Sleep and Insomnia
- Perhaps you lie awake watching the clock, working out how many hours you have left.
- Perhaps you fall asleep easily, then wake at 3am with your mind already racing.
- Perhaps you have started to dread bedtime, because you know sleep won’t come easily.
You are not alone, and you have not forgotten how to sleep.
Your brain is simply stuck in protection mode.
Understanding what is happening in your brain
Sleep needs your brain to feel safe.
When your stress bucket is full, your survival brain stays on alert, scanning for problems even when you are exhausted. Your body is tired, but your brain won’t let go. Sleep is also how your brain empties that bucket.
During REM sleep, your brain processes the worries and emotions of the day. When sleep is broken, the bucket doesn’t empty, the next day feels harder, and the next night becomes harder too.
It can feel like a loop. The good news is that loops can be broken.
How HypnoSomnia can help
As a HypnoSomnia practitioner, I use an approach developed specifically for sleep. It brings together current sleep science and Solution Focused Hypnotherapy.
Rather than another quick fix, we look at what is keeping your brain awake, whether that is racing thoughts, worry about sleep itself, or tension your body can’t release. Then we teach your nervous system to settle into the calm state it needs for rest.
It can help with:
- Difficulty falling asleep
- Waking in the night and not getting back to sleep
- Early morning waking
- Racing thoughts at bedtime
- Anxiety about sleep
- Feeling tired but wired
The science
Research into hypnosis and sleep is encouraging.
One study found that hypnosis increased time spent in deep, slow-wave sleep, the most restorative stage, by up to 80% in some participants. Many people find the benefits continue long after their sessions end, because they have learned a skill they can keep using.
