There’s a reason sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. It’s enough to drive you crazy! And it affects around 1 in 3 Australians at any given time. For some people, it means a little sleeplessness for a few days or weeks, at certain times in their lives. For others, it’s an ongoing chronic condition that can mean a lifetime of poor sleep. In this article, we discuss more about insomnia and sleeplessness, the causes, and one solution you might not have thought of yet – hypnotherapy for sleep.
What is insomnia?
Insomnia is a sleeping disorder that makes it difficult (or impossible!) for someone to fall asleep or stay asleep. It’s more common in elderly people and women, but anyone can experience insomnia. The types of experiences of insomnia can include:
- Difficulty getting off to sleep
- Trouble staying asleep, waking up multiple times, and trouble getting back to sleep
- Waking up too early and not being able to go back to sleep again
Some people experience one of these, for example, waking up multiple times during the night. But many people experience all three.
Whilst many people will find themselves suffering from insomnia or sleeplessness for a short time – for example, when they’re stressed – for some it is chronic and ongoing. Sleeplessness is considered to be chronic insomnia if a person experiences one or more of the difficulties listed above, for more than 3 months.
What are the symptoms of insomnia?
Insomnia is much more than just feeling sleepless every now and then. Along with having trouble falling asleep, waking up too early, or waking multiple times during the night, insomnia can also mean not feeling rested when you wake up. It can lead to more symptoms as it continues, such as:
- Tension headaches or migraines
- Feeling tired throughout the day
- Being too tired to concentrate or complete normal activities
- Impaired memory
- Change in mood including being hyperactive, aggressive, or impulsive
- Feeling irritable
- Reduced motivation and energy
- Feeling sleepy or falling asleep when sitting still
- Increased feelings of depression and/or anxiety, especially if you already suffer from these things.
Although for some people, insomnia is a mild irritation that goes away on its own in a short period of time, for others; it’s a lot more serious than that. Chronic insomnia can have a huge impact on your life, making it difficult to function, do your normal day job, relate to friends and family, or stay motivated for things you once were passionate about. A good sleep each night (or day, if you’re a shift worker, for example) is fundamental to us as humans, and going without for an extended period is not only frustrating, but a real problem for both physical and mental health.
What causes insomnia?
The causes of insomnia are many and varied. Understanding what might be causing your insomnia is the first step to finding a solution. The causes for insomnia include:
- Poor sleep habits (or ‘sleep hygiene’)
- Substances that impair sleep, such as caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, some prescription medication, and drugs like amphetamines
- Stress of any kind
- Anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns
- Medical conditions including those that cause pain, hormonal changes (such as those experienced during menopause), fever, urinary issues, breathing or respiratory problems, or digestive issues
- Sleep disorders including sleep apnoea, restless leg syndrome, etc.
- Shift work – those who keep irregular hours or work during the night
- Getting older – elderly people are more likely to experience insomnia
If you’re someone who suffers from insomnia, you don’t need to be told just how much of an impact it can have on your life. And although you’ve tried all kinds of things to fix it, you might not have found a solution that works. Hypnotherapy for sleep might be just what you’ve been searching for.
Hypnotherapy for sleep
Because of how it’s portrayed in popular culture, hypnotherapy sometimes gets a bad rap. If you’ve ever watched a hypnosis event on television, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s nothing more than an elaborate hoax – putting unwitting participants ‘under’ to conduct strange and embarrassing experiments on them. In reality, hypnotherapy is nothing like this.
Many Australians suffering from insomnia have tried everything they can think of – from reducing caffeine to taking sleeping pills – with little success. Unfortunately, even reducing your exposure to the common causes of insomnia may not be enough to get you a good night’s sleep. Or, you might find that although sleeping pills offer some relief, they also come with a swathe of side effects that make life just as miserable. If, like so many sufferers of sleeplessness, nothing has worked effectively for you, it’s time to try hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy for sleep is a remarkably effective therapy. And best of all, it doesn’t mean having to suffer the kinds of side effects you can expect when taking medications for sleep. And it doesn’t mean being made to cluck like a chicken or any of the other nonsense you’ve seen on TV. Hypnotherapy is a safe and proven solution for many insomnia sufferers and can begin to help you get the rest you need almost immediately.
Here at Integrated Health Specialists, we know how miserable insomnia can make your life. That’s why we developed our hypnotherapy for insomnia program. Here’s what it looks like:
- First, we explore the history and triggers behind your sleeplessness
- Next, we schedule 3 hypnotherapy sessions, about one week apart
- Finally, we prepare a personalised hypnosis recording for you to take home and continue to use
Our solution is so effective not only because of our high level of training and professionalism in hypnotherapy, but because our approach pairs this with expertise in both counselling and psychology. Integrated Health Specialists will work with you to uncover what’s truly causing your insomnia and then help you to overcome it once and for all. If you’re ready to try hypnotherapy for sleep, get in touch with us today.
Recent Comments