  Insomnia sufferers have a rotten “didn’t sleep well” feeling the next day.  But most often, they do not experience the key sign of extreme lack of sleep, namely tending to fall asleep the following day.  In fact, they get adequate sleep.

Hypnotherapy and Insomnia

Insomnia hypnosisHypnotherapy offers a gentle and effective approach to insomnia.  This is because hypnosis communicates directly with the inner mind, it can address the unconscious habit of bad sleep in a way which other methodologies (like drug therapy – sleeping tablets) cannot.  The very nature of hypnosis is a relaxing process which helps calm the motor function of the central nervous system, helping you to achieve deep muscle relaxation.  At HMH Therapy, our Hypnotherapist, Heather, teaches you to use deep muscle relaxation to slow your central nervous system down so that you are in a ready relaxed state for sleep.  Hypnosis is often referred to as focused attention or bringing attention to a sharp focus like looking through the lens of a camera.  It is this nature of bringing focus of awareness down, filtering out extraneous thoughts that helps you drift over into sleep.

Heather also teaches you good sleep habits (sleep hygiene) to help promote a good nights rest.  Quite often if you have had a broken pattern of sleep due to a past stressful event you can get into bad habits, such as getting up in the middle of the night to watch TV.  Hypnosis encourages good sleep hygiene and hence promotes a good nights sleep.

The very nature of hypnosis aides with stress reduction, allowing you to switch of anxious thoughts and helps you to relax which in turn allows you to sleep.

Our Hypnotherapist also teaches you how to use self-hypnosis to help you switch off and go to sleep and go straight back to sleep once wakened.

Normally around 3 sessions are required to deal with insomnia.  However, as everyone is different and Heather works with each person as an individual, you may need more sessions, or you may need less.  For instance quite often if someone is suffering from chronic pain that is affecting sleep quite often 1 or 2 sessions are required just to deal with the pain issues before insomnia can be tackled.  Sessions are charged at £60 per session and come with a free CD.

Call 07787 807 609 for an appointment