Sleep Learning Hypnosis: Unlock Restful Sleep and Overcome Insomnia

Insomnia and sleep problems can significantly impact an individual's overall well-being. Factors like anxiety, trauma, intrusive thoughts, habits, caffeine, addiction, pain, and depression can contribute to these issues. Fortunately, hypnosis offers a promising method to address sleep difficulties and achieve the rest you need and deserve.

Understanding Hypnosis

Hypnosis is not sleep, even though the word “hypnosis” is historically derived from the Greek word for sleep (‘hypnos’). It became popular in the 1800s because participating in hypnosis sessions could appear similar to sleeping (e.g., eyes closed, reduced responsiveness to external stimulation, changes in breathing and heartbeat rates). Instead, hypnosis is a psychological tool that helps us bring our brains into optimal states for change-making. It is rooted in decades of clinical research and is a method that can be used for sleep problems and insomnia. Reveri, for example, is a clinically backed sleep app rooted in 45+ years of clinical research, pioneered by Dr. David Spiegel.

How Hypnosis Works for Sleep

The approach of hypnosis for sleep therapy helps you shift mental perspectives in a state of highly focused attention. Self-hypnosis is one of the best hypnosis options for improving sleep. It provides you with a tool kit in your back pocket to undergo personalized hypnosis sessions on your own time, in your own space. During your personalized hypnosis sessions, you enter a state of highly focused attention, concentrating on the things you are for and letting go of those you are against. As your perspective evolves, you can see old problems through a new lens, breaking deeply rooted habits that may be interfering with your sleep. As you break through deeply rooted habits or ways of thinking, you can unlock a whole new sense of freedom, thus being reunited with restful sleep.

The Benefits of Hypnosis for Sleep

Hypnosis can help you sleep better, thus overcoming insomnia. Regardless of the root cause of your insomnia, hypnosis is an effective method to help with insomnia as well as the sources that may be causing your insomnia.

Improved Sleep Quality: Hypnosis has been shown to significantly improve sleep quality.
Reduced Sleep Difficulties and Fatigue: It can reduce sleep difficulties, fatigue, and insomnia-related emotional distress.
Increased Deep Sleep: Hypnosis can also increase deep sleep.
Addressing Parasomnias: Hypnosis treatments for sleep have also been demonstrated to reduce symptoms of different parasomnias (sleep disorders characterized by unusual behaviors or perceptions around and during sleep).
Improved Cognition: Hypnosis can improve cognition in older adults.

Is Hypnosis Safe?

As people dive into hypnosis for the first time, many find themselves asking the same question: Is it safe? For my child, for my parents, and for me? Hypnosis was also deemed a very safe approach, as two studies that monitored both positive and negative outcomes found no adverse events in all 231 participants.

Read also: Addressing Sleep Disorders

Hypnosis vs. Medication and Supplements

About 1 in 12 adults take medication to help them sleep. Side effects such as feeling groggy, oversleeping, or concentration difficulties are reported by about 80% of people taking prescription sleep medicine. Over 50% of Americans have taken supplements or other substances to assist with sleep. Although supplements for sleep have become common in recent years, they are often unregulated and can have problematic side effects.

Hypnosis has been shown to be beneficial for reducing sleep-related symptoms but, perhaps more importantly, did it in a safer manner than psychoactive substances.

Self-Hypnosis: A Practical Approach

Self-hypnosis is a form of hypnotherapy treatment that is self-guided. To maximize results and ensure safety, it’s best to utilize the self-guided method with clinically proven tools such as the Reveri hypnosis app. Using personalized sessions like those in the Reveri hypnosis app, you enter a state of highly focused attention, concentrating on the things you are for and letting go of those you are against.

Personalized Hypnotherapy

With every session personalized to you, you can experience custom hypnotherapy sessions on your own time to unlock insomnia relief and more restful sleep. Patients can benefit from the flexibility of having a toolkit in their back pocket at all times. During self-hypnosis sessions personalized just for you, you can enter a state of highly focused attention, allowing you to concentrate on the things you are for and letting go of those you are against. As you shift your perspective one session at a time, you can experience results after each one.

The Reveri App: A Tool for Personalized Hypnosis

To maximize results and ensure safety, it’s best to utilize self-guided hypnosis with clinically proven tools such as the Reveri hypnosis app. Using the Reveri hypnosis app’s personalized sessions, you enter a state of highly focused attention, concentrating on the things you are for and letting go of those you are against.

Read also: 6 Hours of Sleep: Is It Enough?

Real-World Results

Over half a million users and counting are learning the power of personalized hypnotherapy for insomnia with 90% feeling more rested after just one Reveri session. After my first session of "sleep through the night", I didn't wake for 5 hours after falling asleep. It's amazing. The recordings help me fall asleep or reduce stress in about 10 minutes. This is like super powers for the mind.

Addressing Anxiety and Promoting Relaxation with Hypnosis Scripts

Given the prevalence of anxiety, hypnosis scripts can be valuable tools for promoting relaxation and reducing stress. These scripts often guide clients into a deep state of relaxation, helping them connect with the present moment and cultivate inner peace.

Sample Hypnosis Script Techniques:

The Mental Blackboard Method: The client is guided into a deep state of relaxation and asked to imagine a safe, comfortable space. Within this space, they visualize a blackboard - a mental blackboard - with the word “anxiety” written on it. Using a mental eraser, they physically erase the word, watching the chalk dust dissipate as the word vanishes.
Safe Space Visualization: This space becomes a sanctuary, free from the noise of the mind, and a resource they can return to in everyday life.
Releasing Societal Labels: This script is a fab way for you to help your clients ditch those pesky societal labels that can really hold them back. It gently guides them in hypnosis to visualise and let go of those limiting descriptions, helping them tap into their true, awesome selves underneath.
Mindfulness and Present Moment Awareness: This hypnosis script is designed to guide clients into a deep state of relaxation, helping them connect with the present moment and savour its simplicity and beauty.
Metaphorical Journeys: When the Mist Lifts: Discovering Your Spacious Mind. This hypnotherapy script uses the metaphor of a mist-filled forest to help clients gently release pervasive feelings of worry and anxiety.
Guided Imagery: This script uses guided imagery and relaxation techniques to help them drift off effortlessly and wake up feeling refreshed and revitalised.

A Simple Self-Hypnosis Method for Relaxation

When I was a hypnotherapist I often used to ask my clients how they relaxed. This is one of the simplest self-hypnosis methods that I used to show them, and probably one of the simplest and easiest anywhere.

There are at least three ways you can use this. If you are a coach or therapist, you can use this to help your clients relax, and teach it to them as a relaxation method. If you are a trainer of NLP, or anything else where relaxation is a useful aid to learning, you can use this as a lead-in to guided visualisations or just as a light relaxation method (e.g. for reviewing material at the end of the training day).

And it’s almost time to begin to come back now… and just before you do… remember that next time you choose to relax in this way… you can relax more quickly… more easily… more deeply… each time you choose to relax in this way… so now… bringing everything that you’ve liked about this back with you… just begin to come back to full waking consciousness… as your energy levels rise… you feel more alert… starting to move and stretch a little… and open your eyes, feeling refreshed, alert and fully awake, as if you’ve just had a deep, refreshing sleep.

Read also: Inside "Sleep No More"

Important Considerations

Because everyone’s hypnotizability - or ability to realize changes via hypnosis - is different, a question we answer is: What is the science of hypnotizability? One of the top questions people have when exploring the world of hypnosis is whether it can help them overcome their sleep challenges.

Conclusion

Hypnosis offers an effective and safe way to reduce sleep symptoms, improve sleep quality, and address underlying issues contributing to insomnia. Whether through personalized hypnotherapy sessions or self-guided techniques, hypnosis can be a valuable tool in achieving restful sleep and overall well-being. Although Dr. Spiegel’s team mentioned this in a previous article, we at Reveri are acting on the basis of the statement we made in The American Journal of Medicine [14] about the superiority of hypnosis: “if hypnosis were a drug, it would be standard of care,” and should be used “particularly when it outperforms the current standard of care by safety and efficacy, as in the case of opioids and sedatives.” Hypnosis is not sleep, but you can indeed sleep on it.

References

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Grégoire, C. et al. Randomized, Controlled Trial of an Intervention Combining Self-Care and Self-Hypnosis on Fatigue, Sleep, and Emotional Distress in Posttreatment Cancer Patients: 1-Year Follow-Up. Int. J. Clin. Exp. Hypn. 70, 136-155 (2022).
Cordi, M. J., Rossier, L. & Rasch, B. Hypnotic Suggestions Given Before Nighttime Sleep Extend Slow-Wave Sleep as Compared to a Control Text in Highly Hypnotizable Subjects. Int. J. Clin. Exp. Hypn. 68, 105-129 (2020).
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Cordi, M. J., Hirsiger, S., Mérillat, S. & Rasch, B. Improving sleep and cognition by hypnotic suggestion in the elderly. Neuropsychologia 69, 176-182 (2015).
CDC. Percentage of Adults Aged ≥18 Years Who Took Medication To Help Fall or Stay Asleep Four or More Times in the Past Week, by Sex and Age Group - National Health Interview Survey, United States, 2017-2018.
Vietri, J. Residual Effects of Sleep Medications Are Commonly Reported and Associated with Impaired Patient-Reported Outcomes among Insomnia Patients in the United States. Sleep Disord. 2015, 607148 (2015).
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Kittle, J. & Spiegel, D. Hypnosis: The Most Effective Treatment You Have Yet to Prescribe. Am. J. Med. 134, 304-305 (2021).

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