Sleep and sleep problems are common, and most people will have problems with sleep at some stage in their life. Sleep disruption can be one of the first signs that all is not well with our mental wellbeing. People with stress or anxiety struggle to get off to sleep and stay asleep, on the other side someone with low motivation or depression may just want to sleep all the time and struggle to get out of bed each day. We sleep in 90-minute cycles and one very important part of that cycle you may have heard of is REM or rapid eye movement. During REM our brains are super active processing and storing memories and generally sorting out events of the day. At this stage of sleep the brain will re-run the events of the day either ‘in clear’ like a movie or metaphorically through our dreams. If all is in order and the process goes as it should then you wake up feeling refreshed and revived and ready to face the day, however, if that is not the case then its important to look at the reasons why.
I can’t get to sleep could be an anxiety indicator.
This is known as type 1 insomnia. If you lie awake at night worrying about everything that you didn’t do that day or about everything you need to do tomorrow this is aligned with anxiety. You may not feel that you are anxious, but anxiety simply put is when we worry about what is going to happen in the future or the consequences of what we haven’t achieved that day.
I get to sleep easily but I wake frequently through the night.
This is known as type 2 insomnia. Your head hits the pillow, and you are asleep easily but during the night you wake up quite suddenly and your thoughts are whizzing about before you even open your eyes. Why does this happen? If your stress levels are high, it could simply be too much stuff for your brain to process. REM sleep is restricted to just 20% of our sleep pattern, if we have too much going on and our brains are overloaded then that 20% just may not be enough time to process everything and the brain will just wake you up. You will wake quite suddenly with thoughts kicking in before you have even opened your eyes and often still feeling very tired and unable to get back off to sleep.
Depression, feeling low and lack of sleep.
Sleeping too much is known as hypersomnia or long sleeping. When we are overwhelmed and feeling sad or low the body will want to sleep. This is a very primitive response, think about our caveman/woman ancestors. If they looked out of the cave and there was snow ice or danger and they couldn’t go out to hunt they would retreat into the cave, pull the rug over their heads and they would sleep until the situation changed. Sleeping through depression is our natural coping mechanism and an alternative of having to face, fight or deal with our problems.
Hypnosis for sleep disorders.
One of the first things clients notice when they have been having hypnotherapy for whatever reason is an improvement in sleep habits. By encouraging deep relaxation and creating an opportunity re realign our thoughts and emotions enhanced sleep comes naturally as part of the process. When my clients come to me for hypnosis, I don’t wave a pocket watch in front of their face whilst chanting ‘look into my eyes’ and I don’t happen to own a velvet waistcoat (although I do think I could rock that look!) Instead, I talk to them and lead the subject into a very natural state of relaxation. Some people find their minds wandering about all the stuff they need to do, whilst others are deeply focused. Both are great steppingstones in restoring your natural ability to sleep. During the session I use a specialist type of music called binaural beats which increases the theta brainwaves, our sleep brainwaves. Following the session clients are given a personalised recording of their session which they can listen to each night which helps speed up the process. With hypnotherapy we purely work to reset your default settings and our default setting is to be well, to be ok and to rest and sleep when we need to. If you or anyone you know is affected by poor sleep you may want to give hypnotherapy a try its far from a difficult experience, in fact it’s very pleasant and let’s face it improved sleep is a game changer not just for your physical health but for your mental and cognitive performance. #hypnosis #sleepdisorder #insomnia #mentalhealth
Very interesting article thank you 😀