WHY SEEING A SLEEP THERAPIST IS SO IMPORTANT?

It is widely accepted now that sleep deprivation which persists for more than a few weeks can have a huge impact on our physical and mental health.Therefore, it is highly advisable to see a sleep therapist, who can help you reach the root cause behind your insomnia.

Symptoms of sleep deprivation vary from one person to the next and it’s almost impossible to provide an exhaustive list, yet the most common symptoms include:

  • moodiness / irritability
  • anxiety / depression
  • difficulty learning new concepts
  • difficulty concentrating / focusing
  • forgetfulness
  • lack of motivation
  • clumsiness
  • increased appetite, particularly for carbohydrates
  • reduced sex drive
  • increased feelings of stress
  • resulting ‘physical’ effects such as weight gain, hair loss, chronic pain etc

During sleep, our sympathetic nervous system, which controls our fight/flight/freeze response gets a chance to relax. Studies show that sleep deprivation increases our sympathetic nervous system activity so we’re increasingly in a state of hyper-vigilance. This creates changes in our body including an increase in adrenalin, cortisol levels and blood pressure.

Root causes of Insomnia by Sleep Therapist in HK
Consequences of insufficient sleep
Therapies to treat sleep disorders in a natural way

Our resources are focused on an ‘emergency response’ whether there is an actual emergency or not. Our muscles become tense, tight and ready for action, our resources are directed away from logical thinking (if we are faced with a tiger, we don’t need to be considering if he will be offended if we run away!) and directed away from our immune system and digestive system.

The problem is our bodies are not designed to be in this state long-term, so it begins to cause us all sorts of problems in terms of our mental and physical health.

Conventional treatments for sleep problems often focus on medications, relaxation techniques (eg meditation or breathing exercises) or on controlling pre-bedtime activities to produce associations between the nighttime routine and sleep.

These treatments can be valuable, but often people find that, after a while, their problems return or they find it is difficult to maintain the routines.

This is where a sleep therapist, such as an RTT therapist, can be invaluable.

RTT focuses on getting to the ROOT CAUSE of the sleep problem and only when this is understood and dealt with, will the sleep issue really be resolved.

By working with the subconscious mind, an RTT therapist can help you uncover the REAL reason for your sleep problems. This can often be something your conscious mind would never determine.

Can you recover from long term sleep deprivation
For example, a client of mine had had terrible problems with his sleep for years – taking ages to fall asleep and waking many times during the night. He had tried many things to improve his sleep, but nothing really worked. During his RTT session, his subconscious mind took him to memories about feeling bad about his performance at school and being punished for not being able to do his homework. How is this relevant to his sleep now- you might ask! Well, he was currently trying to start his own business but had these old beliefs from childhood about ‘never being good enough’ and ‘if he ever tried anything, he would always fail’. It turned out that his poor sleep was actually providing him with an ‘excuse’ for any potential failure with his business: “I can’t concentrate or focus because I only get 2 hours sleep” – any failure wasn’t down to him, because he could blame lack of sleep. In the session, we worked with these beliefs and fears – he understood why he had developed them and why it didn’t apply to his life now. Once this had been resolved, he didn’t ‘need’ his sleep problem anymore and it disappeared. If you’ve been having sleep problems for more than a month and nothing seems to be helping, an RTT sleep therapist can offer you valuable insights into the root cause of your problem and solve it once and for all – contact me for a FREE ‘discovery call’ to find out more!
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