I slept appallingly bad while in the hospital even with getting Ambien every night. It would seem logical that this should be a standard part of your stroke protocols as an inpatient. Of course they never figured out I had sleep apnea because the fingertip oximeter said I was ok. And must have never walked by the open door during the night.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=142365&CultureCode=en
Sleeping well is a crucial factor contributing to our physical and
mental restoration. SWS in particular has a positive impact for instance
on memory and the functioning of the immune system. During periods of
SWS, growth hormones are secreted, cell repair is promoted and the
defence system is stimulated. If you feel sick or have had a hard
working day, you often simply want to get some good, deep sleep. A wish
that you can’t influence through your own will – so the widely held
preconception.
Sleep researchers from the Universities of Zurich and Fribourg now
prove the opposite. In a study that has now been published in the
scientific journal “Sleep”, they have demonstrated that hypnosis has a
positive impact on the quality of sleep, to a surprising extent. “It
opens up new, promising opportunities for improving the quality of sleep
without drugs”, says biopsychologist Björn Rasch who heads the study at
the Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich in conjunction
with the “Sleep and Learning” project (see box).
Brain waves – an indicator of sleep quality
Hypnosis is a method that can influence processes which are very
difficult to control voluntarily. Patients with sleep disturbances can
indeed be successfully treated with hypnotherapy. However, up to now it
hadn’t been proven that this can lead to an objectively measurable
change in sleep. To objectively measure sleep, electrical brain activity
is recorded using an electroencephalogram (EEG). The characteristic
feature of slow-wave sleep, which is deemed to have high restorative
capacity, is a very even and slow oscillation in electrical brain
activity.
70 healthy young women took part in the UZH study. They came to the
sleep laboratory for a 90-minute midday nap. Before falling asleep they
listened to a special 13-minute slow-wave sleep hypnosis tape over
loudspeakers, developed by hypnotherapist Professor Angelika Schlarb, a
sleep specialist, or to a neutral spoken text. At the beginning of the
experiment the subjects were divided into highly suggestible and low
suggestible groups using a standard procedure (Harvard Group Scale of
Hypnotic Susceptibility). Around half of the population is moderately
suggestible. With this method women achieve on average higher values for
hypnotic susceptibility than men. Nevertheless, the researchers expect
the same positive effects on sleep for highly suggestible men.
Slow-wave sleep increased by 80 percent
In their study, sleep researchers Maren Cordi and Björn Rasch were
able to prove that highly suggestible women experienced 80 percent more
slow-wave sleep after listening to the hypnosis tape compared with sleep
after listening to the neutral text. In parallel, time spent awake was
reduced by around one-third. In contrast to highly suggestible women,
low suggestible female participants did not benefit as much from
hypnosis. With additional control experiments the psychologists
confirmed that the beneficial impact of hypnosis on slow-wave sleep
could be attributed to the hypnotic suggestion to “sleep deeper” and
could not be reduced to mere expectancy effects.
According to psychologist Maren Cordi “the results may be of major
importance for patients with sleep problems and for older adults. In
contrast to many sleep-inducing drugs, hypnosis has no adverse side
effects”. Basically, everyone who responds to hypnosis could benefit
from improved sleep through hypnosis.
Further reading:
Maren Cordi, Angelika Schlarb, Björn Rasch. Deepening sleep by
hypnotic suggestions. Sleep. 37(6). June 1,
2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.5665/sleep.3778
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