Insomnia & Sleep Treatment

Few things affect quality of life as profoundly as poor sleep. When you can't sleep properly, everything suffers — your concentration, your mood, your relationships, your health. Lying awake at 3am with your mind churning is a miserable experience, and the frustration of not sleeping often makes the problem worse.

Sleeping tablets can provide short-term relief, but they don't address the underlying cause and can create dependency. Hypnotherapy offers a different approach: working with your mind and body to restore the natural sleep patterns that insomnia has disrupted.

Types of Sleep Problems

Sleep difficulties come in several forms, and the treatment approach varies accordingly:

• Sleep-onset insomnia — difficulty falling asleep, lying awake for long periods
• Sleep-maintenance insomnia — waking during the night and struggling to get back to sleep
• Early morning waking — waking too early and being unable to return to sleep
• Unrefreshing sleep — sleeping for adequate hours but still feeling exhausted
• Anxiety-related sleep problems — racing thoughts preventing sleep

Why Can't I Sleep?

Insomnia is often maintained by a frustrating cycle. You have a few bad nights, perhaps triggered by stress or a life event. You start worrying about sleep. The worry itself makes sleep harder. You begin checking the clock, calculating how many hours you'll get, becoming increasingly tense. Your bed, which should be associated with rest, becomes associated with frustration.

This cycle is maintained largely by subconscious processes — the hyperarousal that won't switch off, the racing mind, the tension in your body. That's precisely why hypnotherapy is well-suited to addressing it.

How Hypnotherapy Helps

Breaking the Anxiety-Insomnia Cycle

The most important step is breaking the link between bedtime and anxiety. Using hypnosis, we retrain your subconscious to associate your bed and bedroom with calm, comfort and safety rather than frustration and dread.

Deep Relaxation Training

Hypnosis is, in essence, a state of deep focused relaxation. During treatment, you'll experience this profound relaxation and learn to reproduce it independently through self-hypnosis. Many clients report that their self-hypnosis practice becomes the most effective sleep tool they've ever found.

Addressing Underlying Causes

If your insomnia is driven by anxiety, stress or unresolved emotional issues, we address those directly. Sleep problems are often a symptom rather than a standalone condition, and treating the root cause produces the most lasting improvement.

Sleep Hygiene Enhancement

While the hypnotherapy addresses the subconscious patterns, I'll also share evidence-based sleep hygiene techniques. These practical adjustments to your routine and environment create the optimal conditions for the subconscious work to take effect.

What Treatment Looks Like

Insomnia treatment typically requires three to four sessions. Many clients notice improvement after the very first session, as the deep relaxation experienced during hypnosis can itself reset sleep patterns.

Between sessions, you'll practise self-hypnosis each evening as part of your bedtime routine. This isn't onerous — it takes about ten minutes and most people find it genuinely pleasant. The technique becomes a permanent tool you can use long after treatment ends.

Self-Hypnosis for Sleep

One of the most valuable outcomes of treatment is the self-hypnosis skill you'll develop. It's a simple technique that guides your mind into a state of deep relaxation — similar to hypnosis but self-directed. Even if you don't fall asleep immediately, the relaxation itself is restorative and far more beneficial than lying awake worrying.

Evidence

Research published in Sleep Medicine Reviews found that hypnotherapy showed promise for improving subjective sleep quality. A study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine demonstrated that a hypnotic suggestion specifically targeting deep sleep increased the duration of slow-wave sleep by 80%. The NHS insomnia page recommends relaxation techniques and CBT-based approaches, both of which are integral to my treatment method.

If poor sleep is affecting your life, a free telephone consultation is the first step. We can discuss your specific situation and whether hypnotherapy is the right approach for you. See the fees page for session costs.