Getting Better Sleep...

Chronic insomnia can even contribute to serious health problems. But you don’t have to resign yourself to sleepless nights. By addressing the underlying causes and making simple changes to your daily habits and sleep environment—you can put a stop to the frustration of insomnia and finally get a good night’s sleep.

Insomnia is a sleep disorder that regularly affects millions of people worldwide. People who have insomnia find it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep. This includes those of us who lay down to go to sleep only to find our minds racing with thoughts about all the things we didn’t finish today, and all the things we are worried about.

The effects of not getting enough sleep can be devastating.

Insomnia commonly leads to daytime sleepiness, lethargy, and a general feeling of being unwell, both mentally and physically. Mood swings, irritability, and anxiety are common symptoms of not getting enough sleep.

Insomnia has also been associated with a higher risk of developing chronic diseases.

Facts on insomnia:

• 10-15 percent of adults claim to have chronic insomnia.

• An estimated 30-40 percent of Americans report experiencing insomnia each year.

• Insomnia may be due to a secondary cause, such as stress, illness, or lifestyle.

• Treatments for insomnia can be medical or behavioral.

Causes

Insomnia can have either a physical or a psychological cause. Sometimes there is an underlying medical condition that causes chronic insomnia. Transient, or intermittent, insomnia may be due to a recent event or illness.

Common causes of insomnia include:

• Disruptions in circadian rhythm - jet lag, job shift changes, high altitudes, environmental noise, extreme heat or cold.

• Psychological issues - bipolar disorder, depression, stress, PTSD, anxiety disorders, or psychotic disorders.

• Medical conditions - chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, congestive heart failure, angina, acid-reflux disease (GERD), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, sleep apnea, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, hyperthyroidism, arthritis, brain lesions, tumors, stroke.

• Hormones - estrogen, hormone shifts during menstruation.

• Other factors - sleeping next to a snoring partner, parasites, genetic conditions, overactive mind, pregnancy.

These are all issues that can lead to insomnia, but they are relatively minor and could also be short-lived. There are 3 major causes of insomnia that can be much more severe and longer-lasting. They are Stress, Anxiety, and Depression.

Let’s look at each of these causes of insomnia separately.

1. Stress

Serious stress can cause insomnia. If you’re under a lot of stress, you might find it hard to fall asleep at night. It can be difficult to switch off the outside world, to turn off your thoughts and relax. And if you do manage to get to sleep, excess stress could mean you’ll have trouble staying asleep.

Stress causes hyperarousal, a condition where your brain is constantly on high alert. Since it can’t settle down properly, getting to sleep can seem nearly impossible. When stress is the leading cause of insomnia, the prescription is a simple one. Get rid of the stress, and you’ll get rid of the insomnia.

And if you can’t get rid of it entirely, then you need to find a way to manage the stress so that it stops interfering with your sleep cycle.

2. Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease. Like stress, it can engage your brain and make relaxation difficult, so that you can’t switch off and get to sleep when you need to. You might experience anxiety as a result of one or more of the following:

• Thinking about past events

• Worrying about future events

• Feeling overwhelmed by work or other responsibilities

• Feeling tense and unable to relax

• Feeling hyper and unable to calm yourself down

Like stress, anxiety can make it difficult to get to sleep and can also cause you to wake up during the night. This is partially due to the fact that it’s quiet at night and your brain is less active than it would be during the day. That makes it possible for anxious thoughts to drift along, sabotage your thinking, and keep you awake.

3. Depression

Depression makes you feel like you’ve got no energy, like you’re not interested in anything. Getting motivated is a real challenge because you’re battling against feelings of hopelessness and despair. And those feelings don’t magically evaporate just because it’s time to go to bed.

According to recent research, insomnia and depression “often go hand-in-hand.” Almost 80% of people with depression struggle to get to sleep or to stay asleep. It used to be thought that insomnia was just a symptom of depression, while the latest thinking views them as overlapping disorders that need to be treated simultaneously.

Signs and symptoms

Insomnia itself could be a symptom of an underlying medical condition, but there are many signs and symptoms that are associated with insomnia:

Difficulty falling asleep at night.

• Waking up during the night.

• Waking up earlier than desired.

• Still feeling tired after a night's sleep.

• Fatigue or sleepiness during the daytime.

• Irritability, depression, or anxiety.

• Difficulty with concentration and focus.

• Being uncoordinated, or experiencing an increase in errors or accidents.

• Tension headaches that feel like a tight band around your head.

• Difficulty socializing.

• Gastrointestinal symptoms like constipation, nausea, and irregular bowel movements.

• Worrying about sleeping.

Sleep deprivation can cause other symptoms. The sleep-deprived person may wake up without feeling fully awake and refreshed, and may have a sensation of tiredness and sleepiness throughout the day.

Having problems concentrating and focusing on tasks is common for people with insomnia. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 20 percent of non-alcohol related car crash injuries are caused by driver sleepiness.

Risk factors

Insomnia can affect people of any age, but it seems to happen more often to adult females than adult males. And the effects of sleeplessness are profound. It can undermine school and work performance, as well as contribute to obesity, anxiety, depression, irritability, concentration problems, memory problems, poor immune system function, and reduced reaction time.

There are some people are more likely to experience insomnia. These include:

• Travelers, particularly through multiple time zones

• Shift workers with frequent changes in shifts (day vs. night)

• The elderly

• People who use illegal drugs

• Adolescent or young adult students

• Pregnant women

• Menopausal women

• Those with mental health disorders

Treatment

Some types of insomnia resolve when the underlying cause is treated or wears off. So initially, treatment of insomnia focuses on determining the cause. Once identified, the underlying cause can be properly treated or corrected.

In addition to treating the underlying cause of insomnia, both mediciations and behavioral treatments, such as hypnosis, can be used as therapies.

Medical treatments for insomnia include:

• prescription sleeping pills

• antidepressants

• sleep aids available online or over-the-counter

• antihistamines

• melatonin, which can be purchased online

• ramelteon

Non-medication treatments include:

• Improving "sleep hygiene": Not sleeping too much or too little, exercising daily, not forcing sleep, maintaining a regular sleep schedule, avoiding caffeine at night, avoiding smoking, avoiding going to bed hungry, and ensuring a comfortable sleeping environment.

• Using relaxation techniques: Examples include hypnosis, meditation, and muscle relaxation.

• Stimulus control therapy: only go to bed when sleepy. Avoid watching TV, reading, eating, or worrying in bed. Set an alarm for the same time every morning (even weekends) and avoid long daytime naps.

• Sleep restriction: Decreasing the time spent in bed and partially depriving the body of sleep can increase tiredness, ready for the next night.

The Role of Hypnosis

Hypnosis is much more accessible today than it used to be. Hypnotherapy has been used in medicine for generations to relieve pain and discomfort and assist patients in overcoming stubborn habits like smoking and alcoholism, as well as modifying behaviors, like insomnia.

The idea that chronic insomnia symptoms are somehow learned and become part of your regular behavior is behind the idea that hypnosis can help.

Adapting Hypnosis to Insomnia

Insomnia by some accounts is a series of learned behaviors and can be worsened by bad bedtime behaviors, or poor sleep hygiene. If you believe that instances of temporary insomnia can mutate to habitual sleep beliefs and behaviors then you might see how hypnosis could help you modify those beliefs and permanently rewire them in your brain.

Hypnotherapy is a careful combination of relaxation, trance state, and suggestion. When you relax you are quieting your mind and body and entering a hypnotic state, sometimes sleepy or drowsy. In this state you are receptive to modifying messages about behavior. Here is where insomnia symptoms may be overcome with the right mix of messages.

There are several interventions that your hypnotist can use to help you eliminate your insomnia.

1. Revivification

A revivification is a very intensive memory where your subject gets to relive the memory to a certain extent.

It isn’t a full blown-regression where they’re reliving being in the moment. They know they’re with you, but they’re lost in their memory and the feeling of that memory.

Revivifying a previous experience of falling asleep can be a wonderful thing. You can add a post-hypnotic suggestion as well, so that every time your subject performs an unusual physical action, such as stroking their cheek, it encourages them to fall asleep.

It has to be unusual, something they don’t do every day, because otherwise there’s the risk that they might fall asleep at work. Or during some other daytime activity, which could be embarrassing, or dangerous, or both.

2. Post-Hypnotic Suggestion

You can use this to create a future memory of falling asleep. The post-hypnotic suggestion requires two things to be effective:

1. A set of instructions that when such-and-such happens, this happens (i.e. a trigger)

2. A result, because you need a trigger and a result

“When you slip into those sheets at night, you will fall asleep just like in those other situations.”

3. Hypnotic Stories

A great story model to use is the “My Friend John” technique, which can be employed like a progressive relaxation induction.

“My friend John (or Jane) went to bed and at first his feet felt tired and his hands felt tired and his breathing got tired and his eyes got tired and before he knew it, he was asleep.”

By repeating this over and over again, you set the pattern for them to follow. Also remember that stories can be elaborated and used as vehicles to deal with things like stress, anxiety, or other issues that are feeding into the sleep problem.

4. The Non-Awareness Set

Sleep isn’t something you can do consciously. The non-awareness set is all about learning to trust the unconscious, getting the unconscious mind to do things. The very heart of the method involves creating a simple but classic hypnotic phenomena like an arm levitation, and then you link to it the hypnotic outcome you want.

“I wonder what that arm has got to teach you about falling asleep at night? Maybe when you go to sleep at night as you sense your arm comfortably relaxing in the bed you’ll drift to sleep quickly and the hand can only float down to your lap as quickly as your unconscious mind makes that happen, so that all you do at night-time is prepare yourself. Get into bed and as soon as you feel yourself in bed and you feel the temperature of your right hand then the unconscious can take over and the next thing you know it’s morning, you’ve slept all night and you’re feeling refreshed and alert.”

5. Sleep Phenomena

When you fall asleep at night you typically go through a series of phenomena. The things that happen during the onset stage of sleep don’t get encoded in memory. In other words, you don’t actually remember the minute or so you spent falling asleep.

Those symptoms of falling asleep can be suggested and as they’re suggested you can meditate on them to take you to sleep.

Breath rate is an example. Breathing tends to slow down as you approach sleep. Focus on your breathing but don’t extend it on purpose, because that creates more consciousness.

These are just a few example of how hypnosis can be used to eliminate insomnia, help you to sleep fully each night, and improve your quality of life∎