Sleep Better With Hypnosis

Have you ever had those nights where you’d lie in bed, exhausted, but wide awake? 

This has happened to me, especially in those times when there's more stress than I'd like. I’d do all the things they say to do. I'd turn off my screen early, not eat after 7, take the deep breaths, and still feel my mind dragging me back into every unfinished thought from the day. Sometimes it was stories I hadn’t told yet. Sometimes it was things I needed to do, or things I didn't know what to do with. Sometimes it was just noise.

Honestly, falling asleep is less about making it happen and more about allowing it to come. When our minds have been working on high alert all day, they don’t always switch that off just because we say it’s bedtime. The mind sees the mental 'downtime' as a great time to get some housekeeping done.

Here's how to quiet the mind, slow the thoughts, and create the space for sleep.

The Bedtime Routine

You've probably already got one. Even if it isn't strict, there's a series of events that you go through before you go to bed each night, preparing your physical body for sleep.

What about preparing your mind for sleep?

Start getting your mind ready for bed as soon as you wake up.

If you find yourself thinking about how you always have trouble sleeping, you're priming yourself for a bad night's sleep. Instead, you can use a hypnotic technique we call "future pacing."

Future pacing is basically a mental rehearsal of how we want something to go. When you catch yourself thinking about how you're going to sleep, walk your mind through your bedtime routine, and imagine how good the covers feel, and your head on the pillow, and how good it feels to drift off. This creates a new routine for your mind to follow, and it will.

Deal with those racing thoughts

Give yourself 3 minutes of nothing before bed. Sit in a comfortable place and just be still. You'll probably have thoughts running through your mind, and that's good here - as they come, imagine them going somewhere.

One of my clients imagines a filing system in his mind. As the thoughts came through, he'd put different labels on them and send them on their way. Some were labeled "tomorrow", some were "taken care of", or "need more information", and some were just "junk."

Another client imagines those thought flowing down a river. She'd say "If they're really important they'll come back."

Once the stream of thoughts slow down, you'll drift off easier.

How Hypnosis Helps

Sometimes we need a little more help unravelling the things that are keeping us from sleeping. Sometimes we just need to re-learn how to sleep well. Hypnosis works on the subconscious level to change even the "hard-wired" patterns into something more beneficial.

Over a short series of sessions your hypnotist can help you get rid of the things that had been keeping you from sleeping, and restore those patterns of rest.