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Sleep is one of the cornerstones of our physical and mental wellbeing and is key to our happiness and ability to cope with life. There are numerous benefits to getting sufficient good quality sleep, some that we may recognise  immediately and others that are less well known.

• Sleep is essential for consolidating memories, problem solving and decision making – so it’s essential for children to get enough sleep to help them through their education, and for adults in terms of everyday life.
• When we get sufficient sleep, we are more able to regulate our emotions and less vulnerable to stress, anxiety and depression – have you ever noticed how everything seems better after a good night’s sleep? This is because we process events from the day when we sleep and can move them from one part of the brain to another, releasing the emotions from events.
• Good quality sleep can enhance our creativity and ability to solve problems.
• When we sleep our bodies repair tissues, build muscle and strengthen our immune system.
• Sleep helps us to regulate different hormones which are vital to various bodily functions.
• Sleep allows our bodies to recharge and restore energy levels.
• Lack of sleep can disrupt hormones related to appetite and metabolism and lead to weight gain.

So how on earth do we get enough good quality sleep, particularly when we are stressed, in menopause or have other conditions that impact on the quantity and quality of sleep we get?

Our environment plays an important role in helping us sleep – darkness is helpful for most people and I always have blackout curtains in my room (I cannot bear sleep masks, but if you can then go for it!); quiet, white noise or soothing music/youtube meditations can help – as a student I always fell sleep listening to Pink Floyd, but that was my era … just experiment with different sound backgrounds to find what works for you; temperature – raising your core temperature with a hot bath or shower and then going to sleep in a cooler room helps to promote better sleep, but with winter coming I know I’ll be getting the hot water bottles out!; invest in comfortable bedding, it really does make a difference!

Routines have also proven to be helpful, and again it’s about finding what works for you. Essentially, this involves giving your body cues that it’s time to fall asleep. It has been suggested that watching the sun go down helps your body to transition into sleep (not sure we often see the sunset in this part of the UK, but it’s a nice idea). Keeping a regular bedtime and waking up time can help, even at weekends and on holiday – we are after all creatures of habit … just think how quickly we become institutionalised if we have to take our lunch break at a certain time! Although the idea of a siesta sounds nice and can be really tempting if we haven’t slept well, try to avoid napping in order to get your body used to going to sleep when you go to bed. Limiting your exposure to blue light sources from electronic devices or getting blue light cancelling glasses can help because blue light mimics daylight and thus signals to your brain that it is time to be awake (I once had a boyfriend who had light switches that emitted blue light and under furniture motion sensor blue lights in the bedroom  …. I hated staying over because I could never sleep properly!). Engaging in calming activities in the evening can help, such as reading, having a warm bath, meditating or practising relaxation techniques can help.

Diet (even drinks) and exercise play a part in helping us to sleep properly. Limit caffeine and alcohol intake and heavy meals in the hours before bed, and don’t engaging in energetic exercise too close to bedtime. Try and ensure a healthy, balanced diet throughout the day, engage in sufficient exercise, and try out relaxation exercises, deep breathing, meditation, etc.

I totally remember the abject misery of suddenly changing from someone who could sleep for a good 8 hours solid to someone who woke up at 3am EVERY SODDING DAY. The frustration I felt with well-meaning folk who’d advise me on lifestyle changes that they thought would help is indescribable. Sleep deprivation is no joke, and can turn you into someone you don’t even recognise. My issue was hormone fluctuations thanks to the menopause, and I’d wake up in a state of huge anxiety, wide eyed until half an hour before my alarm was due to go off! The lifestyle stuff I had nailed anyway, but a slow journey of discovery has led me to try various supplements until I’ve found what works for me, combined with hypnotherapy, and at last I can sleep. Unless I have a night out, overdo the alcohol and ignore my bedtime routine. It happens, but at least I know how to get myself back on track again.

I have a background in complementary therapies, so always prefer to try natural remedies first, and many people try supplements to good effect if they are really struggling. However, if none of the above works and you’re at the end of your tether, go see your GP. Lack of sleep is a serious issue, and you do not have to put up with it.

What have you tried to help to improve your sleep? Have you got any further suggestions that have proved helpful? Would you be interested in trying hypnotherapy?

Losing weight doesn’t make us happy in and of itself, but when we’re happy it’s easier to lose weight because we naturally engage in those activities that make us feel good and support weight loss – getting outside, time in nature, walking, exercising and eating healthfully.

Some say that weight loss is really simple … in theory! It’s a simple equation, calories out should be greater than calories in. Which is often fine when we are younger, so how come it becomes increasingly difficult to shift our extra weight as we get older, and around menopause it becomes almost impossible?

Well, it’s a bit more complex than we were led to believe in our youth. Having embarked on the weight loss journey myself post menopause, I have read so much about different theories and methods. I contemplated writing a blog summarizing each book I read, but I’m not sure there’s much mileage in that. However, I’ve listed a few issues that I’ve read about below:

1. Ultra Processed Foods (UPFs). It doesn’t sound like rocket science, basically if a food is ultra processed (which happens more often than we might like to admit) it ain’t good for us. Manufacturers make huge profits from engineering “foods” that are addictive and unsatisfying and lead to us feeling out of control around them, which can result in people who are overweight but simultaneously malnourished (check out the documentary about what happened when the floating supermarkets started making their way up the Amazon river…). I’m sure we all realise it, but if a food contains ingredients that we can’t find in a regular kitchen then it’s not that good for us, and we’re encouraged to go for foods that contain just one ingredient (fresh produce). But does that mean that we can eat as much as we want of these simple, unprocessed foods and still lose weight? Unfortunately not.
2. Sugar (particularly white sugar) has been labelled as highly addictive. In fact there is a book titled “Pure, White and Deadly” all about the evils of sugar. But I’m sure we all realised that anyway … So does that mean we can eat as much of any food as long as it doesn’t contain sugar? ‘Fraid not.
3. Keto is king. How many people have you heard touting the wonders of the Keto diet? How many people have lost weight following the Atkins diet, or paleo or similar? But what happens when they stop? Bounce back. And the number of recipes I’m bombarded with on Facebook for some alleged keto friendly diet menu that contains huge quantities of sugar is incredible …. sugar is a very simple carbohydrate and definitely not Keto. And how many people can cut out all carbs from their diet for any length of time and remain sane, happy and healthy? It just isn’t sustainable in the long-term.
4. High fat/low carb – again it doesn’t mean you can eat unlimited amounts of olives, avocados, nuts and coconut oil.
5. You just need to eat less and move more – sure, if you’re in your 20s this works fine.
6. A calorie is just a calorie. Counting calories is the only way, just look at how many calories a woman or man should consume a day and eat less than this amount. The problem is that some people under-eat, or eat the wrong things. And again this approach used to work fine for me in my 20s, but something changed when I hit peri-menopause.
7. Intermittent fasting – helps to control hormones such as insulin, which is the hormone that encourages us to store fat. Sounds simple, right? In reality, the hormones responsible for weight loss and gain involve more than just insulin. For a start there’s Leptin and Grehlin which control our hunger/satiety response. Then how about cortisol, the stress hormone that encourages us to store fat? Add in falling levels of oestrogen when you hit peri-menopause… you’d need a degree in science and nutrition to understand all of these.

So the conclusion I have come to at this juncture is that the theory behind weight loss is indeed quite simple, but not as simplistic as the calories in v. calories out equation. We all know as individuals what works for us, and need to trust in ourselves. What works for me is a combination of several aspects described above: hydration, managing my stress levels, getting 7-9 hours sleep each night, getting in 10,000 steps per day (even if it’s following Get Fit with Rick on YouTube when the weather is rubbish), doing weights, planning every meal around protein and fresh produce, tracking macros and keeping in calorie deficit.

What works for you? What are your healthy habits? Do you need help building healthy habits and developing consistency? If so, hypnotherapy might be the answer to developing a consistent lifestyle that supports you in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.

Today I completed further training with the brilliant Steve Burgess, who is one of the leading figures in hypnotherapy training and particularly regression therapy in the UK. He has written several fascinating books and his videos can be found on YouTube and Facebook, so if you have an interest in the subject I’d direct you to these as a first port of call. There are of course many other hypnotherapists specialising in regression therapy and there is a wealth of published material on the subject in the public domain. However, I chose to study with Steve for several reasons, one being his expertise in the area, and another being to equip myself to be able to deal with anything that comes up in session (when you’re dealing with the subconscious mind you always have to be prepared for the unexpected!).

So, another fun 3 days of training with Steve, where we briefly revisited basic regression for current and past lives, before moving on to address other areas of regression therapy that are occurring with much greater frequency. The first day was spent addressing birthing trauma and the second ancestral trauma and regression, with plenty of practice sessions to prepare us for all the ins and outs of these therapies.

The final day introduced us to different concepts that are again becoming increasingly prevalent in regression therapy circles, for example extra-terrestrial experiences, the star seed phenomenon, and parallel existences – quite a lot to get our heads around in a short space of time, but Steve did an excellent job of presenting this information in an interesting and logical manner, leaving us feeling fully equipped to offer this form of therapy to clients new and old.

Why not book in for an initial consultation if you feel this could be of interest to you?

I wanted to share with you some ponderings and reflections on some recent training I undertook into regression therapy. The concept of regression therapy is something that I worked with in my role within the NHS. Basically, we have myriad experiences throughout our life that shape us and mould our beliefs, and often our beliefs can be self-limiting. The point of regression therapy is that it allows us to go back to the events that have shaped our beliefs and re-examine them and process them in light of our more mature understanding of the world, and thus dissolve the negative impact that they may have had on our life.

In terms of hypnotherapy regression, we can work quickly to overcome blocks that are getting in our way in our current life, either by processing the events that have caused them, and/or by gaining new understanding of the cause or root of our blocks, releasing past traumas and negative energies that are holding us back, and sometimes by rescripting those events to provide a more helpful outcome.

However, my more recent training has introduced the concept of reincarnation – this is something that grabbed my attention as a child, but it has somewhat fallen off my radar as an adult. Working in psychology in the NHS within a schema therapy team, we would always try to take the client back in order to heal the wounds from the past and try to give them corrective experiences, and there is a body of evidence supporting this kind of work.

As a hypnotherapist, my work involves helping people to address and overcome problems in the here and now – mainly issues with weight, anxiety or smoking. However, my previous experience in mental health services means that I am aware that there is usually something in our underlying belief systems that drives these issue, and the concept of reincarnation opens this up immeasurably. What if my frequent migraines are caused not by stress but by the fact that I experienced head trauma in a past life?

I have undertaken some past life regression myself, and although the results were interesting, I couldn’t shake the belief that I might be just making it all up because I loved Game of Thrones, Gladiator and any book by Georgette Heyer! However, my interest prevailed, to the point that I undertook training myself so that I can offer this form of therapy (admittedly mainly for regression in current life).

These kinds of courses are highly experiential, as we all practice on each other. However, the first exercise involve the trainer taking the whole group back into past lives … the difference in everyone’s experience was startling! We all experienced past lives, but the range of past lives was so great that it was impossible that they had come from suggestions made to us – we had apothecaries, sailors, peasants, farmers, cowboys … you name it!

The idea behind past life regression as a form of therapy is that we  re-experience the trauma(s) repeatedly until they have no emotional impact on us. As we progressed into the course, we all had very different experiences. Often, but not always,  the trauma is related to the death process. From everyone’s account, we don’t feel the physical pain but the emotional pain (for instance if we have been betrayed or feel unjustly treated, or simply feel despair).

One lady who was looking for a reason behind feeling a lump in her throat experienced being burnt at the stake and struggling to breathe because of the smoke, and the man who lit the fire was her father in that life, leading to feelings of betrayal. Another man was being hanged in public but couldn’t find a reason why, and was filled with anger at the crowd and his executioner.

Regression can also help us to gain more understanding of our current lives. For instance, the lady who experienced being betrayed by a family member in a past life recognised them as a parent in their current life, and felt enlightened by this understanding as to why their relationship had always felt so problematic.

We can also use regression to take positives from a previous life or qualities that we need to help us in this life. For example, I regressed to being a Roman foot soldier. Although I complained that all we did was march all bloody day, I was amazed at the sense I had of my own physicality – a broad chest and bulging biceps – and my therapist could see a marked difference in how I held myself in trance, watching me sit up straighter and broaden out.

So, bottom line – do I believe in past life regression therapy? The answer is not straightforward. I retain a healthy degree of scepticism as to whether we truly experience past lives due to reincarnation. Our world today is filled with hundreds of thousands of images from TV, films, Instagram ,etc. that it is easy to think we could be influenced by these, and because our subconscious minds thrive on metaphor we could be creating a metaphorical explanation of our difficulties made up of images we have seen but long-since forgotten.

As a human I would love to believe in reincarnation; however, as a therapist I wonder whether if matters if it’s all in our imagination as long as it works and we can release some of our pain and suffering, because the bottom line is it’s all about healing.

2023! What a blast! After a false start in 2022 following a trimalleolar fracture and ORIF surgery (don’t ask!), I finally made it through my Hypnotherapy training in December. The whole thing was such a fantastic learning opportunity and I have met some incredibly skilled and lovely people along the way, who I’m sure will be firm friends for life.

Was it hard work on top of a full time job in therapy? Absolutely.

Was it is a struggle to complete all my case studies? Like you wouldn’t believe.

Was the portfolio work harder than I thought? Ooof! I felt like quitting so many times!

But here I am, nearing the end of February 2024, about to hand my notice in at work in order to devote myself full time to hypnotherapy, and going live with my Website! Exciting times!

I can’t wait to continue my hypno journey – I already have 2 pieces of CPD training under my belt, and am booked in for more in May, but more about that in future posts. For now, this is just hello world, hello universe, I’m ready for the next step!