Sleep Like A Husband: A Mom's Guide to Self-Hypnosis for Quality Sleep

Sleep is the number one thing people ask me about when I tell them I’m a hypnotherapist. This guide is written with sleep-deprived mothers (and fathers) in mind, but it can help anyone who is struggling with falling and staying asleep.

I always knew that the first few months after having a baby would be difficult. I knew I’d spend many sleepless nights with a crying infant. What I didn’t know was how dramatically my sleep habits would shift. As a breastfeeding mother, I had to awaken every two to three hours for the first eight months of my daughter’s life. In those early days, I would look forward to the days when she would start to sleep through the night. I promised myself that it would happen soon and that sweet sleep was waiting for me, just around the bend. And then, one miraculous night, she finally slept though. I woke up at 5:00 AM in a panic, convinced something horrible had happened, only to find her peacefully snoring. This happened again the next night, and again for several nights after that. I was thrilled that she was finally sleeping, but was horrified to find that while she slept, I continued to wake every 2-3 hours throughout the night. My sleep rhythms were broken.

I asked around and discovered this sad tale was one that many other new mothers were also experiencing. It seems that as mothers, we not only become conditioned to wake up during the night, but we also wake up fully. When I would wake in the night, I would immediately have a hormonal wave go through me like a rally cry, banging at my mind, yelling “WAKE UP, THE BABY NEEDS YOU! CHECK THAT SHE’S STILL BREATHING!” After checking that the baby was breathing, I should have gone right back to sleep, but I’d be wide awake with a renewed expectation that surely the baby would cry soon and I’d have to get up all over again. And so, the pattern of not sleeping persisted.

Luckily, I had the presence of mind to try applying hypnosis to my predicament. I decided I would try a bit of self-hypnosis and see if I could shift out of my night-waking patterns. And…it worked! Full disclosure: it only lasted for about a week and then my daughter got sick and I had to start all over again. So, through my experimentation, I discovered that self-hypnosis works for changing sleep patterns, but it does require more than one session and some maintenance to bring continued relief.

Here’s how it’s done. As you’re lying down to sleep for the night, take a moment to relax your body, checking in with your head, your face, your shoulders, arms, hands, back, legs feet and toes. Release any tension you feel in any of those places. Then shift your focus to your breath. Follow your breath as your breathe in and as you breathe out. When you’re feeling sufficiently relaxed, start saying affirmations surrounding the changes you want to implement around sleep. Speak these affirmations in your mind, slowly and lullingly like they are a boat drifting on a sea. You don’t have to have a planned script, you can just say things as they come to you and repeat them as often as you like:

I am relaxed and ready to sleep. Sleep is going to come quite easily for me tonight. I will find myself relaxing more and more every night and falling asleep easier and easier. As time goes on, sleep will come more and more naturally to me. I will find that it becomes easier to relax and let go of my thoughts. I will relax more and more deeply. The more I relax, the more easy it will become to rest and sleep. I will know that my baby will be okay while I’m sleeping. I know that even though I will be sleeping very deeply, I will find it easy to wake up if he/she needs me. If I wake up, I will also find that it’s quite easy to return to a deep sleep and I will be able to sleep even deeper than before. I will continue to sleep very deeply and soundly for the rest of the night. Every time I wake up, I will remember that I can return to a deep sleep and will relax. The more I relax, the easier it will be to sleep. I will save all worries for tomorrow, and will find peace in my sleep…

You can continue on with other affirmations that you would like to implement. As in the above example, always keep them phrased as positive affirmations (avoid words like “not, no, won’t”). I would recommend that you practice this every night when you first go to bed. Continue on with it until you actually fall asleep. If you notice other thoughts arising, let them drift by and gently return to your boat on the sea of sleep affirmations. If you wake in the night, repeat the process until you are asleep again. In time, you will likely find that you don’t need to practice as often because sleep will begin to happen more naturally. I would also highly recommend that you try recording yourself and listen to the recording when drifting off, or even at other times in the day for added support. If you try this practice, let me know how it worked for you in the comments.

If you would like additional support with falling and staying asleep, or have some other problem you’d like to work on, I encourage you to reach out to a Depth Hypnosis practitioner or book an appointment with me.

A Mantra For Overwhelm and Stress

We’ve all been there: Your alarm didn’t go off, so you had to rush. You spilled coffee on your shirt because you were rushing. You got to your car to discover it was out of gas, so you had to stop, making you even more late for work. And the day just got worse from there.

Even the most calm and centered beings can experience times of overwhelm and stress. A common reaction to stress is negative thinking. This negative thinking often spirals until there’s a sense of overwhelm, panic, or doom. My clients have been reporting success in managing their stress with a mantra I’ve given them, so I thought I would offer it here so my readers can try it, too.

The mantra is called It’s Okay. The focus of the mantra is acceptance and perspective. Often when we are feeling overwhelmed or anxious, we are throwing our energy into a sense of doom, or that everything is definitely not okay. In reality, the universe is very big, and we are very small and insignificant. Does it really matter if you’re late to work today? Are you going to remember this moment a week from now, a month from now, a year? Probably not. Your shirt is ruined from the coffee spill. Are you lucky enough to have others? The goal of this mantra is to retrain your thoughts to accept the situation and then introduce an alternate, more positive perspective. In saying the mantra, you are giving everything in the universe permission to be exactly as it is. This mantra can be used at anytime, even in a meeting. Just take deep breaths and say the mantra in your mind.

Here’s how it works: When you notice you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or anxious, you start to break down the thoughts that are contributing to this overwhelm, and then responding to them with, “It’s Okay.” With each “It’s Okay,” take a big breath in and then imagine you are releasing the stress as you breathe out. Here’s what that would look like using the example above:

Inhale, Exhale: “It’s okay that my alarm didn’t go off- I’ll be late today, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be late tomorrow.

Inhale, Exhale: It’s okay that I’m running late, sometimes life requires a different pace.

Inhale, Exhale: It’s okay that I’m feeling rushed, I’m allowed to feel that way sometimes.

Inhale, Exhale: It’s okay that I might get to work late, tomorrow I will do better.

Inhale, Exhale: It’s okay that I spilled my coffee.

It’s okay that I have to change my shirt.

It’s okay that I don’t like this shirt as much as the other one, it is only a shirt, I am lucky to have others.

It’s okay that I’ll be running late, we all run late sometimes.

It’s okay that my boss doesn’t like when I’m late, she is allowed to feel that way.

It’s okay that that I’m angry with myself for failing to get to work on time.

It’s okay that I’m feeling stressed.

It’s okay that the car is low on gas and I have to stop…

You get the idea. Ultimately, most of the stress, anxiety, and overwhelm we experience is a result of very temporary situations. These things are all going to pass. Everything that is happening is okay. You will get through this time, and then you will even forget about it. It’s okay to let it go.

If you would like additional support with anxiety or stress management, or have some other problem you’d like to work on, I encourage you to reach out to a Depth Hypnosis practitioner or book an appointment with me.

How Hypnotherapy Helped Me Get Rid of Chronic Fatigue for Good

People often ask what made me decide to become a hypnotherapist and Depth Hypnosis practitioner.  There were a lot of things in my life that pushed me in that direction, but I think the primary reason was my own experience using hypnotherapy to recover from chronic illness.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), or  Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) as it's sometimes called is an often misunderstood debilitating chronic illness. Its symptoms can invade every part of the body and it's not the same for everyone, but the primary symptom is bone-aching, soul-crushing, life-destroying fatigue that goes on and on for days, weeks, months, or even years. This fatigue will often let up, only to return a few weeks or months later.

The medical community has very little knowledge about the origins of this illness or how to treat it.  There is currently very little most western medical doctors can do for patients with CFS/ME. The diagnosis is often made once a number of better understood illnesses have been ruled out, leaving the patient feeling as if the doctor just gave up their search for the root of their problem.  Even worse, when asked what to do about it, many doctors will recommend exercise or rest, not understanding that a person with CFS/ME can literally do nothing but rest, and exertion of any kind would leave them completely bedridden for days to months. Possibly the most discouraging thing that happens to many patients with CFS/ME is they are told by their doctor that they are simply depressed and should see a therapist.  Of course they are depressed! Writhing in bed with flu-like pain and fatigue for weeks on end with no hope for a cure is depressing. But depression is a symptom, not the cause. The dismissal of the entire illness which causes very real physical mayhem including hair loss, inability to moderate body temperature, migrating joint pain, muscle fatigue, brain fog, slurred speech, and on and on, as simply an emotional state is so infuriating and disempowering for sufferers.  Which is why many do not pursue therapy as a healing modality. I was one of those people. I was filled with a special kind of fury at the dismissal of my entire illness as being an emotional state; so, I never considered therapy as a means to an end of the illness. Let me tell you how I accidentally recovered from CFS/ME by seeing a hypnotherapist.

I began having severe symptoms of CFS/ME and was first diagnosed with it when I was in my early twenties.  I can remember telling the doctor at the time, “I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't feel exhausted.  I wake up exhausted, I go to bed exhausted.” As is standard, I was told to rest more. Eventually the symptoms became less severe, and I went back to living a somewhat normal life.  But, the fatigue would return and fade every six to eight months over the next decade, and it was worse each time it returned. Then, about four years ago, I had the worst flare-up of symptoms I'd ever had and it wouldn't let up.  I would wake up and move from bed to the couch, spend my day there, then return to bed at night. I was freezing all of the time, and had horrible joint and muscle aches. It was just like having the flu. At its worst, I said to my husband, “This isn't sustainable.  If this doesn't let up, I can't go on. I feel like I'm dying, and if this doesn't let up, I actually want to die.” The symptoms went on for months until I finally decided to try seeing a naturopathic doctor (ND). The ND put me on a very restrictive anti-inflammatory diet, and loaded me up with supplements, vitamins, and tinctures.  It took time, and a lot of trial and error, but eventually the symptoms began to recede. I can't say for certain it was the naturopathic treatment that helped, or if that flare-up of illness had simply run its course. But I believe the treatment helped. If anyone would like more details about this, email me and I will be happy to share what worked for me to clear that flare-up; however, I would highly advise that you only take supplements under the guidance of a naturopathic doctor.  

Although I was feeling much better from the treatment, I continued to live in fear of another flare-up.  I never knew when the next one might come and as those with this illness know, it is so hard to make plans or commit to any goal when you're living on the edge of debilitating illness.  But I really wanted to have children. And I was getting older. I was terrified of having CFS/ME as a parent, but I knew I'd never be happy if I didn’t have children. My husband and I decided to take the risk and began to try for a child.  But, months and then a year passed without any luck. Discouraged and distraught, and feeling strongly there was something deeper keeping me from conceiving (more on that in another post), I began to see a hypnotherapist and Depth Hypnosis practitioner.  

As we began work together, she took me down a lot of paths I didn't expect to go down.  I had come in for help with infertility, but we were often addressing other things in session.  One thing that came up was my CFS/ME. I had started to have a flare up and tried to cancel my appointment, but my therapist encouraged me to come in anyway.  She offered a drum healing, which to my surprise seemed to help lift the brain-fog. Then she helped me to explore my subconscious mind for the roots of the illness.  I got a lot of unexpected answers in that process. It became clear to me that while the physical suffering I was experiencing was a result of disease, the disease had roots in unhealthy subconscious emotional and spiritual patterns and habits.

As I learned this information about the roots of my illness, my hypnotherapist guided me through healing different aspects of the problems which had contributed to my susceptibility to illness.  This could look very different for different people; but, for me, as a life-long empath, treatment included learning how to stop taking on the suffering of others. It also included processes to subconsciously remove the negativity I had accumulated from a lifetime of being open and willing to suffer for others by feeling their emotions.  All of this therapeutic work which extended over several months combined with an anti-inflammatory diet left me feeling better than I had in years.

Then, one day after I had finally begun to feel truly well, I noticed something.  I was standing in line at the supermarket, and I suddenly heard my inner voice. And it wasn't pretty.  It was saying something like, “I don't want to be here. This is awful. This line is so long. I feel terrible. Can't these people see that I'm sick? No one knows how miserable I am, my whole body hurts. I can't stand in line like this for much longer. Maybe I should just put this basket down and go home.”  It was disturbing to suddenly notice this extremely inaccurate and negative inner dialogue, but it was also a wonderful realization because I now knew what was happening to me. I had negative residue from the chronic illness knocking around in my mind, trying to make me sick again. These thought patterns were something I had picked up while I was sick.  Now that I was feeling better, they should have gone away, but were still there. Something in my gut told me that if I could change these thought patterns, I could beat CFS/ME for good. Luckily, I also had the resource I needed to accomplish that in hypnotherapy.

Armed with my new awareness, I returned to Depth Hypnosis for help in shifting my negative self-talk.  It took several sessions and a lot of diligence in between, but I eventually was able to make the transformation.  That was three years ago, and I haven't had a CFS/ME flare-up since, despite getting pregnant, having a difficult birth, and raising a baby for a year.  Each of these things on their own would've triggered a flare-up in the past, so I feel pretty confident that I've finally overcome the illness. I no longer feel as if I'm waiting for something bad to happen.  It's a wonderful life, and that's one of many reasons I decided to become a hypnotherapist and Depth Hypnosis Practitioner, myself. I hope to bring this method of healing to others who are suffering from chronic illness and pain.  I want to offer hope to those who are feeling hopeless. While I believe naturopathic treatment was one part of my healing, I also now know that in order to put the illness behind me, I had to break the negative patterns I had continued to cycle after recovery.  Only then was I able to truly be free from the cyclic disease.

My hope is that in sharing my story, I will reach others who are struggling with CFS/ME and similar chronic illnesses like Lyme disease, Fibromyalgia, and chronic pain.  Even those who have been in treatment for cancer or who are in remission could use hypnotherapy to help release the negative residue such an experience can leave behind. May this story bring hope to those who are suffering.  There is help and there are people out there who want to support you. For more information about how Depth Hypnosis supports those recovering from CFS/ME, click here. If you would like to explore Depth Hypnosis for yourself, I see clients in my office in Berkeley, CA and worldwide via Zoom. You can also find other practitioners on the Association of Depth Hypnosis Practitioners website.