Self-hypnosis may help you get better sleep

The national sleep debt is as important to healthy relationships as the national economic debt is for maintaining a good standard of living.

Sleep debt (or deficit) is what you owe yourself. The national debt of sleeplessness is the sum of hours of sleep that all Americans are missing out on for one reason or another. I could even imagine that there are regional clusters of accumulated sleeplessness, for example, in geographic areas where there are a lot of retired people, like Southwest Florida!

Seniors with a variety of health problems probably have more trouble sleeping. Or, in areas where people regularly must have two jobs, there may be trouble getting enough sleep.

Think of it: If you meet up with a beloved someone who isn’t getting enough sleep, they may be in a bad mood because they have a sleep debt. That means the relationship will be strained. Worse, if both of you are suffering lack of sleep. This combined lack of sleep is a formula for creating stress problems that could have been avoided with sufficient sleep.

But how do you measure this deficit, and know how much sleep you really need? It might be easier if everybody had their own visible sleep meter, like a pedometer or a smart watch, so that others could tell what’s up. But alas, even the sleep-deprived person may not realize why they are feeling stress or depression.

Although there are people who sleep too much, most sleep problems result from too little. The general range of what is enough lies between seven and nine hours. But it still depends on several other factors, such as age, work schedules, and health. In the end, the right amount of sleep needed is highly individualized.

The importance of sleep for healthier functioning both mentally and physically has to do with this sanctioned downtime when we all take part in the universal bedtime. Approximately one-third of our entire lives is spent eyes closed while doing nothing and doing it well. For most of human existence, this time period is between sundown and sunrise. But with industrialization, sleep time is often fit-in with work schedules, including the nighttime work schedules of those who keep our communities running while everyone else sleeps, or tries to.

Some new research (NYTimes, Sept 6) suggests that while your body appears to be immobile and quiet, resting from all the day’s challenges, your brain is quietly busy cleaning up the frazzled synapses in your head. Like the cleaning staff that comes into offices and schools at night to clean up, and keep daytime activities functioning, sleep provides your brain with proper and necessary maintenance. You don’t get it, and you spend your waking hours short-changed.

So you need this downtime when it looks to an outsider as if the “lights are out, and there’s nobody home.” This sleep mechanism is specifically to keep you sharp and functioning in your relationships of work, love and play.

For those who have trouble getting enough of this kind of restorative sleep, there is help. Prescribed sleep medications are clearly intended for short-term problems of sleeplessness, but the medical community will tell you there is too much addiction to what TV medication ads promote in prime time.

A better solution is a behavioral approach to sleep problems (except for extreme situations, like sleep apnea). Most people can learn self-hypnosis, as a form of relaxation and preparation for sleep. Once you learn the basics, the rest is easy! It involves useful imagery from your favorite peaceful memory, which is then incorporated into a customized guided meditation audio file. I will be teaching this method at the Renaissance Academy beginning Oct. 30.

Email William R. Morrow at wmorrowmft@embarqmail.com.