The World Health Organisation recommends that adults have an average of eight hours of sleep per night. Do you?
Unfortunately, when dealing with a crisis in survival mode your Intellectual Mind (which is positive, rational, logical and therefore great at problem-solving) is hijacked by your Primitive Mind (which generates the overwhelming emotions of anxiety, depression and anger). Feeling, thinking and behaving in a negative way causes your ‘stress bucket’ to get so full it can even overflow.
Thankfully, the natural process of rapid eye movement sleep (REM) empties that bucket. As you process your emotions from the highs and lows of the day they are moved into the Intellectual Mind, where you then have control over them. By morning you’ve often gained perspective and can clearly see the way forward. Hence the expression ‘sleep on it’!
But, ironically, if you’re anxious then it may be difficult to fall asleep in the first place, you might wake in the night and if your REM (which works harder than a beating heart) is super busy, you can wake up feeling exhausted. The trouble is when tired you’re inclined to spend more time in your Primitive Mind and so the cycle continues.
The benefits of a good night’s sleep are well documented, including, but not limited to, improving learning and memory, healing emotional wounds and enhancing your immune system - as are sleep hygiene recommendations (e.g. a cool room temperature of 65 oF, restricting caffeine and alcohol, avoiding evening screen time etc).
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy can help to replace any unwanted behaviour and reassure and soothe the central nervous system. By encouraging positive thinking, action and interaction, your increased serotonin levels will elevate you into your Intellectual Mind. And now, with access to your skills and strengths, it’s easier to calmly acknowledge and deal with any worries within your control and focus on the positives thereby reducing those negative thoughts which convert into anxiety.
Hypnosis also replicates REM and empties your stress bucket whilst improving the quality and duration of your sleep. You can start to benefit at home by playing my Relaxation Recording, which is now free to download from my website www.kfhypnotherapist.co.uk. Please help yourself.
Sleep well,
Katherine.
BA (Hons), DipSFH,
Reg AfSFH, CNHC, NCP
If you’re finding the current situation stressful and would like some help, please get in touch for a free introductory phone call.