October 2014
The art of quality sleep
28/10/14 09:37 Filed in: Sleep
Do you realise that recent studies have shown that hypnosis and hypnotherapy can help up to two-thirds more adults sleep deeper and longer than with those who induce sleep naturally.
"There have been many reports that hypnosis can be a good thing for promoting sleep," said study co-author Bjorn Rasch, a professor with the department of psychology in the division of biopsychology and methods at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
In this newer sleep study scientists have been carefully exploring the effect of hypnosis on so called ‘deep sleep’ or REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. At this level of sleep the brain’s frequency is much slower and "often correlates with the most restorative sleep -- it's a time for your brain to process and rejuvenate from the challenges of the day," explained Dr. Kim Hutchison, assistant professor of neurology and sleep medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.
The study group aged between 18 and 35 based in Switzerland were exposed to a variety of audio recordings of about 13 minutes in length. Some provided a hypnotic suggestion to sleep deeper, while others were designed to be neutral in content..
For each experiment, the participants were outfitted with electrodes to monitor brain-wave activity and sleep patterns. The subjects were allowed to fall asleep during or after the audio feeds, and all were woken up after they had spent a total of 90 minutes sleep.
The sleep team were also able to observe that slow-wave activity during the deep sleep phase was "significantly enhanced" following hypnosis. This suggests that not only does hypnosis boost deep sleep quantity, it may also improve deep sleep quality.
"I have to emphasise that we did not focus on sleep-disorder patients," said Rasch. "These were all healthy people. So while our findings are really promising, we do not yet have proof that hypnosis will help people who suffer from sleep disturbances. I would say it would. But it's not yet proven," he added.
"I have found hypnosis can be helpful, even for non-susceptible patients," she said. "Because it gives them something to focus on, and helps them to relax and quiet their mind before sleeping."
Hutchison added that, "there is anecdotal evidence that the relaxation achieved can help improve sleep quality. In fact, I have been recommending sleep hypnosis phone apps for about the past five years."
Findings from the study were published this month in the journal Sleep.
Want to learn effective strategies to help you develop more quality based sleep? Here at Cumbria Hypnosis we use an array of different psychological tools to help anyone with sleeping disorders. Find out more here or try our popular Mind-Sync Sleep Easy mp3 for a peaceful and rewarding night’s sleep.
David Faratian (NLP Practitioner and Clinical Hypnotherapist)
Power of Imagination
Your imagination is an amazing gift, that used correctly can be used for many different applications. All too often however people are unaware of just how underdeveloped their imaginations really are. Most likely if your current situation doesn’t require you to use your imagination then the last time you really had the opportunity to exercise your brain was when you were a child. That being the case then you are missing out on an amazing tool. Your ability to control your mind through your imagination can give you control over all kinds of areas in your life. Using your imagination you can change any habit, sleep better, control anxiety set any goal and deal with any fear. For years the medical profession has argued that the only way to deal with certain conditions was through the power of medicine and counselling. In more recent times, however, psychologists have discovered that imagination is the key to most long-term change both mental and in some cases physiological. Conditions like IBS and migraines although often treatable through conventional medicine can also be greatly helped through more psychological approaches like hypnosis and meditation practices.
So what is your imagination exactly?
Your imagination is your ability to create mental images of something that may already exist or it may be the ability for you to imagine objects, situations or circumstances which do not exist right now. From the moment we are born our imaginations allow us to create through sound taste smell and touch. As children are imaginations can sometimes become over generalised this overgeneralisation can lead to the beginning of an irrational phobia or anxiety which can persist well into adult hood. Fear of flying or general anxiety disorders can often find their root cause in an over active imagination which creates a negative anticipation of something which hasn’t even happened and yet is real enough through the pictures the person creates internally to lead to acutely ‘real’ physiological symptoms in the person like shortness of breath, sweating and gastric problems.
Everything that we create for the beauty of the world, whether in the art world in music in literature or simply through the many thousand inventions that we all take for granted today were born out of imagination.
And it is imagination which is at the heart of many of the psychological tools used by Cumbria Hypnosis. There are people who say they have no imagination.The fact is that some imaginations are weaker than others but everyone has the ability to visualise.
Want to see how powerful your imagination is and whether Cumbria Hypnosis can help you? Take this little test now by watching the video below and see whether you would fit into the 85% of people who can use their imaginations for long-term change?
Your imagination is an amazing gift, that used correctly can be used for many different applications. All too often however people are unaware of just how underdeveloped their imaginations really are. Most likely if your current situation doesn’t require you to use your imagination then the last time you really had the opportunity to exercise your brain was when you were a child. That being the case then you are missing out on an amazing tool. Your ability to control your mind through your imagination can give you control over all kinds of areas in your life. Using your imagination you can change any habit, sleep better, control anxiety set any goal and deal with any fear. For years the medical profession has argued that the only way to deal with certain conditions was through the power of medicine and counselling. In more recent times, however, psychologists have discovered that imagination is the key to most long-term change both mental and in some cases physiological. Conditions like IBS and migraines although often treatable through conventional medicine can also be greatly helped through more psychological approaches like hypnosis and meditation practices.