Sleep – simply essential 

Troubled sleeping patterns deprive millions of people from much needed uninterrupted sleep. Most crippling has to be that nothing specifically is stopping them from sleeping. Maybe this is your experience – you have a comfy bed, no distractions, you’re the correct temperature, you don’t feel exceptionally stressed, but something just won’t let you rest. If you know you need help for insomnia, hypnotherapy could be the way for you to finally get some sleep.

So what is insomnia?  Insomnia is essentially failing to get adequate or any sleep when we have ample opportunity to do so. It’s where we haven’t had the chance to rest, leaving us tired and lacking energy.

Signs of insomnia can be: difficulty going to sleep, problems sleeping at all, waking up early in the morning, waking up throughout the night, problems getting back to sleep, disturbed or stressed sleep, finding daily functioning difficult because of tiredness, mood swings and low concentration in the day because of lack of sleep.

The reason people have sleeping problems is typically very simple. Major reasons for the condition are anxiety and worry.  You might be well aware of thoughts racing through your mind, with all the day’s problems spinning around, as you go to bed for the night.  What you might be less aware of is what can be going on in your unconscious mind, which is equally unsettling and a barrier to restful sleep.  If you’re exposed to stress and anxiety over long periods, it can have a profound effect.  A lot of people begin getting anxiety attacks part way through the night, with no knowledge of what they are experiencing – only that they’re suffering from disturbed sleep. In some cases, anxious feelings can hit you without you realising what’s causing them.  People often just absorb the stresses around them without understanding how that it affects them on an unconscious level.

How to overcome sleep problems

Because insomnia has root causes at both conscious and unconscious levels, you have to deal with it at both levels.  Although conscious mind calming techniques can help (such as talking to someone before bed or mindfulness exercises) they only address the conscious part of the mind. This means that problems may continue in spite of all your efforts, because you’re not taking care of what’s going on in your unconscious mind.

With hypnotherapy for lack of sleep, you can target the underlying causes that lie hidden in your unconscious.  Hypnosis helps you to replace anxiety and stress with deeply calming thoughts.  There are a number of powerful sleep-inducing techniques I teach my clients, which help to relax the conscious mind.  By including them in hypnosis, it also means that they go deep into the unconscious mind too. What’s more, because hypnosis is so relaxing in itself, you can begin to get your body and mind back to being accustomed to rest and calm.  Hypnotherapy gets both the conscious and unconscious mind focused on the same goal of restoring your natural ability to go to sleep and stay asleep, giving you all the rest you need.

Want to find out more about how hypnotherapy could help your sleep problems?  Please contact me to book a free 30-minute consultation on 0208 546 2122 or anne@transforming-health.co.uk

The post Can’t sleep? How hypnotherapy can help insomnia appeared first on Transforming Health.

According to a survey by the Medical Health Foundation, a third of us suffer from sleep deprivation and insomnia.  It’s estimated that the NHS spends £15 million on insomnia, although many people don’t do anything about their sleep problems – they just try to get on with their lives.

The link between insomnia and obesity & diabetes

The BBC1 programme highlighted why it’s so important to get help for sleep problems.  Research has revealed that 50% of people who sleep less than 5 hours a night are obese and that there’s a link between insomnia and diabetes.  Researchers put this down to the effect of insomnia on the hormones that control hunger and appetite.  If you’re not getting an average of 7 to 8 hours sleep most nights, you’re more likely to feel hungry and less likely to feel full when you eat.  You’re more likely to get sugar cravings and because your glucose levels are higher, you’re at higher risk of diabetes.  One person featured on the programme said he ate 10 custard creams for breakfast!

The research also pointed to the bad effect that insomnia can have on your gut bacteria.  The millions of good bacteria in your gut that help you absorb nutrients from food and protect you against infections, get upset when you don’t sleep well.  When you’re sleep deprived, the bacteria extract more energy from your food, leading to more weight gain.

What’s more, a lack of sleep puts stress on the body, leading to the release of the stress hormone cortisol.  If you’ve got cortisol running round your body all the time, it’s very bad news if you’re trying to lose weight.  Cortisol encourages the body to store fat.

So what can you do to help insomnia and sleep problems?

The programme highlighted several important things to help get better sleep, as well as the well-known advice of avoiding caffeine well before bedtime:

1. Switch off phones, laptops, the TV and other screens at least 1 hour before bed.  The light from screens interferes with your body clock.
2. Keep your bedroom cool – about 17°C.
3. Avoid alcohol.  It might help you get to sleep, but it interferes with your sleep later in the night.
4. Eat a dinner rich in fibre.  Michael Mosley, the programme presenter, tried out dietary fibre in a prebiotic and reckoned it improved his sleep.  He also recommended getting more dietary fibre from foods such as lentils, chick peas, lima & butter beans and hummus.

One participant in the programme tried eating 2 kiwi fruit 1 hour before bed and gave it 7/10 for improving his sleep.

Other recommendations for getting a good night’s sleep

The kiwi fruit was a new one on me.  Among the recommendations I give to my clients on how to get a better night’s sleep, here are a couple that have been shown to work really well:

1.  Relaxation exercises – help prepare your body for sleep with relaxation before bedtime.  Some simple breathing and muscle relaxation exercises and visualisations of peaceful scenes can be very effective.  I always give clients my relaxation CD/mp3s to listen to.
2. Mindfulness – mindfulness exercises are great for calming a busy mind in preparation for sleep. I have a mindfulness CD/mp3s that I make available for clients.

Top tip for when you can’t sleep

Finally, why not try this top technique to help your sleep problems?  When you want to go to sleep, get your brain into dreaming mode by thinking in the same way as you do when you dream.  Dreams are full of flashes of often bizarre pictures and experiences, for example, seeing people from different parts of your life somewhere that they would never normally be.  Let your imagination run riot like it does when you dream – blue penguins with pink wigs sailing down your street; old school friends and the cast of your favourite TV programme having a picnic on the beach in period costume; the best memories from different holidays all jumbled together in the place you grew up – whatever takes your fancy!

Hypnotherapy to help overcome insomnia and sleep problems

As well as all these great techniques and more, hypnosis can be really effective in helping you sleep better.  Hypnosis gets your mind  into sleep mode and is a quick and easy way of retraining your mind and body to get into better sleep patterns.

Contact me for a free 45-minute consultation on how to get better sleep – e-mail anne@transforming-health.co.uk or ‘phone 0208 546 2122.

The post The serious effect on health of sleep problems – new research appeared first on Transforming Health.

There’s a reason that so many people are finding lockdown difficult and challenging.  Many reasons, you might think, but I’d suggest one very major, significant and fundamental reason.  In fact, it’s the same reason that many people struggle with their physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing in more normal times.

Before lockdown, the main issues that I was seeing clients for were anxiety and stress, particularly stress-related conditions of insomnia and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  What these clients had in common was feeling low and unwell, weighed down by worries, lacking energy and with all kinds of negative thoughts racing round their heads.  The first thing that I invariably cover with my clients to help them feel better, calmer and more positive is this very major, significant and fundamental reason that their wellbeing is suffering.  This reason is affecting more people during lockdown and is having such a massive impact on health and wellbeing.

I will cover this reason in several parts, because it will take more than one blog post to cover it all.

There is an approach to psychology called Human Givens, developed by psychologist Joe Griffin and psychotherapist Ivan Tyrrell.  In their years of research and helping clients with mental health issues and addiction, they developed a model of therapy designed to help people meet a range of fundamental physical, psychological and emotional needs that were essential to health and wellbeing.  They found that, when clients were better able to meet these needs that were lacking in their life, depression lifted, anxiety and stress were reduced and addictions could be overcome.

Why are so many people struggling during lockdown?

People struggle when they are not adequately meeting their ‘human givens’ needs and that’s the case now, during lockdown, even more than before.

I use the Human Givens approach with most of my clients, usually very early on in sessions.  I go through the different ‘human givens’ needs with them as the fundamentals of self-care and ask them to do an audit of how well those needs are currently being met in their life.  If they have any low scores on the audit, we discuss how they can better meet those particular needs.  Sometimes some simple, straightforward and practical changes can make a big difference to their overall sense of wellbeing.

When you find out what the ‘human givens’ are, I’m sure none of them will be a surprise.  What is surprising, is perhaps how much we take them for granted or even ignore them.  When you see what the ‘human givens’ are, you might have a clearer understanding of why so many people are finding lockdown really tough and why, in modern times, levels of stress, anxiety and depression are so high.  Lockdown and modern lifestyles make it more difficult for us to meet these fundamental human needs.

I will cover the ‘human givens’ in several parts, starting with the physical needs.  Look out for further blog posts for the rest.

Physical ‘human givens’

It won’t be any huge revelation when I tell you that the main physical ‘human givens’ are food, water, sleep and exercise.  It’s obvious that if your needs for those aren’t met, your physical and mental health will suffer.

Just a few thoughts on how best to meet those needs and on meeting them during lockdown:

Food – The importance of a healthy, balanced diet, with the right vitamins and minerals, can’t be underestimated.  Unfortunately, the current predominance of processed foods and snacks high in sugar and salt in Western diets doesn’t help provide the nutrition we need.  I’m not an expert in nutrition, but I do encourage my clients to consider how they could eat more healthily.

Watching what you eat during lockdown is even more important.  The temptation to snack may well be greater and it isn’t as easy to work off those extra calories if you’re stuck at home all the time.  It’s not just the dangers of putting on weight and the health problems that that can cause, though.  There’s increasing research evidence to show that what you eat affects not only your physical health, but your mental health too.  Recent studies point to the effect that gut bacteria can have on mood, even to the extent of being linked to depression and anxiety.  A healthy, well balanced diet will make sure your gut bacteria contribute to good physical and mental health, rather than mess it up.

So it’s even more important during lockdown to eat as healthily as possible – plenty of fruit and vegetables, of course, and reducing your sugar intake.  Keep your blood sugar level stable by avoiding sugary foods and drinks and white, refined carbohydrates like white bread, pasta and rice.  That will help to prevent energy dips and tiredness.  Caffeine and alcohol cause stress on the body, so they’re ones to avoid as well.  If you’re stressed or anxious, the last thing you want to do is rev up your nervous system even more with caffeine in any form.

Water – Water is an even greater need than food.  We can survive without food much longer than we can survive without water.  Fortunately, this is perhaps one of the easiest needs to meet during lockdown. Nearly two-thirds of the body is water, so constant hydration is vital at any time.  Among other things, it helps to keep skin and hair healthy and to control body temperature and blood pressure.  Signs of dehydration include lack of energy, irritability and confusion, so just like food, water has an effect on both our physical and mental health.

Recommended daily water intake is usually given as 2 litres for men and 1.6 litres for women, or 6 to 8 glasses.  Of course, you may need to drink more, if it’s hot or you’re exercising a lot and losing water from your body by sweating.  Your recommended daily water intake can include tea and coffee, although as already mentioned, it’s best to avoid caffeinated varieties if you’re stressed or anxious, and caffeine in large quantities is dehydrating.  Another culprit for dehydration is alcohol.  The body draws on its water reserves to flush alcohol out of the system – a further reason for reducing your alcohol consumption.

Sleep – We all know that a good night’s sleep is essential for physical and mental wellbeing.  In sleep the body repairs itself, the mind processes experiences of the day and recent findings suggest that toxins that build up in the brain while we’re awake are removed.  8 hours of sleep a night was always put forward as the average amount of sleep we should all be aiming for.  More recently it’s been recognised that everyone is different, some people need more sleep than others, and that actually 7 hours of sleep a night is a good average.

Get my top tips for dealing with sleep problems and how to get a good night’s sleep

During lockdown, I’ve seen a lot of comments about people sleeping badly for different reasons.  Stress and anxiety are clearly having an impact, as well as the disruption to normal daily routines.  I have a handout which I give to clients about some of the practical things they can do to help have a good night’s sleep.  If you’d like me to send this to you, please e-mail me at anne@transforming-health.co.uk.  One tip is to make sure that you go to bed and get up at the same times every day.  This keeps your body and mind in a good sleep habit.

If a racing mind is stopping you falling asleep or keeping you awake in the middle of the night, being able to relax both your body and your mind is key to getting you to sleep.  Switch off screens at least 30 minutes or even an hour before you want to get to sleep, because the blue light from phones, laptops and other electronic devices interferes with the release of the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin.  Use relaxation techniques, such as visualisations, progressive muscle relaxation and breathing, or mindfulness and meditation to help calm the body and the mind and get them in the right state to drift off to sleep easily.  Counting sheep is actually quite a good thing to do, as it can be a way of focusing the mind away from anxious thoughts and worries.

Insomnia is one of the issues I specialise in.  Please do contact me if you’re having problems sleeping and would like help to get a refreshing night’s sleep.

Exercise – The Government obviously recognised the importance of exercise for physical and mental health when setting out the lawful reasons for leaving home during lockdown.  Whilst it’s perfectly possible to exercise indoors in a small space,  being outdoors in the fresh air adds an extra dimension to wellbeing.  The Japanese have recognised for decades the positive effect that walking in woods or shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, has on lowering blood pressure and decreasing stress hormones.  There’s something about trees that’s calming, so even if you can’t get out for a walk in woods, walking in a park or down a tree-lined street can help lift the spirits.

Whether you exercise outdoors or indoors, it’s so important to maintain a regular exercise routine to keep the body functioning well.  Exercise releases endorphins, the ‘feel good’ hormones, so it’s one of the best things you can do to combat low mood, as well as deal with stress and anxiety.

NHS guidelines are that adults aged 19 to 64 should be active daily, break up periods of sitting with light activity, and do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity every week and strength exercises that work all the major muscle groups on two or more days a week.  However, if you’re not used to exercising regularly, start gently, build up your activity gradually and check with your GP before doing any strenuous exercise.  Also, be aware that exercising too vigorously for extended periods of time causes stress on the body.  Most of all, find exercise that you enjoy doing, whether that’s working out with Joe Wicks, cycling round your local roads or dancing round your sitting room.  That way, you’re more likely keep up a regular exercise habit.

How to survive and thrive in lockdown?  To sum up: make sure you’re meeting the physical ‘human givens’ needs:

• Eat for health and nutrition – carrots not cakes, cucumber not crisps.
• Drink plenty of water and cut down on alcohol and caffeine.
• Use relaxation techniques to help get 7 hours’ sleep a night.
• Work those muscles!  And exercise outdoors near trees.

I’ll cover the rest of the ‘human givens’ needs in later blog posts, talking about the all-important psychological and emotional needs that we neglect at our peril.  I’ll also give you details of how you can access my self-care audit in later posts.  Look out for these, coming soon.

In the mean time, I’m offering special ‘Uplift During Lockdown’ sessions to help with the following:

– unhealthy snacking and overeating

– sleep problems

– motivation to exercise

Contact me to book a free 30-minute phone consultation to get some top tips on what to do and how hypnotherapy can help – phone 0208 546 2122 or e-mail anne@transforming-health.co.uk.

The post How to Survive and Thrive During Lockdown – Part 1 appeared first on Transforming Health.