Even people who are really good sleepers can experience bouts of insomnia. It may start out innocently at first. In Melbourne it is coming to that time of year for those preparing for year 12 exams. Suddenly, 2-3 days before the exam you are going over/preparing for what might be on the exam before you get ready for bed. You lie there mulling over the exam before you drift off to sleep and suddenly you realize that there is something you cannot remember the answer for. And now you cannot sleep. Even though you get up and find the answer your brain is now hard wired to doubt that you know enough to get a good result and so you worry about what could happen in the exam. And of course when you worry the fight/flight mechanism kicks in and suddenly your body is flooded with Adrenalin and Cortisol and now it is going to be awhile before your body has settled down and is ready to go to sleep. As you move through life stressful things happen and each time they happen you find you spend several nights struggling to sleep. Until eventually a pattern starts to emerge and you may find you struggle to get straight to sleep at night. It takes you an hour or so to get off to sleep and you don’t want to do that. You can’t afford the wasted time so you go to the doctor and get some sleeping pills and they get you off to sleep straight away and you get your 8 hours but it’s not the same. Your body is not rested and now you find it really hard to get to sleep without the pills. And now you have some real sleep problems. Some people can be good sleepers all their lives until they experience grief and loss. Something so unexpected that it changes their lives forever. And a sleep issue develops which persists.
These are a couple of common programs that bring residents from inner Melbourne to me for assistance in breaking the patterns that persist and robbing them of restful sleep. Hypnotherapy helps to identify the event that caused the interruption so the emotional connections to this event can be addressed and the person can go back to sleeping through the night and waking rested in the morning.
