Insomnia currently affects 17% of the adult population in the UK. Poor sleep impairs our ability to react creatively and appropriately to situations and has dramatically negative effect on a person's physical health. It leaves someone tired, anxious and feeling emotionally unstable.
Poor sleep patterns can be triggered by a number of factors including worry, depression or simply noise. In order to go to sleep, we need to relax, so if someone is constantly worrying they will prevent the natural process of sleep. People suffering from depression will often over-dream, resulting in exhaustion the next day. In order to compensate for this, the body will sometimes wake them up before too much dreaming has taken place, a problem that is called early-morning-waking syndrome. If someone has suffered disturbed sleep for a while, they can become anxious in advance about whether or not they will have a good night's sleep, which can lead to the problem continuing even after the initial cause has disappeared.
Sleeping pills will put you to sleep but they also inhibit deep sleep and REM, reducing the quality of the sleep. Furthermore, the body develops a tolerance to them, necessitating larger and larger doses to have an effect. For these reasons, they should only be viewed as a short-term solution to specific situations.
A real solution means relearning how to do something as easy and natural as breathing. A hypnotherapist will be able to show you how you can do this and give you some useful practical advice so that you can once again look forward to bedtime.