Podcast 08: Sleep deep naturally
Amanda Wright podcast. This is your special time. You’re listening to the official podcast of Amanda Wright. This is your special time. sharing suggestions and insight for your happier, healthier, inspired life. I’m coming to you today from Perth in beautiful sunny Western Australia. Nobody wants anything from you right now, so tuning and enjoy this episode. You’ll find me on www.hypnogenie.com.au and on all the podcast channels. Hypnogenie is spelled H-Y-P-N-O-G-E-N-I-E. Amanda Wright podcast.
Hello and welcome to another special edition of this is your special time with hypnotherapist Amanda Wright. I’m Richard Sinclair your host for this evening and we’re lucky to have with us tonight renowned hypnotherapist Amanda Wright.
Amanda, good evening. Hello Richard, good to speak to you about this very intriguing subject. And our subject tonight is hypnotherapy and sleep and we’re talking to Amanda about her innovative sleep deep naturally program and tonight’s episode is sleep, the undervalued commodity.
Amanda, in your hypnotherapy practice, do you get people coming to see you with sleep issues? Yes, Richard. People come to me for all sorts of matters related to sleep. Sometimes it’s directly about sleep and other times it’s a by-product of some other situations that they come to see me for like weight loss or not being able to wear their CPAP machine or maybe they have an illness. But people also come directly to see me because they can’t sleep or they go to sleep and stay awake at night. There’s many variations on the theme and it certainly is a huge problem not just in western societies but throughout the world.
Can you give us a quick illustration of someone who has been to see you recently with a sleep related problem? It’s quite common that people come to see me when they have something particular that’s going on in their life, something that’s changed, a change in life circumstances or events. Perhaps break up in a relationship.
Peoples sleep, patterns and habits can get all out of whack. often people who own their own businesses or have high pressure jobs get overwhelmed with their work. Some women seem to struggle with sleep during menopause, but there I have quite a number of people who come to see me for sleep issues. Some people wake up in the night and can’t get back to sleep whereas others find it hard to get to sleep in the first instance.
Sleep, sleeplessness or restless sleep is something that everybody can relate to. Amanda, with your background, can you tell us, why do we need to sleep? Well Richard, it’s essential for good health. That’s the number one thing. There are so many things that happen during our different cycles of sleep. Our mind recharges and processes all of our waking experiences, thoughts and feelings during the sleep state. The brain allows the neurotransmitters to rest and regain sensitivity, which is why this cycle of sleep is so critically important. Our body also repairs itself and performs the essential biological functions of our digestion and all other functions during our sleep state and they change the way they work between sleep and waking state. And we know that sleep is so essential that prolonged sleep deprivation can cause ill health and it was used in some instances as a torture. – Well, we can certainly see that sleep is very important.
Just how much sleep do we need? Well, this really varies from person to person. There’s no exact number. But for many years, seven to eight hours is considered the average amount of sleep for an adult. It can change from person to person depending on the kind of work they do, the way their body responds.
But what’s most important is that after sleep, people feel refreshed and wide awake and so that they can be strong, vital and alive throughout the day, the entire day. And that’s a good measure of ensuring that you’ve had enough sleep. Fascinating, Amanda. Thank you for that.
What benefits do we get from having this uninterrupted of sleep? Well, people say that it improves our mood. The science shows us this improves our brain function, boosts our immunity. Believe it or not, we even burn calories and keep the weight off. There’s studies that have shown that sleeping really helps us to keep our weight manageable and under control. There’s all sorts of things that relate to our healthy awake state and our body being able to function and our brain being able to function alertly with less pain and better body function. So so many benefits for health.
So clearly getting enough sleep is very important. If we can’t, what are the risks of not enough sleep? Well there are so many problems that we don’t have enough sleep. There are things that can impact upon our health like weight gain, diabetes, increased inflammation. We also increase our risk of accidents and incidents. It’s always been one of the things that are asked during health and safety investigations how much sleep people have had and are they sleep deprived.
Blood pressure, risk and risk of stroke, they all increase if we haven’t had enough sleep. Also then memory, cognitive function is impaired and memory recall, focus and problem-solving. All of those things can be affected by sleep. Additionally, productivity and creativity is pretty flat when we don’t have enough sleep and coordination of our body is also impaired.
There are lots and and lots of things that can be impacted when we don’t have enough sleep. Which is why it’s my passion to help people to sleep better because sleep is an undervalued commodity. – Thank you for that Amanda. Obviously sleep is far more important than most of us realize.
With the people that you see, do you think that sleeplessness is a common issue in today’s society? sure. Yeah, in high-paced Western societies, in the urban environment, we don’t take much note any longer of the rhythm of life as people would describe it. The seasons and sleep is also related to many cycles and seasons. So in the high-paced urban environment, those things aren’t taken much into consideration. Most people work too much. Lots of people spend lots of time in front of screens with that blue light and there’s a lot of research now that says this can also be impacting our sleep. There’s not much downtime or relaxation time. There’s a lot of social media interaction these days all sorts of things calling our attention to pay attention and they happen all the time throughout our busy day. Shift work is another thing lots of people are on call or working FIFO these kinds of things can also impact our sleep patterns getting up early to catch those planes and starting work early in different parts of the world. Caffeine and the food we eat can also have an impact. Eating too late, people realise now there’s a lot of research around saying that it’s best not to eat too late before you go to bed because that can wake you at different times in the night. And there are also quite a few other things that can impact our sleep, like allergies, as I said, being overweight and many other medical issues.
As our body is trying to rest and recuperate, sometimes they keep us awake at night or wake us up during the night. And it’s more difficult to return to sleep once that sleep pattern is disrupted.
What are the causes that you found that contribute to people’s sleeplessness? Oh, there’s so many of these, Richard. But some of the common ones really are people who have medical issues or people who are stressed and anxious about things or overwhelmed. Many of these people have bouts of sleeplessness or restless sleep or waking sleep, being overweight often wakes people up in the night. Finding out something that we want to wear off, getting some bad news or somebody that we’re concerned about, that’s also a thing that can make us sleepless at night. Thanks for that Amanda.
So people not getting enough sleep is obviously a problem. You also are dealing with people who have trouble falling to sleep or people who wake up and can’t get back to sleep is those sort of some of the things that you are seeing as well. Yes, yes Richard, that’s right. There’s many, many sleep disorders. Sometimes it’s about falling asleep sometimes it’s about daytime fatigue that people come and see me. Difficulty, the functioning properly, waking up groggy and tired. Some people are having you know hot flushes in the night or more intense dreams, waking up several times in the night or having to get up to go to the bathroom. All those kinds of things can impact people. Sleep apnea, some people talk in their sleep, some people walk in their sleep and some people have conditions like narcolepsy or insomnia.
There are so many things that can impact our sleep and what I work with with people is breaking the cycle of dread, the cycle of dread. And that’s really one of those self perpetuating kind of situations that happen to people. People are weary and then the wiriness stimulates the fight and flight mode in people.
They’re fatigue, so they’re sympathetic nervous system, delivers that mix of adrenaline and cortisol and then they spend while they’re not spending their time fleeing over time their body adjusts and the alarm state stays on and it becomes the normal state. And then the fight and flight chemistry prompts that vigilance and the subconscious mind is continually checking to see if somebody is safe in this state.
This is part of the cycle of dread, Richard. Would you like to know more? Yes, Amanda, that sounds impressively worrying for a lot of people. What more can you tell us about this cycle?
Richard, it’s like the body becomes hyper-vigilant and it becomes habitual for it to be checking whether it’s safe or not as those body chemistries change, those stress chemistry in the body changes. And then the vigilance fosters increased sensitivity.
And so every facet of life becomes doused in the chemistry of fear and frustration, moving trying to get to sleep, wriggling around in the bed, perhaps waking your partner, making all sorts of challenging thoughts in your mind and everything seems to increase with sensitivity as the vigilance becomes greater. And then with the increased sensitivity, this leads to more wakefulness. And then the body follows and the reactions stimulate more distress and more wakefulness and then more tension in the body, more upset and more fatigue. And that perpetuates that propeller, that cycle of dread. to move beyond this, it’s really important to seek some change and break that cycle of dread. That’s the work I do with most people who have sleep issues. That’s an amazing Amanda well thanks for that.
Obviously a very serious problem for some people. A simple issue like sleep. But of a feeling that you’re going to tell us about some of the solutions that you offer with your hypnotherapy practice.
So how can hypnotherapy help people who have those very worrying sleep conditions? Well I always work along with the person’s general practitioner. There are some things that need to be checked out so that we can eliminate them as conditions that impact on sleep.
So along with that general advice I work with my clients, with hypnotherapy sessions and we have natural drug-free methods using the power of the subconscious mind to connect to that mind and body and break the cycle of dread from happening so learning to retrain the brain and body to work together in a rhythm and enter a peaceful state of relaxation to create a good night’s sleep within expectancy that rest we lower the bar so that rest is a very good starting point for people who’ve had sleep problems for a long time. Those are some of the things we do.
I can work with children, I work with teenagers, sometimes children who are studying for exams are struggling to get enough sleep because they’re anxious about the exams and that then perpetuates that cycle of not sleeping well and not being able to concentrate. Also, I do a lot of work to help people to relax and learn to relax. I work when I work with children, I work with appearance as well so that they all know and understand and it goes way beyond what we often hear about asleep hygiene. This is about training the body and mind to work together to reach that more relaxed state.
I also teach self hypnosis so people can get themselves back to sleep during the night. I provide, once I know the client, if I’ve worked with them for some time, I provide them with recordings that they can listen to in the evening and they developed especially for that person and their particular condition. So it might be like keeping the sleep apnoea mask on if that’s what they need to have. And I can work with general practitioners to support their clients to learn these new behaviours.
So entering that state of relaxation it sounds like hypnosis and sleep have a lot in common That’s right. Have you done the research, Richard? Do you know what the Greek word for sleep is? No, I don’t Amanda . Tell us all about that. The Greek word for sleep is hypnos. So you can see why people often think that hypnosis is all about people sleeping. It is a slightly different state, but the process of entering hypnosis is the same type of process as you get when you’re starting to fall off to sleep, which is why this works so naturally and easily.
Turning off distractions and allowing that natural state of concentrated gentle attention and deep relaxation. That’s how the process works. That’s wonderful Amanda.
If people come to see you with their sleep conditions, how many sessions would they expect? Well it’s hard to know Richard and let’s you know all the facts about the reasons that sit behind people’s sleep condition.
But one session gets the process started and I begin to learn and understand the story and always like to provide some support to people so that they can start to understand better and self-manage. But normally it’s only three or four sessions, for reinforcement. So generally I ask people to come and see me for three or four sessions and then depending upon results, It just depends on how much impact the sleep has had and how long it’s being there.
But even people who’ve had long-term sleep issues, once the core issues are learned and understood, change happens very rapidly. It’s quite amazing and unique to see the differences. – That’s so good news, Amanda, and I’m sure that would be most encouraging for people who have sometimes been in therapy for years.
But what about after the session, what else can you offer? – Well, Richard, I’m always here to support people. But essentially, I like my clients to be able to self-regulate and self-manage. I’d like to think that they had the skills to be able to do many things on their own.
I offer sleep strategies. I provide relaxation sessions. And I often give people self-hypnosis recordings so that they can learn to hypnotize themselves. and that’s a very, very worthwhile situation or if they have a particular issue they still need to deal with, I can record them something that is unique for them to listen to. So that’s a personalised recording. – That’s wonderful and that sounds very valuable.
But what other advice could you give people who suffer from sleeplessness? – Well, there are many things that can be tried. One of my favorites is to say to people that your bed should not be a battleground. So if night after night you’re just tossing and turning, flipping pillows that starts to buy into the cycle of dread where you’re not sleeping and you’re getting more and more frustrated.
So sometimes it’s about lowering the bar and learning that resting is a very good start and feeling that calm, rested, relaxed state is much better than using your body, your bedtime rather as a battleground.
Limiting screen time can be helpful throughout the day, but at least an hour or an hour and a half before bed.
Listen to some uplifting music or podcasts
Ensuring that your bedroom is the place where you sleep and rest and relax and not taking work to bed and doing all of those kinds of things becoming aware of the things that make you feel calm and relaxed.
Creating and enjoying a routine where you start to wind down really giving that sleep as a habit because that’s the best way to do these things.
For me one of the things that I love to do that relates to my yoga is, progressive muscle relaxation, Yoga Nidra feeling that all the parts of my body are relaxing and calming down
Soothing in a long bath that’s just so wonderful or even a shower. So in the hot weather, it’s as much about having cooling down and then in this more wintery weather it’s about feeling really cozy and snuggled up.
Some people like to have a particular scent that allows them to sleep more easily. .And these are all the things that we talk about and set up to ensure that people can support themselves in creating better sleep. In the sleep deep naturally program we cover off on a lot of these things but they’re all rather personalised to people and sometimes there’ll be an underlying cause that requires a bit of extra attention and therapy.
Once that’s identified people find that their levels of stress and anxiety can decrease significantly and I often I suppose each week I would have somebody like that coming to see me these days and it makes a significant difference to their life they feel much more free, calm and relaxed.
Very valuable advice Amanda and I’m sure that would be greatly appreciated by many of our listeners even if they’re not suffering from seriously So how do people get in touch with you to start inquiring about the sleep deep naturally program?
Well Richard there’s some information on my website at www.hypnogenie.com.au so that’s a good place to have a look in the first instance but probably it’s best to send me an email or give me a call.
Because everybody is individual and it really depends what it is they’re seeking, whether it’s a medical condition, whether it’s something that’s transitory or ongoing. These are all things that will make a difference. However generally I will say, I see people for four sessions and then perhaps sometimes ongoing into the future. So people find this to be a very useful program, very helpful and again with that capacity to self-regulate and learn new lessons for the future that can be useful forever because sleeping is just so critically important. And what’s that no-one number, Amanda, for people to call and discuss their individual requirements? Oh, the number is 0, 4, 0, 0, 5, 1, 7, 4, 7, 0. Amanda Wright, Master, clinical hypnotherapist.
Well, thanks for your time today. Amanda, that’s been absolutely fascinating. I’m sure many people would be deeply interested to know that the very common condition of sleep can be firstly a problem. problem and secondly that hypnotherapy has some extremely effective solutions to any sleep issues. Thank you for joining us today.
This is Richard Sinclair and Amanda Wright hypnotherapy podcast series. This is your special time. Thanks Amanda. Thank you Richard. Thank you all for listening. Amanda Wright podcast. This is your special time.
Thanks for listening to this official podcast of Amanda Wright. This is your special time. I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together. Of me sharing suggestions and insights for you, for your happier, healthier, inspired life. Have a fabulous week, feeling absolutely fantastic, better than you felt in ages, and be sure to tune in next time you’ll find me on www.hypnogenie.com.au and on all the podcast channels.
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