You are feeling sleepy

It is estimated that one in three Australians is significantly sleep deprived. This has real implications for health because sleep is a powerful and necessary regenerative force. It is estimated that as much as 70 per cent of visits to GPs result from lack of sleep and that the cost to Australia annually of lack-of-sleep related disorders is around $10 billion. Australians are not a particularly restless bunch, they reflect the 24/7, work-all-hours, play-all-night nature of the modern world and similar findings exist in countries around the world. So finding ways to encourage sleep, once you have destroyed your sleep rhythms, is vitally important. There are many natural ways to do this but a new study suggests that for some people hypnosis can be very effective.

If the word “hypnosis” has you thinking of people acting like chickens on stage and finding a sudden capacity to sing opera, then think again. Genuine hypnosis is not really a trance state but it is characterised by focused attention, heightened suggestibility, and vivid fantasies. The “hypnotist” is not some controlling master but a facilitator and a tutor. Estimates are that about 15 per cent of people are susceptible to hypnosis and this study suggests that those people may get real benefits for slow wave sleep.

Slow wave sleep is characterised by a slow and even oscillation in electrical activity in the brain. During slow wave sleep your body secretes growth hormones, promotes cell repair, and maintains brain plasticity by generating new connections between neurons. Slow wave sleep also has a positive effect on immunity and memory. Unfortunately, as we age the amount of slow wave sleep we get tends to decline.

In this study the researchers worked with healthy young women. They used the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic susceptibility to see which of the women could be classified as highly susceptible to hypnosis. The women then listened to a slow wave hypnosis recording developed by a leading hypnotherapist. The women were asked to take a 90 minute nap and an electroencephalogram measured electrical brain activity during this time.

The results showed that among those women who were highly susceptible, but only among those women, there was an 80 per cent increase in slow wave sleep compared to days when they did have hypnosis.

Given the lack of side-effects it would seem that for those who are susceptible then hypnosis might be a useful way to get the sleep we all need.