10 Tips For Overcoming Sleep Problems

Insomnia or Sleep Problems are more common that you might think.

One of the most common requests we have as hypnotists is for assistance with sleep disorders or insomnia. There are so many effective and efficient ways in which to overcome these types of problems through hypnosis that success can be as easy as inducing the hypnotic state and delivering your favorite suggestions for healthy, rejuvenating sleep. But there are many simple things a person can do to assist in the process of achieving fulfilling rest.  Following are the top 10 simple, yet effective, things you can do to reduce sleep problems or insomnia.

  1. Be Consistent – Going to bed and rising at the same time every day strengthens your internal clock. It will establish a habit of achieving sleep at regular times.
  2. Everything in Moderation – No matter how good it might feel to lie in bed for as long as possible, too much of a good thing is not good. Long periods spent in bed can lead to shallow and fragmented sleep.
  3. Get the Lead Out – Research shows that regular daily exercise promotes deeper more restorative sleep. Even light exercise such as a daily walk is very beneficial, just make sure not to exercise right before bedtime. It takes time to wind down from activity.
  4. Keep Your Cool – When the heat rises over 75 degrees it can lead to less REM sleep and more periods of waking. Cold rooms are no better; the ideal temperate for restful sleep is between 68 and 72 degrees.
  5. Let Them Eat Cake – Research shows that a light snack before turning in for the night tends to aid sleep. Be aware that heavy meals though will interfere with restful sleep.
  6. What the Doctor Ordered – On occasion, a sleep aid, whether over-the-counter or prescribed may be helpful, but be aware that regular use of sleep aids may promote dependency and actually increase problems. Use them only as a last resort.
  7. No Java Jive, No Butts About It – Cut out caffeine in the evening. Plain and simple, it disturbs sleep. Caffeine can be found in coffee, tea, colas, chocolate and many other sources so be aware. Tobacco use also disturbs sleep. If you are a smoker, consider hypnosis to free yourself of that old habit, but until you do, stay away from tobacco in the evenings.
  8. One for the Road – Cut out the nightcaps. While alcohol sometimes helps people fall asleep faster, the resulting chemically induced sleep is disrupted when the effects of alcohol begin to wear off.
  9. The Sound of Silence – People who sleep through anything can also have their sleep disrupted by noise or unusual sounds. Not waking up does not mean your sleep is not disturbed. Create an atmosphere insulated from outside sound or get a white noise machine to mask sounds. Even a small fan in the room can be effective.
  10. Kiss and Make Up – Never go to bed angry. Going to bed with work or worry on your mind is the perfect way to lose sleep. Always find time to resolve your day or clear your mind before you turn out the lights for the night. This is the perfect time to practice your self-hypnosis or listen to a relaxation recording.

Nail Biting Success with Hypnosis

The underlying causes of the majority physical habits may be quite varied, and rooted at different psychological levels. Although hypnotherapy has a wide range of applications, the behaviors that are most directly related to physical habits are usually the ones that can be treated with hypnotherapy most directly and immediately. Hypnosis for smoking cessation is the most commonly recognized of these, and is among the more effective and least invasive techniques for reaching its goal. Another common area for hypnotherapy treatment is for weight control. Similarly, hypnotherapy is also the best technique for ending a nail biting habit.  

 Nail biting shares many similarities to smoking. It is a ritualistic, physical habit. Either can be caused by the mechanics of a physical routine, or can be indicative of deeper psychological root causes. In either case the habit itself can be quite effectively halted with hypnosis. 

 Discovering and treating underlying psychological issues, which are exhibited in nail biting and smoking can be a process that 1 or 2 sessions with a knowledgeable hypnotist. Not all hypnotists are capable of performing at the deep psychological level. Thankfully, for the purposes of eliminating a nail biting or a smoking habit, they do not need to work below the most direct physical level.  

 The immediate goal of curing the nail biting habit is far more straightforward. Many of our deeper emotional and psychological states are influenced by our physical state, so in treating the physical symptoms directly, we can also have an indirect impact on deeper issues. Also, not all negative physical behaviors have an underlying cause; sometimes it is truly just a physical habit; it “feels” good for the individual to take part in them.  

 I have seen that the relaxed and focused state of hypnosis can have extraordinary results when it comes to achieving simple physical state changes. Whenever I relieve severe burn pain, alleviate nausea, and relieve other physical problems for a client, it still amazes me, even though I’m supposedly the one with the “power” (as we know, the true power lies in the client’s unconscious mind). Our minds have the capacity to block out severe nausea and pain; so the ability to prevent one from nail biting is a simple goal in comparison.  

 I’ve found three of the most powerful hypnosis techniques to be anchoring, substitution and association. With association, one can link a negative behavior to something unpleasant; with substitution, one can replace the bad habit with an innocuous one; with anchoring, one can link physical movement triggers with alternative feelings and behaviors.  

 Hypnotherapy has been proven as one of the more effective methods for negative habit modification. Just as with smoking cessation, the techniques and concepts described here prove to be extremely effective as a long-term nail-biting cure.

Drug Addiction – There is Hope with Hypnosis

A firm commitment needs to be made to eliminate the grip that some drugs have on many people. One session is not enough; I have found that several back to back sessions prove to be the most effective.

Battling the feelings of guilt, numbness, anger, sadness, and loneliness that come from substance abuse can be the most difficult part of your recovery. These emotions come and go quickly during healing and increase the urge to use again. Hypnosis can provide you with the tools to handle everyday life and these emotions again.

Ask yourself: Prior to your particular substance abuse, what was the nature of the original motivation and emotional reward of the drug? What did it seem to do for me that was good? The majority of us cannot truly explain what originally motivated today’s behavior. Sometimes a certain smell, sound, scene in a movie, or reaction from another person can send us into a series of emotional reactions that are so habitual themselves that they 
have become uncontrollable. This is the subconscious mind steady at work. The reason that this point is so important is because treating addiction is next to impossible unless the reason for the first repeated use is identified. You need a tool to access your subconscious mind, learn what event(s) in your life caused this myriad of emotions that the subconscious mind is working on overtime to protect your conscious mind from. 

Without a doubt Hypnosis works hand in hand with Drug Rehab very well.

Golf and Sports using Hypnosis

 

Hypnosis is being used by many people to improve their performance in sports. Golf is probably the most popular sport which people use hypnosis techniques to help with, but it can also be used with many other individual and team sports, including football, rowing and cricket.

Hypnosis and sports are a very effective combination for many reasons.

Tiger Woods uses mental imagery in order to achieve results.

For example, Many Divers would visualise somebody else performing a dive and when he could see it carried out perfectly, he would imagine himself performing the same dive. Tiger Woods imagines himself producing the perfect swing and playing the perfect shot immediately before doing exactly that. He doesn’t hit bunkers or obstacles because in his mental images they don’t exist.

Imagery and mental rehearsal in sport

It’s no secret that sports men and women often incorporate imagery and mental rehearsal into their practice routines. What is less well known is how effective hypnosis can be in this process. When hypnotised you will be able to imagine yourself rehearsing and refining the perfect swing, the perfect goal or running the perfect mile.

Hypnosis can increase your inner beliefs and, in sports, belief is everything.

Fitness and Health

Hypnosis can be one of the most positive steps you take towards a healthy lifestyle.

It has long been known that learning self-hypnosis or meditation can have a very positive impact on your health.

There are many essential ingredients to becoming fit and healthy. Of course diet and exercise are crucial but what about a fit and healthy mind?

Deep relaxation techniques and stress management exercises can help you to focus inwards and start to really believe in yourself and your goals.

Fear of Public Speaking

 

Making speeches in public or giving professional presentations can leave you with butterflies in your stomach and your legs feeling like jelly. Your mind can become cluttered and confused and your voice can race and somehow not convey the confident assured tone you had planned.

Hypnosis can often help students and academics who, are uncomfortable giving talks and seminars. Hypnotist also frequently see clients who are absolutely terrified of giving the best man or father of the bride’s speech at weddings, along with successful business people who just can’t get it together in the way they would like. Or perhaps a eulogy at a funeral.

Hypnosis can help with building up your confidence, calm and relaxation. You can learn how to recognize your body’s unique reaction to stress and anxiety and to develop new healthy and positive ways of thinking and feeling.

Public speaking techniques and skills

Wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of turning to jelly, you could learn to enjoy speaking in public, writing your own speeches and presentations and most importantly, getting your thoughts across in a calm, assertive and impressive manner? As a hypnotist I remove the reasons for your fears and teach a simple yet affective Self Hypnosis Technique.

Make More Money – Hypnosis to Earn Money and Achieve Success

Surely hypnosis can’t help you to become rich or earn more money!

Well, what it can do is help you to become more relaxed about money and wealth and to start to understand what it is inside you that has stopped you from making and earning more money.
To eliminate those stumbling blocks that keep us from achieving our life’s goals. Helping to create the self confidence needed. Ending the procrastination and releasing the negative thinking that cripples so many of us

Migraines and Headaches

Hypnosis Helps for the relief of

Migraines and Headaches

Many migraine attacks are caused by stress triggers. Learning to avoid those triggers or your response to them can help in the treatment of migraines and tension headaches.

In any form of pain treatment, a hypnotist will want to take comprehensive notes about the condition and will not use pain control techniques unless your doctor has diagnosed your headache as a migraine and recommended relaxation or stress management as a suitable treatment.

Hypnosis, and other forms of alternative medicine, can help indirectly with any kind of pain that is triggered by stress. This is achieved by teaching deep and rhythmic breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation and visualization or ‘guided imagery’. And Self Hypnosis, when the mind starts to recognize the triggers, then a client is taught to place themselves into self-hypnosis stopping the trigger from taking affect.

Hypnosis and It’s benefits for Cancer and Illness

Hypnosis and It’s benefits for Cancer and Illness

On the year before my 40th birthday I found myself in a great deal of pain and constant bleeding. What was meant to be a week was going on for months, which lead me to an appointment with my doctor. I had not seen a doctor in many years. After the exam he said I needed to wrap my thoughts around having surgery as soon as possible. I said what are you doing tomorrow?  That got a laugh from him. I was sent to another doctor who just vaguely mentioned cancer. Tumors of unknown origins were found to be the cause of the pain, and were sending false signals to my body telling it to bleed, everything in my life began to change. The prognosis was not good. I was told that the tumors had to be removed. That it had spread throughout and was growing rapidly. Unfortunately the only way they could remove it was to perform a hysterectomy. The doctor said I had about two years to live otherwise. Well, that was a lot to accept. And I couldn’t accept it. I had a life to live and I new this was not Gods plan. I was young, yet suddenly my life was nearly over. I felt that I probably wouldn’t live through that surgery and if I did that I would die of depression anyway. There had to be another way! They did some testing and I was scheduled for my hysterectomy.

I was alone in my hospital room in the evening after being told that a tumor was growing in my body. My heart was open and I was feeling the beauty of the little lights twinkling out my window and appreciating the flowers that filled my room, and I knew that I was not alone. I knew then that I wanted to live and to heal my life. To heal all the pain that had brought me to this point. In the stillness of that moment, an inner voice told me that I was going to be okay, that I had important work to do…and to let it begin now. This message became the foundation for my faith.

After the surgery, the doctor said Kemo and Radiation is a must to live. I said no to the doctor and without even realizing what I was doing.  I went straight toward my inner mind, body and spirit to speed my healing. I became a spiritual warrior on a quest to heal my life. I felt that the pain and anger I carried in my heart had created this illness. I knew that I had to learn to love myself in a much greater way and to forgive myself and all others. I had a lot of spiritual support around me and my faith was strong. I asked that I be guided to the highest healing places for me and that I be allowed to live and to heal my life, so that I might be a living example of God’s great healing energy. And I was guided. I worked with some remarkable healers that helped me to gain a better understanding about illness and healing and about myself.

It was during this time I was guided to Hypnotherapy with a friend of mine, this time it was for my healing. With its gentle and powerful processes I was able to get to the heart of the matter quickly, which is what I needed. It helped me clear away the misperceptions that I carried about myself and others that caused me pain and suffering. It was a pathway that showed me how to love myself as I recovered and discovered lost parts of my Self, including the deepest and most divine places within me. Because I was in great need of healing, I was willing to do whatever it took to find a way to heal.

My biggest single breakthrough happened on a beautiful spring day. I remember how the colors and the fresh air and the beauty touched my awareness. Every breath I took was filled with gratitude, just for being alive and somehow knowing I was being guided. That day with hypnosis I was gently guided on a journey inside my body to meet that part of my body that had stored this illness. I was surprised to find a dark mass of black goop there. This moved me to tears because my image of the cancer was not what I expected. I had actually found a mass that fit my thoughts and image of the cancer, it was heavy and filled with anger and I ceremoniously smashed that mass to smithereens with a sledgehammer, demanding the cancer to leave my body.

When I met this dark mass something very different was evoked within me. I knew I was making progress, this was a much different and better image. My hypnotist guided me to speak with this mass that represented the tumor. To ask whatever questions I wanted to ask. The first question I asked was “Why did you come here?” The reply was, “I was asked to come here.” By whom? “By You. The young women you once were, Listen, she is here.” The little girl I met that day was frightened, lonely and indeed, abandoned. She was terribly frightened in so many ways; There was fear of abuse and abandonment, fear of others’ anger, and fear that she really didn’t deserve to be loved. I was so deeply moved by this child part of myself. How long she had been neglected? As I talked with her and tried to win her trust, I asked her how I could help. She said she wanted to be free…free to be herself and express love and joy as much as she could. But there had been so much fear and pain and anger that she didn’t know whether she could stand to live any longer. I found a strength and power within me that made a bold rescue of the little girl, and I made a vow to give her all the love, freedom, attention and healing that she needed. She was no longer abandoned and alone. I had recovered a part of myself that was essential to my healing.

Together we returned to speak with the tumor and I asked the dark black mass what is your name?” the reply was: “Anger.” This made me cry because that was the feeling I had when the doctor told me my fate, strong Anger. I asked, “Why did you come to me in this way?” The response changed my awareness forever. “I came to help you. You were needing to make important changes in your life that you were afraid to make on your own. I heard your call for help.” The dark mass tumor had come to help me! I cried as I came to realize and accept that this illness was here to teach me and to help me.

I made friends with the tumor that day and I made a connection with my inner child. These experiences changed the course of my life. From that moment on I wholeheartedly listened to the wisdom of the illness and I embraced my inner child. By loving her I have learned to love all of my Self, deeply, gently, with compassion and kindness and to release the past and to forgive those whom I had harbored such anger. I had found at last the inner strength and spiritual resources needed to make the necessary changes. Answers came from within me and I learned to trust myself and believe in myself. I made many changes in my life over those years.

*****2 years later the cancer was still completely gone. It has now been eighteen years since that day in the doctors office. My cancer remains in “remission”. More importantly, to this day that little girl is an integral part of my life and her new happiness fills my life with joy. So if I have left you with nothing else it would be ………….YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE………..Have faith in yourself and your God given right to heal yourself.Hypnosis and It’s benefits for Cancer and Illness has been a life changing event in Pixmac000079841749my life.

Success with Children and Hypnosis

MARCH 30, 2002  (CBS) Children are often better candidates for hypnosis than adults, says one clinical psychologist, and the process can help resolve such problems as pain, anxiety, bed wetting, and asthma.

Robert Shacter of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine talked about children and hypnosis on The Saturday Early Show. He says children tend to respond to hypnotic suggestion better than adults because they are more in touch with their imaginations.

Children can be hypnotized as early as age 3, he says, adding, “But in my personal experience, I have found that children ages 5 or older respond best to the treatment.”

Here is part of a pre-interview with Robert Shacter.

The easiest way to hypnotize a child is to have them focus on a point, he explains. They will do that until their eyes begin to feel heavy, and they become sleepy. You now have them in a trance-like state. Once they are in this state, you begin to tell the child stories that can alleviate whatever problems they may have.

What role, if any, does the parent play during a hypnosis session?
As in any therapy, it is important for parents to know what is going on. But in the actual session the parent is not there. So they really don’t play any part in the actual therapy.

How many times does a typical child visit a hypnotist?
Most children attend 4 to 8 sessions with a qualified hypnotist. During that time, the hypnotist can teach a child how to hypnotize himself.

How do I know if my child if a candidate for hypnosis?
Most children are good candidates. It just depends on whether the problems they are having can be helped by hypnosis.

Here are some of the problems that might be helped by hypnosis:

  • Pain. Hypnosis is very effective at alleviating the pain of children undergoing cancer treatments. What we do is help the child go somewhere else, away from the pain. By accessing the unconscious, the child creates images that forces them to focus on something other than the pain they are feeling.For example, if you squeezed your hand very tightly to the point that it hurt and then someone asked you to focus on something else, you would not be as aware of the pain in your hand.
  • Anxiety. A child who is anxious often breathes more quickly and has a higher heart rate. With hypnosis, we can teach them to breathe more slowly, lower their heart rate and take them away from whatever is making them anxious.
  • Bed Wetting. Many doctors prescribe medicine for children who have a bed-wetting problem. But now more physicians are turning to hypnosis, which has very positive results. Part of the reason that it works so well is that kids play an active role in their treatment rather than just taking a pill.
  • Asthma. When children with asthma feel their throats constricting, they begin to feel anxious and breathe more heavily. With hypnosis, you teach the child to calm down and bring them to another place.

How effective is hypnosis in children?
In the right child, hypnotism can be very successful. Remember: There are some children who have a harder time letting go. But for those who can, the results can be very positive. Another plus of hypnosis is that unlike drugs, the risk of harm is low.

Why aren’t more doctors using hypnotism?
It’s just not taught that much in schools, and some people still don’t want to recognize it as a viable alternative. However, it is becoming more popular, and many insurers will cover it.