Wholeness Healing Center

Hypnosis Isn’t Magic, But Perhaps a Close Second

Wow, life has been a struggle for many lately. Consistently. Constantly, and for some, pervasively. We have been living in the unknown for quite a few months now, just realizing that our view of “normal” is slowly giving way to something new. As a therapist, change is usually welcome, as the doorway to growth and healing. But getting there is made more difficult by some hurdles which need to be addressed.

I have been seeing more clients with increased anxiety, often experiencing disrupted sleep patterns. I believe that those two things go hand in hand. We have a sleepless night, rising with irritation, both with ourselves for not sleeping, and for the causes of not sleeping, often functioning in the brain stem part of our brain (fight, flight, or freeze). As we enter into our day, we find ourselves working extremely hard not to react to any stimuli, any irritation, any annoyance. The harder we try to respond as opposed to react, the more we become frustrated with ourselves that we actually have to work that hard to maintain our calm. That is the cycle. Sleepless night = higher frustration during the day, leading to increased anxiety. Then of course, throughout our day, our worry intensifies, perhaps even magnified by our lack of sleep and through our heightened awareness. We take that worry home. Increased anxiety = sleepless night. The cycle continues.

So enter hypnosis. Hypnosis is a tool to help “re-program” if you will, the scripts in your subconscious, to allow you opportunity to re-write those in a better way, to take greater control of that part of your brain. Since hypnosis is self-hypnosis, the client comes in ready to change; the tool is the script itself, tailored to the client’s needs. I usually address the anxiety, with some tools to manage that, plus a sleep segment, to guide the client back into accepting entrance into deeper, more productive sleep. I had had a fair amount of success with in-person sessions, and I continue to see that with telehealth. Typically clients  record on their phone, during the session, so they then have the focus and relaxation guidance to continue to listen to, adding another tool to aid clients in taking accountability for managing those symptoms.

What typically happens then is that the client begins listening to the recording at night, falling into a deeper, more productive sleep pattern. The next day, the client has less difficulty concentrating and experiences less reactivity, leading to a more productive day, both in managing emotions and in greater awareness. Add to that the tools in the part that addresses the anxiety (deep breathing, affirmation, anchor), the client is then able to manage the stressors throughout the day in a much more effective way.

As an advanced clinical hypnotherapist, training for the last 10+ years, the past 10 months have brought an increased awareness of how important it is to manage our reactivity, especially in a time where everything around us seems more uncertain. While I love doing the longer hypnotherapy regressions, the trauma work, I have also noticed that we all benefit from managing our anxiety, and if we can return to a more normal sleep pattern, we certainly increase our chances of that happening.

I have written several articles previously about hypnosis and hypnotherapy (see archives of our newsletter Wholeness Healing Today) available on our website. The success of the relaxation piece only has lately proven to me the value of clients taking charge of both the sleep and the reactivity, using tools to manage that, as well as having an enhanced awareness and ownership of accessing their own calm.

If you find yourself being triggered more by outside stimuli, with a disrupted sleep pattern, perhaps it is time to consider the approach of using hypnosis for some symptom management. Let us help you to step back into a greater sense of empowerment.

Tags: hypnosis and sleep, increased anxiety treated with hypnotherapy