by Suryanarayana Chennapragada

Engaging your mind on the process of breathing calms the mind and relaxes the body. At night it induces sleep. It substitutes sleeping pills. How can you do it? Lie down and close your eyes. Follow these easy steps.

1. While breathing in: Focus on the faint coolness inside your nose.

2. While breathing out: Count slowly in the mind, the number 'o-n-e'. Repeat the same number throughout the out-breath. Don't try to change the breathing pattern.

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Hypnosis can be defined as a procedure during which changes in sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings or behaviour are suggested. Hypnosis can be used to amplify whatever it is about therapy that makes it therapeutic. It permits a wide range of choices regarding where and how to intervene in the patient's problems. In this paper, we set out to examine the rationale of using hypnotherapy to manage various types of sleep disorders, and to explore the techniques, strategies and hypnotic scripts employed by various hypnotherapists. We also examine the research data available on the efficacy of hypnosis in the treatment of sleep disorders. Acute and chronic insomnia often respond to relaxation and hypnotherapy approaches, along with sleep hygiene instructions. Hypnotherapy has also helped with nightmares and sleep terrors. There are several reports of successful use of hypnotherapy for parasomnias, specifically for head and body rocking, bedwetting and sleepwalking. Hypnosis is a specialised technique, not a therapy itself, and should be used as an adjunctive intervention within a complete psychological and medical treatment package. Most of the literature is limited to case reports or studies with such a small sample that at times it is very difficult to interpret the results. There is a major placebo effect, so uncontrolled trials are of limited value. It is hard to perform a randomised, double-blind, controlled trial to evaluate hypnotherapy given that cooperation and rapport between patient and therapist is needed to achieve a receptive trance state.

Ann Acad Med Singapore. 2008 Aug;37(8):683-8. Ng BY, Lee TS. Department of Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore. ng.beng.yeong@sgh.com.sg

by Mary Llewellyn BA(Hons) psychology EFT Master

"Mary, I hear you are good a helping people to sleep. Can you help me?" This is a question we are frequently asked as therapists, part of our everyday experience. This lady we will call her Sarah had been experiencing poor sleep for over seventeen year.

On the phone, I asked her, was there any reason her mind felt that it was not safe to sleep. She said, "When you see me you will know why.". We booked an appointment and I looked forward to meeting her.

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Hypnosis can be defined as a procedure during which changes in sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings or behaviour are suggested. Hypnosis can be used to amplify whatever it is about therapy that makes it therapeutic. It permits a wide range of choices regarding where and how to intervene in the patient's problems. In this paper, we set out to examine the rationale of using hypnotherapy to manage various types of sleep disorders, and to explore the techniques, strategies and hypnotic scripts employed by various hypnotherapists. We also examine the research data available on the efficacy of hypnosis in the treatment of sleep disorders. Acute and chronic insomnia often respond to relaxation and hypnotherapy approaches, along with sleep hygiene instructions. Hypnotherapy has also helped with nightmares and sleep terrors. There are several reports of successful use of hypnotherapy for parasomnias, specifically for head and body rocking, bedwetting and sleepwalking. Hypnosis is a specialised technique, not a therapy itself, and should be used as an adjunctive intervention within a complete psychological and medical treatment package. Most of the literature is limited to case reports or studies with such a small sample that at times it is very difficult to interpret the results. There is a major placebo effect, so uncontrolled trials are of limited value. It is hard to perform a randomised, double-blind, controlled trial to evaluate hypnotherapy given that cooperation and rapport between patient and therapist is needed to achieve a receptive trance state.

Ann Acad Med Singapore. 2008 Aug;37(8):683-8. Ng BY, Lee TS. Department of Psychiatry, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore. ng.beng.yeong@sgh.com.sg

Approximately half of patients with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) also experience insomnia. The relationship between these two common sleep disorders is complex and unclear but patients with both SDB and insomnia have poorer sleep quality and are more likely to have psychiatric disorders than those with SDB alone. SDB is more common in men than women; however, the incidence of comorbid insomnia is greater in women with SDB than in men. The management of comorbid SDB and insomnia involves the screening of patients with insomnia or psychiatric disorders for SDB; although interviews may be effective in diagnosing SDB in patients with insomnia, polysomnography can diagnose veiled SDB. To address comorbid SDB and insomnia therapies should be aimed at both disorders. Patients should first be encouraged to improve their sleep hygiene and make lifestyle changes to improve sleep. Treatments for SDB include continuous positive airway pressure and oral appliances, while upper airway surgery may improve sleep outcomes in some patients. The use of pharmacological drugs such as hypnotics for the treatment of insomnia in patients with SDB remains controversial.

Sleep Med. 2007 Dec;8 Suppl 4:S21-5. Lavie P. Lloyd Rigler Sleep Apnea Research Laboratory, Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. plavie@tx.technion.ac.il