Calming restless legs with hypnosis

Those who suffer from sleep problems often also suffer from restless legs, or also known as restless legs syndrome (RBS). You then move your legs at night, making it difficult to sleep through the night. Especially just before bedtime, you get an unpleasant feeling in your legs that makes you have to move them, very inconvenient when you want to fall asleep.

Want to know what you can do about restless legs? Then continue reading this blog.

What are restless legs?

Are you white? Then you have a 10% chance of having restless legs. In fact, 1 in 10 people with light skin color suffer from this. That's 2 or 3 in every school class. So you get the urge to move your legs before bedtime, often because you get a weird feeling in them.

These may include:

• The feeling of something running down your leg.
• A pulling feeling.
• A throbbing feeling.
• A tingle.
• An itchy feeling.
• An electric feeling.

Moving the legs then makes the weird feeling go away for a while. It functions a bit like scratching an itchy spot.

Some people include restless arms.

Symptoms can also go away for long periods of time and then suddenly return.

How do restless legs occur?

I can reassure you on the one hand. Restless legs are in fact caused by nerve cells that do not pass on the substance dopamine properly. The dopamine-receiving cells can actually become more insensitive to this, which is why symptoms often get worse as you get older.Dopamine is known to make you happier, but it also plays an important role in the movement of your muscles.

Damage to the nerves in the feet and hands, such as from diabetes or alcohol abuse, can also be the cause for RBS

If you have used drugs a lot in the past, you may also suffer from restless legs due to the influence the drugs have had on dopamine receptors.

You may also be iron deficient. With kidney failure, this can also happen because one is more likely to be iron deficient.

Women who do not suffer from RBS may suddenly experience it during pregnancy. After delivery, the symptoms disappear again.

On the other hand, then, it is not something with a psychological cause and thus not something you can influence very easily with mental techniques.

What effects do restless legs have?

Restless legs can also occur while you are asleep but not in your REM sleep. This can cause you to wake up while sleeping and suffer from fatigue. Which in turn can cause stress.

For example, you worry a lot about your lack of sleep during the day, and your whole sense of well-being can drop as a result. Not something that will make you happier.

In some cases, RBS even leads to depression.

How are restless legs treated?

Initially, research is done on such things as your blood iron levels. If these are low, you can change your diet so that you eat more iron. If this does not help or is not the problem you can be referred to a sleep specialist who measures your sleep.

People with RBS often do not enter the deepest sleep phase available.

This is then measured during your sleep in a sleep center. You are then given meters on your head while you sleep that chart your brainwaves and therefore the depth of your sleep and when you are actually awake.

In addition to changing diet, you can get other lifestyle advice, such as:

• Taking a bath to relax.
• Massaging the legs to release muscle tension.
• A heat-cold therapy to be less sensitive in the limbs. For example, you swap a hot jar with a cold cloth to improve blood flow.
• Regular exercise, at a leisurely pace and earlier in the day (i.e. NOT late at night) often helps calm restless legs.
• Avoid coffee and other caffeinated beverages. So no more Coke and no more energy drinks.
• Practicing and maintaining good sleep hygiene.

Dealing with stress and other RBS problems

Having restless legs is very annoying because it affects your daily life tremendously. There are a number of ways through which you can better cope with the symptoms of restless legs.

Tip #1: Tell those around you

So tell your colleagues and friends that you suffer from restless legs, especially if you're having a super tired day, this often brings understanding which also reduces stress.

Tip 2: Keep a journal

In this journal, keep track of your symptoms and what you ate and did that day. Also, write down the medications you are taking in this journal. This will help you check what works best for you to minimize restless legs.

Tip 3: Move when you feel the urge

Holding back on moving can only make your symptoms worse. Therefore, just move your legs (and arms) when you feel that urge.

Tip 4: Stretch and massage

Start and end the day with stretching or a massage. Doing light yoga daily is totally a good idea.

Tip 5: Seek help

Talking to people who are going through the same thing as you can provide useful tips, and in the process you can help others. That always makes you feel better. Look for groups (online or in real life) where you can talk about your problems.

What can hypnosis do for restless legs?

Hypnosis helps you better cope with the symptoms of RBS. People with restless legs who have tried hypnosis report that it helps them relax and feel less negative about how your life will turn out.

As mentioned, restless legs can cause you to suffer from fatigue, stress and even depression. Hypnosis is especially useful against stress and depression.

Hypnosis helps you relax in the first place. Partly because this is also necessary to be hypnotized. Then, together with the hypnotherapist, you examine the beliefs you have about how your restless legs affect your life.

Then you can check if these beliefs are true and look at the problems giving RBS in a different way.

Regression

One way to find out if you can look at your problems in a different way is to look at the origins of the belief. This can be done, for example, with regression. During regression, you go back in your mind to the moment when the belief arose. For example, if you are convinced that you cannot have a job with RBS, it is good to look at this. Chances are that one of your parents also suffered from RBS and that they did not work as a result and that this shaped your belief.

In fact, beliefs are formed early in our lives and this can be very unconscious. This is why you can often look back at how something was created in surprising scenarios.

For example, your father used to not work because of RBS and because of this he got into drinking (just to give an example). You saw this as a small child and so you think your life is over now that you too are getting restless legs.

However, society used to be very different from today. For example, you can now work from home much more so that you can easily take a nap in your lunch break which allows you to work much better than now. Also, being a stay-at-home dad is no longer something that men have to be ashamed of. So your life is really not over if you suffer from restless legs, you just have to look a little better for alternatives.

Hypnotic suggestions

Another way to change beliefs is through hypnotic suggestions. These cause positive beliefs to become stronger and negative beliefs to become weaker.

Hypnotic suggestions can also be repeated or listened to at home during self-hypnosis. You then first relax. You sit or lie down in a nice place and focus on breathing through the abdomen. You make sure that the inhaling and exhaling take the same amount of time, for example 3 counts. Then relax your muscles and close your eyes. Then you repeat the suggestions or listen to the mp3.

"When I'm tired I can take a nap, even during the day."

"There are opportunities to live a normal life, even if I don't work in a different location."

"I can move my legs and arms at night."

"I focus on what I can do."

" At night I may turn off the television for good sleep hygiene."

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. See a hypnotherapist to get suggestions that fit your symptoms and beliefs.

Want to learn more about how hypnosis and other mental techniques can help you or help others? Then come to a hypnosis playshop and check out Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training programs.

Sources:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/restless-legs-syndrome/

https://sleephypnopill.com/blog/restless-legs-syndrome-audio-hypnosis-treatment/

https://healthunlocked.com/rlsuk/posts/417603/has-anyone-tried-hypnotherapy