2024-01-16 21:00:00
To fall asleep faster and fight against insomnia, it is possible to practice hypnosis on yourself. This technique called Self Hypnosis allows you to detach yourself from the outside world and finally surrender to a restful sleep.
Is self-hypnosis effective for everyone?
As soon as we are absorbed in an activity to the point of forgetting what is around us, we are close to self-hypnosis without realizing it! This means that we detaches itself from the external environment to fully immerse yourself in your inner experience.
It is a state that goes further than simple daydreaming or concentration, because it changes our way of perceiving situations, emotions, sensations, etc., specifies Wilfrid Nkodia, psychologist and hypnotherapist. With a little practice, you can put yourself in this state at the right time.
According to a recent English study, only About 10% of us have resistance to hypnotic suggestions. and may have difficulty letting go. “From the moment we voluntarily take the step, we have a very good chance of succeeding,” reassures Jean-Michel Jakobowicz, hypnotherapist. For start self-hypnosis, it is easier to rely on an audio recording in which the voice of a hypnotherapist guides the different steps.
Does self-hypnosis work for insomnia?
Self-hypnosis allows you to cut yourself off to a large extent from external stimuli (noises, lights, etc.) which promote excitement and interfere with sleep. It also acts on the most common causes of difficulty falling asleep : stress, anxiety or endless ruminations. We are better able to let thoughts pass and relax. Via suggestion, it can also help to modify automatisms and negative thoughts which maintain insomnia, such as “once again, I will not be able to fall asleep”.
Self-hypnosis to get back to sleep in cases of insomnia: how effective?
It’s more efficient if the insomnia is recent, linked for example to a period of stress.
In cases of chronic insomnia, self-hypnosis is useful to reinforce the work carried out with a hypnotherapist, psychologist or psychiatrist. This often makes it possible to reduce sleeping pills and to be able to do without them more quickly, says Dr. Héloïse Delavenne-Garcia, psychiatrist-hypnotherapist.
To be in good conditions, play music or nature sound (river, rain, forest with birdsong, etc.) in the background can help: this regular stimulus helps to cut off other external demands.
Self-hypnosis to improve deep sleep: how effective?
Few studies focus on self-hypnosis, but one involved 84 children and adolescents suffering from insomnia in 2006: 90% reported reduced time to fall asleep, a quarter of which from the first session. Another study published in theInternational Journal of Psychological Studies in 2014 proves that it would also favor better quality sleep and would allow us to extend the deep sleep phase (source 1). We can therefore expect to fall asleep more quickly the first evening or after two or three evenings if we have difficulty letting go. The more we practice, the more easily we enter the trance state.
Carry out a self-hypnosis session to relax
Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, light off. Take 10 or more slow inhales and exhales. Feel each of your limbs, their weight, their temperature. When the urge to close your eyes comes, resist a little then let yourself go;Visualize a quiet, safe place you love, sit back and feel the relaxation coming over you. From this place, go to bed and feel peace or sleep come on.
Other self-hypnosis exercises against stress and sleep disorders
There are also several possibilities depending on your wishes:
Pour reassure you, imagine yourself in a quiet place, where it is dark and where you used to fall asleep: your childhood home, a vacation spot… Use all the senses to immerse yourself there as much as possible: visualize what you like to see, hear, feel there; relax, imagine a sun setting, the details of the place where you observe it. Observe the colors of the sky, the shades, from the lightest to the darkest, until the dark night. With each new color, the hypnosis is deeper. “We use the therapeutic effects of colors because certain warm shades have soothing properties,” notes Dr. Delavenne-Garcia; calm the thoughts which rotate in a loop, use the image of the water wheel of a mill which turns and carries the water and which gradually slows down. “It’s very effective in slowing down thoughts,” says Jean-Michel Jakobowicz.
3 books to discover self-hypnosis
Here are 3 books accompanied by free audio sessions, to scan using a QR code on your phone:
– Hypnosis: goodbye to anxiety! Stress, insomnia, anxiety attacks, Dr. Heloïse Delavenne-Garcia. Ed. In Press, €8.
– 96 easy self-hypnosis exercises, Jean-Michel Jakobowicz. Ed. Leduc.S, €15.
– Manual of self-hypnosis, Wilfrid Nkodia. Ed. Eyrolles, €25.
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