Sleep apnea is incredibly exhausting, and it can have all kinds of effects on your life. Fortunately, hypnosis can help you deal with the problems that result from sleep apnea.
What is sleep apnea?
When you suffer from sleep apnea, your breathing occasionally stops while sleeping. This is because the airways can then become blocked. You then often wake up so you can consciously breathe properly for a while. A good night's sleep is then often not possible.
People with sleep apnea also often snore and sometimes even have paused breathing without having to wake up to take another breath.
Because it is so exhausting to not breathe properly while sleeping, people with sleep apnea can also suffer from daytime fatigue, have trouble concentrating, remembering things and suffer from mood swings.
This can even lead to problems in the workplace, due to falling asleep, for example, and even traffic accidents. It is more difficult to learn new things, and even building a social life can be problematic due to sleep apnea and the fatigue that comes with it[1].
A consequence of this fatigue and physical complaints is that you are more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms, anxiety and may even be suicidal. People with sleep apnea are also more likely to report that mental health care does not help them well, despite using it more often on average than people without sleep apnea[2].
Sleep apnea device
One way sleep apnea can be treated is with a device that lightly blows air into your lungs. This causes your airways to remain open, so you can breathe normally at night.
Many people who suffer from sleep apnea swear by it. The only problem is that it can look a little crazy. A thick tube of air going from your nightstand to your face and then some kind of mask on your nose. In addition, this device often forces you to sleep on your back or on one side of your body.
You have to love that.
And therein lies the crux: certain beliefs about how you want to be, or even how you want to appear to your partner next to whom you lie in bed, can prevent you from purchasing a sleep apnea device, for example. Because it's "not cool," so to speak.
A hypnotherapist can help you figure out what beliefs are now causing you not to want to purchase such a device, even though it may help your problems with sleep apnea. Especially if it is due to your physique and not obesity, for example.
Indeed, beliefs about romance in bed, spooning and the like can prevent you from purchasing such a device. While romance and intimacy is not just something that happens in bed, and even such a device need not stop the magic in the bedroom.
How that works and how you as a hypnotherapist can help people with obstacles is something you will learn at one of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands courses.
Hypnosis can even be used if you undergo a medical procedure for airway clearance; this happens if your physique causes you to suffer from sleep apnea[3].
Sleep apnea cause of death
Because you can wake up at night because you haven't taken a breath, it can also feel like you woke up because you were choking . This is not a pleasant feeling and certainly something that can cause you to fear that you are dying because of your sleep apnea.
Now that fear is not entirely unwarranted, as sleep apnea is indeed more likely to cause cardiovascular disease. People then have a higher chance of getting strokes, for example, but such a sleep device does not help to reduce that chance of those kinds of complications[4].
However, it is thus not the case that you actually suffocate from your sleep apnea because you wake up to just breathe again. The body itself wants to stay alive, so it will cause you to wake up to breathe when the sleep apnea causes you to not breathe for too long.
Only if the amount of oxygen in your blood becomes too low while sleeping can it cause you to die suddenly due to sleep apnea[5]. However, there is then often a correlation with other problems such as advanced age (60+), high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and heart problems that make it difficult for the heart to pump blood around.
Don't have all of these symptoms? Then a hypnotherapist can help you eliminate the fear of death from sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea obesity
Sleep apnea can have two possible causes, your physique and obesity. If you suffer from a just not convenient physique - which is why you have sleep apnea - slimming down will not help you get rid of it. You probably already have a healthy weight and then found out that your throat is apparently puzzled together just a little differently than those of people without sleep apnea.
For example, about half of people with sleep apnea are not overweight at all, but they have more fat on their necks than people without sleep apnea[6].
If you are overweight, weight loss can do a lot to reduce symptoms of sleep apnea, though[7]. Slimming down happens to be something that is much easier if you have had help from a hypnotherapist.
For example, a hypnotherapist can install a virtual (imaginary) gastric band on you, making you feel full(d) faster while eating. As a result, you eat less and lose several pounds effortlessly. In a study of people who received a virtual gastric band and had a BMI of at least 27, there was even one person who had lost 17 pounds (!) in 24 weeks. That's a little less than six months[8].
Tadaa! The sleep apnea is suddenly a lot less present, too.
In addition, a hypnotherapist can also help you with your beliefs about food, self-esteem and even your perception of taste to make it easier to eat healthier.
How to do this as a hypnotherapist is something you will learn during training at the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands.
Incapacitated by sleep apnea
Do you have a PAP device, have lost weight, but still suffer from sleep apnea and the accompanying symptoms of fatigue and lack of ability to concentrate? And is this so bad that you can no longer function well at work? Then you have a higher chance of burnout and (periods) of disability or illness[9].
This is obviously not a pleasant prospect, but fortunately there is much you can do about it and a hypnotherapist can help you with this.
Setting boundaries, resting on time and possibly finding work or taking on work hours that better suit your energy level then help better reduce illness and absenteeism.
However, setting boundaries, taking rest and even less hours at work are things that often depend on the beliefs you have about life and how you are supposed to function in it.
For example, many people who suffer from burnout find it difficult to say "no" because they fear losing their jobs.
People who work full-time may find it difficult to work one less day during the week because their ego thinks it is important for them to put in lots of hours.
It can be anything.
With regression , you can find out what beliefs are causing you to keep working instead of taking a rest when you are actually very tired. Then you go back in your mind to the first time you felt this was the way it should be. You may even find that you cannot say no to friends or family because you are afraid of losing their love.
Then, in your mind, you start doing something with that moment to fix the belief[10] to a belief that helps for you, reducing stress from the idea of being allowed to set your limits. For example, a therapist can help you empathize with the other people who were there at that moment, and you can even use your imagination to change the whole moment.
So you can even let your adult self talk to your inner child.
After that, you will find that a burden falls off of you, making you feel good about standing up for yourself and pointing out that it's better to take a rest, because otherwise you're just going to make mistakes from fatigue anyway. In the end, that doesn't help anyone.
Want to learn more about what hypnosis can do for you? Then come to the free online master class to learn about the wonders of hypnosis.
Or enroll in one of our seminars or trainings if you want to help people or yourself solve problems.
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