When you regularly have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, you have Insomnia.
Ongoing sleep disturbances can lead to fatigue and exhaustion. This leaves people feeling irritable and often causes an inability to concentrate or cope with everyday life. Having Insomnia one night because you have a big day coming up or because you received bad news isn’t anything to worry about. But chronic sleep deprivation that occurs at least three nights a week over a period of three months or more is problematic.
What causes Insomnia?
Insomnia is a common problem that can be caused by a medical condition or a psychiatric problem. Your medical doctor can rule out any medical conditions you might have that is causing your sleep problem. Some psychiatric conditions that make it difficult to sleep include stress, depression and anxiety. Living an unhealthy lifestyle can also make it difficult for you to sleep.
Symptoms of Insomnia
Symptoms of Insomnia include difficulty falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, waking up too early, waking up not feeling refreshed, low energy throughout the day, difficulty concentrating, irritability, aggression and troubled relationships. When you have any or all of these symptoms, it’s time to get help.
Problems associated with Insomnia
If you don’t take steps to try to cure your sleep problems, your health will suffer. Insomnia affects you physically and mentally. You will probably have a lower quality of life due to the disturbance of your sleep. You also put yourself at an increased risk of car or work-related accidents if your sleep is persistently disturbed as your reaction times are slowed due to lack of sleep. People who suffer Insomnia also have an increased risk for substance abuse.
Self-help treatments for Insomnia
If you have trouble sleeping, you can try to treat the problem on your own. Some methods that might help include having a routine where you go to bed at the same time each night, avoiding naps during the day, avoiding caffeine and nicotine past late afternoon, avoiding alcohol at night because it interferes with sleep quality, exercising and making your bedroom and bed comfortable. If noise is keeping you awake, a white noise machine could help. If self-help methods don’t work and you have chronic insomnia, you should seek treatment by a trained therapist.
How we can help
There are many reasons that sleep might be disturbed, keeping you wide-awake at night. We at MH-Hypnotherapy can use Hypnotherapy and Homeopathy to help you regain your normal sleeping patterns again.
How many sessions does this take?
It’s impossible to define an exact number of sessions required for help with Insomnia. It strongly depends on the person and how long-standing and severe the problem has become. This will be discussed at the initial free consultation where a basic assessment can be made.