Self Help for Insomnia by Adam Sargant, Dip.H.Ed (Nursing Studies), Dip.Hyp.,NLP(prac)

·Get up and go to bed the same time every day. When your sleep cycle has a regular rhythm, you will feel better.

·Don’t exercise for at least 4 hours before bedtime. Regular exercise is recommended to help you sleep well, but the timing of the workout is important. Exercising in the morning or early afternoon will not interfere with sleep.

·Develop a routine. Listen to relaxing music, read something soothing for 15 minutes, have a cup of warm milk, and do relaxation exercises.

·Stay away from caffeine, nicotine and alcohol at least 4-6 hours before bed. Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants that interfere with your ability to fall asleep. Alcohol may seem to help you sleep in the beginning as it slows brain activity, but it is a depressant, and will interfere with the quality of your sleep.

·Have a light snack before bed. If your stomach is too empty, that can interfere with sleep. However, if you eat a heavy meal before bedtime, that can interfere as well.

·Make sure your bed and bedroom are quiet and comfortable.

Good quality sleep is a habit. If you make the changes above, don’t expect changes in your sleep pattern to occur overnight, give it time. And be forgiving of yourself. Nothing prevents a good nights sleep more than the increased sense of annoyance at not being able to go to sleep. So quit trying, get up and do something relaxing.

Further Self Help Strategies

Just as the external environment and our patterns of behaviour influence our ability to fall asleep easily and readily, so too does our internal environment have an effect. We can make every effort to reduce external stimulus, dim the light and listen to soothing music, but if we are making huge, bright pictures in our mind, or chattering away to ourselves in an urgent, intense tone, we are still creating a problem for ourselves. So pay attention to your thoughts as you prepare for sleep. And notice “how” you think them. What is it about them that make it harder to drop off to sleep?

·Are you making images that big, bright, active, crowded? Let them become dimmer, further away, slow down the activity…

·Are you talking away to yourself? What sort of tone is that internal voice using? Make it slow down, and drop in pitch. Allow your internal thinking to become as soothing and gentle as you have made the external environment. You might find this helpful to do over a few minutes, so the internal dialogue gradually becomes quieter and quieter until you can barely hear it.

Self-Hypnosis

Self-hypnosis is a way of relaxing mind and body to a stage at which the communication between your conscious and unconscious mind becomes free and unimpeded. There are a number of ways in which this can benefit sleep, not least in that the relaxation it brings is beneficial in its own right.

There a number of ways to learn self-hypnosis, but it really is quite simple. When settles in bed, find a way to physically relax your body. Different ways work for different people, so for example, you might like to

1.direct your attention to each part of your body in turn, noticing how tense it feels. Then tense it further, release it and relax. Move on to the next part of the body. Do this from the feet up to the muscles in the head and then back down again, before just lying there and enjoying the sensation of relaxation. Or,

2.visualise a relaxing energy travelling up your body. It may be a golden light, or a warm pink glow. As it travels up your body, notice what the energy feels like as it suffuses and relaxes every muscle. Is it warm, does it gently vibrate? Is there a sound like a gentle hum associated with it? (If you represent it differently, that’s OK… everyone is unique in this respect). Alternatively,

3.pay attention to your breathing. As you breathe in, notice what happens to the muscles around your body. And as you breathe out, notice how they relax just a little bit further each time you breathe out. As you breathe in, say to yourself (in your mind) in a slow, relaxing voice “Breathe”, and as you breathe out, say “…and relax”

And having reached that state of relaxation, simply say to yourself, in the same slow, relaxing manner, and knowing you are addressing your unconscious as well as conscious self “…and tonight, as I sleep more readily and easily each time I do this, I sleep deeper and deeper than ever before, to awake in the morning, refreshed, alert and awake”

You can repeat this three times, allowing your internal voice to get quieter and quieter each time you say it.

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BIO:

Adam is an NLP practitioner, hypnotherapist, and mental health nurse with over a decades experience. He is passionate about the use of language to effect change.

This article is free to use but please link to http://www.hypnosisaudiocds.com/insomnia-hypnosis.php using the link text "insomnia hypnosis"

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