By Fern Tausig
Your Body, Your Mind
Fern Tausig
This is an interesting question that I get often. I have written about sleep before, but not only have I seen several clients in the past few weeks who suffer from insomnia, but the New York Times even featured a piece recently on this subject (“Hypnosis Changed My Life”).
Insomnia is a sleep disorder that is characterized by difficulty falling and/or staying asleep. People with insomnia have one or more of the following symptoms: difficulty falling asleep and waking up often during the night and having trouble falling back to sleep.
I did a little research on the causes of insomnia and the recommended treatments. I was not surprised that my first five searches did not even mention hypnosis as a treatment. I am still surprised that the medical community uses pharmaceuticals first before any alternative treatments.
The causes are easy to guess; stress, alcohol, caffeine, worry and overeating are the most common mentioned.
My perspective is a little different. Everyone sleeps. Sleep is a habit like any other habit. Once your brain experiences a pattern a few times, it creates a habit. That’s how we learn to do things: by creating a pattern that our brain incorporates, making our life easier. Obviously, sometimes this is not a good thing. But it is still a habit and habits can be unlearned, replaced or eliminated.
There are two different aspects to sleeplessness. There is the physical part and the mental/emotional part. In order to sleep well the physical body must be relaxed and mental activity needs to slow. The conscious mind sleeps, but the unconscious mind doesn’t. That’s why we dream.
Sometimes the fear of not being able to sleep creates an anxious feeling brought on by adrenaline. That is the physical aspect of fear or stress that you feel when you “can’t” sleep. The best way to eliminate that feeling is with deep relaxing breaths and mindful relaxation of your muscles.
The second aspect of sleeplessness is the busy mind or racing thoughts going through your mind. These can be about anything going on in your life or whatever you are worried about. It can even just be an awareness of being awake.
The way to shut off the mind is by learning self-hypnosis or using a proven technique, such as the following.
After taking long slow breaths to shut off the adrenaline, focus your attention on your breaths as though you are breathing through your heart. If your mind wanders, just bring it back to your heart and focus. Because the conscious mind can’t do more than one thing at a time, focusing on your heart breathing prevents other thoughts from entering your mind. If your mind wanders, bring it back to your heart and refocus. If your brain begins to engage in a thought, think to yourself, “I can’t stay awake,” and you will drift off to sleep.
Changing a habit requires repetition and practice. Don’t give up. You can learn how your mind works to make it work for you instead of against you.
Fern Tausig is a certified hypnotist, lifecoach and health educator. She can be reached at myhealinghypnosis.com.