How hypnotherapy can help with slipping you into a better slumber.
Struggling with sleep? Hypnotherapy may provide a solution.
The Surreptitious Sleep Squeeze
With so many of adults in the UK getting insufficient sleep, it can be important to ask why. Insomnia is the more extreme form of this, but it is surprisingly common, with as many as 1 in 3 adults regularly affected by sleep that is disrupted (NHS Inform, 2023), impossible or frankly crap in terms of actually helping people to feel rested, refreshed, and ready to take on the next day. Often hidden however are the causes for such an epidemic of sleep-skippers, with many not even understanding why they are unable to reach a level of satisfying slumber. The reality however is that insomnia itself rarely just 'exists' without cause, and so to be able to understand how best to help somebody to sleep, they must first be able to understand why they are stuck in such a position. Sleep issues tend to have a root cause which is commonly psychological, whether that may be stress, worry, over-arousal of the brain or a lack of a consistent sleep routine which disrupts their circadian rythm (part of the body clock that works over a 24-hour period to achieve healthy functioning). Whether someone is aware of these or not, it is vital to be able to understand them in order to help make sleep more satisfying, since poor sleep is simply the product of one of these things, and not a cause in itself.
Well then, how?
Excellent question. To discover the root cause of any sleep disruption, it can be helpful to keep a sleep diary or a notebook of sorts that allow you to track your thoughts or anything that may go through your mind prior to or immediately before you may attempt to sleep. Over a prolonged period of time, you may begin to notice a pattern. Perhaps on Wednesdays after you had to do a certain task at work, you can't get settled, perhaps instead it's on a Tuesday knowing what awaits you the next day. It could be that in settling down for bed, you begin to overthink about things you have said, or things that you need to say, and that may be preventing you from being able to 'switch off'. Alternatively, you may desire something deeply, and thoughts of it may haunt you like some form of highly over-enthusiastic self-improvement ghost of futures yet to come. Ultimately, there are a multitude of possible reasons that could be causing sleep to become disregulated one night here or there, or every night more permanantly, and they will be so personal that listing them all might just take me until the end of the universe. If any patterns in your diary have helped you to realise these, or you already know of any reasons then you have made the first and frankly largest step to helping yourself with any sleep problems that you may have. If however, things are still blurrier than a vintage photo smothered in vaseline, then it may help to speak to a therapist such as myself, or indeed a medical pracitioner such as your GP to try alternative angles, or to rule out any genuine medical conditions that may themselves play a role.
Finally hitting The Snooze Button
Assuming that you now know what is causing disregulation in yourself, you have a long list of tools that can help you to tackle it. Obviously, if you've discovered something that you can deal with on a personal level quickly and easily, now is your sign to do so. If however, it is something that cannot just be solved as simply as sending a letter of apology, or telling someone how you feel, then it may be worth seeking alternative options. If relaxation on it's own is the main issue, then daily meditation or hypnosis can be used to make you more aware of your body and to teach you self-hypnosis for physical and psychological relaxation. Sometimes, being aware of your own body and focusing on relaxing each part, one at a time can be extremely effective as added awareness can relieve any physical stress. However, if the issue is more psychological then additional therapeutic measures can be taken to help you tackle whatever may be bothering, upsetting or otherwise disrupting you. By doing so, often your sleep may begin to fall back into place because the root cause has been dealt with as the sleep is once again rarely the problem in itself.
With the help of discovering any disregulation, and hypnotherapy, you may be able to help yourself get your sleep back on track.
"Additional Therapeutic Measures"?
Now, these will all depend entirely on what it is that is preventative of you having a good quality of sleep. Hypnotic relaxation techniqes can and will often be taught as previously described, because relaxation is often a sleep barrier but from then on out, anything else can be helped through hypnotherapy in a bespoke, targeted fashion. For example, if you were to be having body image issues, then hypnotherapy can be used to give you a healthier, more comfortable outlook about your body and bringing harmony between how you see yourself now, and how you want to see yourself. The resolution of such internal conflicts as body image struggles, or other things that may present themselves in life can be helped to be achieved through a large number of different hypno-therapeutic strategies such as hypnotic sculpting to give you motivations, dissociations to disconnect yourself from yourself to see the bigger picture, even talking to a different part of yourself whilst hypnotised can help to understand your motivations for things where previously you may have been unsure. If persistent pain is reaking havoc on your sleep, then hypnosis can be used to teach you new pain management techniques in order to manage the pain to a liveable, acceptable and more palatable level, anxiety can also be helped to be eased with desensitisation, and the list goes on depending on what you may need help with.
Could this be for you?
Struggling to sleep? Curious whether or not you may benefit from hypnotherapy for sleep or indeed other issues that may be able to be tackled as part of a comfortable, supportive therapeutic environment? Here at Piper Therapy Services, we offer hypnotherapy sessions and client treatment plans that are as bespoke as we can possibly make them. From using therapy rooms, to home visits, to hypnotherapy using online video-calling software, we offer a wide range of options to help keep hypnotherapy suited to you. Following our session's conclusion, you will not only have been given hypnotherapy by our accredited hypnotherapist Daniel Pedley, but he will also have taught you new skills, most importantly how to utilise self-hypnosis so that after our sessions have concluded, you can use your new hypnotic skills to help you tackle challenges amongst a wide range of things, regardless of what life can throw at you.
What are you waiting for? Contact us today!
Reference:
NHS Inform. (2023). Retrieved from https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/mental-health/insomnia#:~:text=Insomnia%20is%20difficulty%20getting%20to,it%20difficult%20to%20fall%20asleep
Comments