I came across an interesting story about the clinical hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, who once treated a patient struggling with sleep. Instead of lying awake tossing and turning for hours, Erickson advised the patient to get up and polish his kitchen floor until he was exhausted. Surprisingly, after a couple of nights of this unusual routine, the patient could quickly reprogram himself to fall asleep to avoid another night of cleaning.

Insomnia can manifest differently for each individual. Some people struggle to fall asleep initially, while others wake up too early and can’t drift back off. Some may sleep for many hours but still wake up feeling exhausted despite getting what seems like enough rest.

There are several practical points to consider when working with someone who has trouble sleeping.

Firstly, is the patient exercising enough? Regular exercise is a healthy way to burn off any excess if the body is overly energised or full of adrenaline.

Adrenaline can also be produced by stress, so what is causing the patient stress? Is it something at work, or perhaps a problematic relationship? They might be worrying about money, their health, or even their inability to sleep. Ironically, worrying about not sleeping can create a vicious cycle, further disrupting their sleep patterns.

Do they have a bedtime routine? This idea may be better suited to children, but the body thrives on repetition. Going to bed and waking up at similar times each day helps regulate your internal clock. If you’ve ever experienced jet lag, you’ll know how much your body and sleep routine suffer from a sudden change in time zones.

Are there any chemical factors at play? For example, is the patient taking any medication, drinking alcohol, or consuming stimulants like coffee?

Several subtle changes can be made to combat insomnia and address the abovementioned issues. Additionally, mastering relaxation techniques can be incredibly beneficial (many people don’t realise they don’t know how to relax properly!). Relaxation helps to ease tension in both the mind and body. When someone is stressed, their mind is racing with thoughts, and their muscles are tightly wound. In such a state, falling asleep becomes difficult, if not impossible. Learning hypnosis or meditation is a simple and effective way to achieve deep relaxation for the mind and body. Moreover, while in a hypnotic state, it’s possible to provide suggestions for deep, easy, and quick relaxation, which are more readily accepted by the subconscious mind compared to when in a normal waking state.

By Gemma Bailey
www.hypnotherapyandnlp.co.uk

The longer that you go without a proper sleep routine and without having sufficient
amounts of sleep, the more likely it is that you are going to then start suffering with
sleep related problems.

E.E.G. recordings show that we go through five stages of sleep, with each of its
characteristic brain activities. So, it’s all got its own individual brain activity. Stage one
is the transition stage from wakefulness to sleep and is identified with beta waves and
lasts between one to seven minutes.

In stage two E.E.G. recordings show fast frequency bursts of activity called sleep
spindles. In stage two through to four, muscle tension, heart rate, respiration and
temperature gradually decline and it becomes more difficult to be awakened. Just thirty
minutes after falling asleep, we pass through Stage three and enter into Stage four. In
this stage E.E.G. recordings show delta waves and it is the deepest stage of sleep. There
is marked secretion of growth hormones in Stage four.

Sleep researchers determine what sleep stage a person is in by the ratio between the
number of sleep spindles and the number of delta waves. After this stage we go back to
two and then we enter REM Sleep, the rapid eye movement sleep. Here E.E.G. tracings
look exactly the same as the beta waves that are observed when we are completely
awake. In fact, brain imaging studies show that the neurones in the cerebral cortex
become much more active during our REM Sleep and REM Sleep makes up twenty percent
of our sleep time. During this stage we experience vivid dreams. We go through this
sleep cycle five to six times during eight hours of sleep.

It’s also true that lots of you will kind of come out of that sleep cycle and actually be
almost awake or even awake throughout the night but you go back off to sleep again so
quickly that by the morning you forget it even happened. Other people are more aware
that they wake up several times throughout the night and for me personally, I’m
someone who when I’m asleep, I am asleep. It feels like I sleep for about five minutes
and then the alarm goes off, even though it might have been several hours and I have no
recollection of ever having woken at any stage during the night.

Some animals have really interesting sleep cycles. Some birds sleep for brief periods
with one eye closed and for that short moment it’s suggested that one hemisphere of
their brain shows waves that indicate sleeping and the other side shows signs of
wakefulness. Elephants sleep for three to six hours of which two hours are spent
standing. Dolphins sleep with only half its brain while the other half remains alert. The
two hemispheres alternate every one to three hours during sleep. Dolphins kept in
aquariums usually swim in circles in the same direction during sleep. There is no solid
evidence of whether animals dream, which brings us to the dream world of human
beings.

So what kind of sleeper are you?

If you are suffering from insomnia or other sleep related problems, it might be time to
use hypnotherapy to reprogram your sleep patterns.

The Hypnotherapy and NLP Clinic provides Hypnotherapists and NLP coaches in
Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Coventry to help with the
management of stress, anxiety and depression.

For more information about our free consultations and sessions, contact us on 0203
6677294

By Gemma Bailey
www.hypnotherapyandnlp.co.uk

Tag Archives: Sleeping Problems

Understanding Insomnia

And Sleep!