Insomnia Hypnotherapy.
In order to explore the issue of insomnia hypnotherapy, you must first understand both insomnia and hypnosis. Insomnia is more than just difficulty sleeping one night.
Insomnia may occur for days at a time and affect the way the person functions during waking hours. An estimated 30 –50 per cent of adults have had insomnia at one time or another. Only 10 per cent of the population has chronic, debilitating insomnia.
There are several causes of insomnia. Some of the causes are medical and require a doctor’s care. Other cases of insomnia may come from depression or mental illness. Most insomnia however, comes from anxiety or stress. It is the inability to shut off the day’s problems and allow your mind to rest.
Sleep arrives in five stages. The first stage is drowsiness. You drift in and out of sleep in this stage. Your muscle activity slows down and slight disturbances can bring you out of the sleep. If your mind races and doesn’t settle in during this stage of sleep, the next level is impossible.
The second level of sleep the mind releases and eye movements slow, as do the brain waves. This stage of sleep lasts only about 10 minutes and then the deeper levels begin. Stage three and four are deep sleep and the final stage is REM or dream sleep. A person with insomnia doesn’t arrive at any of the later stages because they don’t complete the first level of sleep. If the problem isn’t physical or psychological, then the cause is from the inability to quiet the mind. They simply can’t shut down.
We need to next examine hypnosis and what it is. Hypnosis is a trance like state where people are hyper attentive. The characteristics of a hypnotized subject are extreme suggestibility, a relaxed stated and heightened imagination. People hypnotize themselves everyday. If you get engrossed in a television program to the point that you are no longer aware of your surroundings, you’ve entered a hypnotic state.
When a person is hypnotized, the conscious mind no longer controls the brain. The inhibitions, worry and stress melt as the hypnotist reaches out to the subconscious. The subconscious mind takes over and uses the creativity it contains to deal with matters. The hypnotized subject is relaxed and the mind and body in a similar state to daydreaming and you become receptive to suggestions that fit your moral beliefs.
Once a person enters a state of hypnosis, they become tranquil, calm and have a profound sense of relaxation. Even though they are hypnotized, they’re not asleep or unconscious but always aware of their environment. The person is always in control. Anyone that is of average intelligence can be hypnotized if the person wants it done. It is a familiar state of mind that the person does everyday and because of this some people don’t even realize they were hypnotized. The person that was hypnotized remembers everything if they choose to remember. A post hypnotic suggestion cannot override the desire to remember but merely suggest the subject forget what happens.
If a person uses hypnosis for insomnia, the hypnotist aids the subject with ridding themselves of stress and creating creative solutions for problems. Good hypnotists teach their subjects exercises so they have the ability to do self-hypnosis and bring themselves to the relaxed state at home.
Qualified hypnotists usually attempt to delve into the problem that prevents sleep. Most of the time, it is stress and so a method of dealing with the stress or solving the problems develops through sessions and dialogue. The subconscious, the creative part of the brain that feeds the conscious mind ideas, is in charge during the hypnotic state. The therapist works with this part of the individual to create alternative solutions for problems and find methods of dealing with the stress of living that eliminates worry and insomnia.
Some cases of insomnia involve misconceptions about sleep. Fear of death and dying in their sleep sometimes subconsciously causes the insomnia. Frequently the misconception discovered during the session where the patient examines them closes, realizes their fallacy and dispels them.
When you treat insomnia with hypnosis, the super relaxed state not only helps you sleep but get a higher quality of sleep. Many who use this form of therapy for insomnia find that a four-hour sleep after a hypnotic suggestion or self-hypnosis leaves the body as refreshed as a normal eight hours would.
Some insomnia comes from chronic pain. This is especially treatable with hypnosis. The subconscious mind controls the senses and a hypnotic suggestion aids the client in dealing with the pain and allowing sweet relaxation to take place.
Try a simple hypnotic exercise at home if you suffer from insomnia. You do this by tensing a specific muscle groups and then relaxing them. Don’t tense the group so much you feel pain!
Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes. Focus on your breathing and listen the rhythm and pace of you breath. Inhale deeply and blow it out. Take a second breath slightly deeper and then exhale. Feel your body sink into the chair. Intentionally tense your toes and then relax them. Feel them relax even further. Next, tense the feet, relax and envision your muscles relaxing even further. Work your way up your body until you come to your head. Relax each individual muscle in the head. Feel your body sinking into the chair and becoming heavier and more relaxed.
Once you feel relaxed, envision an orange colored liquid going into your body. This liquid cleanses you of all worries, problems and pain. It fills your body and begins to absorb the troubles of the day. As it absorbs the worries and takes the pain out of your body, you see the color change. Each worry it picks up changes the color darker and darker. You feel yourself getting lighter, happier and healthier with each color change. Valves in the toes and fingertips open and a white light enters through the top of your head and pushes the brown sludge filled with your worries, your pain and your problems out through these valves. Your body is filled with the warm healing light and you relax even further.
At this point, you probably have fallen asleep. If not, at least you are relaxed. You can continue to remain in this state or give yourself a suggestion that whenever you get into bed you will feel the same state of relaxation.
A qualified hypnotist aids you in learning simple and useful steps that help you visualize and enter a relaxed state. The conscious mind creates the insomnia and when you reach out to the subconscious mind, you find the reasons and enable the body to finally enter the sweet joy of peaceful sleep.
