How I Got Interested in Hypnosis

I used to stay awake nights worrying about my insomnia, which has got to be about the dumbest thing you can do! I tried the usual methods of avoiding caffeine, resolving not to worry after bedtime, and so on, but they had little effect.

Then I got a copy of Glenn Harrold's self-hypnosis CD, Deep Sleep Every Night,
and played it on auto-repeat all night long, every night. Almost immediately I started going to sleep within a few minutes, and if I woke up in the middle of the night, it would zonk me right out again.

The first time I listened to it, I wondered how much of a trance effect I'd get, and I got several effects, including a tingling in my fingers and toes and a disinclination to open my eyes. It turns out that getting into a light trance from a self-hypnosis recording is easy.

After a couple of weeks of excellent sleep with this method, I got a little weary of the program and started playing audiobooks all night, ones that I liked and had listened to several times already, so I wouldn't be kept awake wondering what happened next.

As time went by, I got to sleep faster and faster, and woke up less and less. When I started using audible.com's iPhone app, I discovered that I always fall asleep in five minutes or less, since the app's "sleep" feature stops playing after 15 minutes, but I always have to rewind at least 10 minutes to find my place. Not bad!

Later, I used self-hypnosis to lose weight, which worked for about six months until it faded away. In general, I've found that self-hypnosis can do great things, but seeing a good hypnotherapist gets faster and much more consistent results, so if I had found a hypnotist I really liked in the Corvallis area, I'd be further along than I am now.