Why a tired body can have a tired mind that keeps you awake, what the research says, and something to try tonight.

You are exhausted all day and then working on depleted resources exhausted by the day itself. Perhaps you kept all the tabs open and switched successfully between them but it doesn't feel like success. Perhaps you let things drop and now at the end of the day they are growing in importance and nagging at you to close the loops.

Perhaps you do manage to sleep, but like clockwork you wake at 3am with a mind that could do complex calculation even though your body is still filled with sleep. Instead you use your math to count how many hours left before your alarm goes off.

When this happens repeatedly, the bed can seem to become a place of challenge and battle - and the harder you try, the more angry and frustrated you become and sleep becomes a distant waking dream.

This is not a character flaw. You haven't broken the sleep toggle. It's a habitual feedback loop between a nervous system that has forgotten to hand itself over to sleep, and a body that jumps on board with the high stakes presented by your thoughts.

Sleep doesn't respond to force. Just like you can't tickle yourself - it's a natural physical occurrence. Your body can be left alone to do its thing only if stress is not prodding it to do the opposite. The sympathetic nervous system kicks off, raises alertness, quickens your heart, and keeps your focus on what your mind fears and projects as important. Sometimes this can be a recurring thought of an unsent email or a social faux pas. Sometimes it generalised as if it is a soup of thoughts that will not let you go.

Mindbody circuits that get repeated create stronger loops. The fact that you have a loop - that your mind and body are actually listening to each other - is actually good news. It's the same mechanism that will allow you to re-learn how to let yourself sleep - where bed becomes associated with enjoyable sleep and not lying awake.

There are two principal areas where hypnosis can help. The first is lowering the night time arousal, and replacing old automatic patterns of thought and behavior with new ones that allows your nervous system to step down. The second works in parallel, changing the relationship with bed and sleep itself.

Note that this blog is for educational purposes only and not as a replacement for clinical treatment. Poor sleep can have medical causes, so talk to your doctor. I work alongside medical care, not instead of it.

If you snore loudly, wake gasping, or feel very sleepy in the day even after enough hours of sleep, see a doctor first. Those can be signs of a sleep disorder worthy of medical care. And if you're taking sleep medication, don't change anything without talking to your doctor first.

You cannot make yourself sleep and stress begets stress. In this exercise we begin to hand over to the body and trust that it knows what to do when you give it the opportunity.

In sessions we work on making these processes and the kind and self caring perspectives and attitudes that underpin them automatic until you return to an ability that was always yours and doesn't require effort.

After a free initial consultation, I send you a written treatment plan with the suggestions I think you need to deeply hear to reach the goal we agree on.

Online or in-person - both work well - I guide you into a comfortable relaxed state. From there I use my experience and training to help your system learn to return to handing over to the natural processes of your body at night.

You will also get recordings of the sessions designed to be used in bed, and free access to my self hypnosis app, with the training you need to keep using it on your own - eventually for all sort of things!

There comes a point when you stop hoping the night will be better and you feel stuck. If you are there and you have spoken to your doctor, book a free 30-minute video call with me by clicking the button below.

We will talk through what is keeping you awake, whether this is the right approach for you, and I am the right person to work with. There is no pressure either way.

Pascal Langlois, NGH and MMHA certified consultant hypnotist. Advocate for human first practical hypnosis to improve mind-body communication to feel better, work better and live better.

Sources

• Lam TH, Chung KF, Yeung WF, et al. Hypnotherapy for insomnia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Complementary Therapies in Medicine. 2015;23(5):719-732.

• Chamine I, Atchley R, Oken BS. Hypnosis intervention effects on sleep outcomes: a systematic review. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. 2018;14(2):271-283.