Are you one of the millions of individuals searching for how to overcome insomnia and stay grounded during these rapidly changing and confusing circumstances?

Even during normal times, people commonly come to me to learn self-hypnosis for sleep and happiness. Building this skill of self-soothing has become more important than ever. Increasing challenges must be faced in order to overcome insomnia, sleep soundly, and find joy and ease personally, collectively, and globally.

Conflicting reports of “the truth,” social media, and the ongoing stream of seemingly urgent newsworthy events – in addition to our daily needs and responsibilities – pull us in many directions at once. This makes it hard to know where to put our energy and how to process all of this information. With so many different things vying for our energy, doesn’t it make sense that having an anchor – a point of focus in these turbulent times – can bring tremendous relief and a boost of energy?

Why is Hypnosis Good for Sleep, for Overcoming Insomnia, and for Improving Our Moods? 

The American Psychological Association has defined hypnosis as,

“A state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness characterized by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion.”

In other words, the more we concentrate on one thing, the more we filter out other background information and noise. We become entranced by the object of our focus. This increases our susceptibility to hypnotic directions, whether obvious or subliminal.

Furthermore, where we put our attention has a big impact on how we feel and think. It also powerfully influences our energy and can relate to how insomnia starts and impacts us.

Most people think of hypnosis as something that happens on a stage or for entertainment. In fact, therapeutically speaking, people often use hypnosis for sleep and happiness, for pain, anxiety, and for many other things. Strategies can include formal trance inductions, self-hypnosis, and conversational hypnosis.

Regardless of how people use hypnosis as an intervention, it can be very empowering to realize that where we put our intentions and attention makes a huge difference in the way we feel and think.

Taken to the next step, this means that we have a choice about the amount of time we spend, and the openness we might want to have when it comes to news, social media, and other outlets that vie for our attention.

Choose consciously. Ultimately, where we focus our thoughts and emotions can create a sort of self-hypnosis for insomnia and depression, or, alternatively, a self-hypnosis for sleep and happiness.

I often tell people,

“All hypnosis is really self-hypnosis. Understand that and you can change your life.”

Hypnosis for Sleep and Happiness Starts Inside

Under these unusual circumstances facing all of us, the drive to understand how to overcome insomnia and other sleeping disorders seems to have reached epic proportions. A recent study in China during the month of February, 2020 of over 5500 people showed clinically significant increases of insomnia by 20%, anxiety by 18.5%, and depression by 24.5%.  Similar findings were cited in France and Italy over the past year.

Many different social, economic, political, cultural, health, and global factors impact our daily lives. However, where we put our attention directs our hypnotic experience. Thus, we may have more choice than we sometimes realize in terms of how we can direct our own “self-hypnosis” for sleep and happiness.

Getting clarity about our core values – like finding true north on a compass – can prove very helpful when making choices about where to focus. This can also help with overcoming insomnia, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness. Try this:

1. Make a list of your favorite things to do or the things or people that make you feel “most yourself.” Set this list aside.
2. Make a list of your top 10 core values.
3. Narrow that list down to your top three.
4. From that top three, what’s the one you couldn’t live without?

That top value represents your guiding principle, your anchor.

A lot of our stress comes from a lack of cohesiveness between our internal state and our external circumstances. We often feel stressed and confused or even traumatized when we don’t understand why something “doesn’t feel right” or when we are doing what we “should” do but still aren’t happy.

Once we identify our top core value and focus our energy towards acting in accord with that, our whole system can begin to calm down. In a sense, making choices from that anchoring value can be like a self-hypnosis for sleep and happiness as well as for overall health and wellbeing.

Where we put our attention hypnotizes us. It greatly contributes to our internal and external states. It dictates the things that absorb our energy and influences our feelings, stress levels, experiences, and sense of reality. This can have a huge impact on how insomnia starts and how we feel about ourselves and others.

Turning inward and figuring out our deepest sources of meaning and value can help us protect ourselves from some of the outside stresses, biases, pressures, and circumstances. We can make choices from a more grounded place and we can then understand why we react the way we do.

Learn more about how and when to use self-hypnosis to sleep better by downloading my complementary eBook and video, “The 3 Biggest Things That Cause Sleep Problems & The ONE Thing You Can Do by 3pm Today to Sleep Better.”

Post also appeared on thriveglobal.com on January 26, 2021

Featured image by Rido for Adobe