This letter contains thoughts on hypnosis....which I HOPE are all accurate. At least, they are MY understanding of how it works for me and how it might work for you. It also contains some tips on using the pillow (or earphones), how to choose the right music, and the mental approach to the whole thing.
The basis for hypnosis is that you will be in a state of mind where you will be open to "suggestions". Therefor, if you are to use the music as a self-hypnotic tool to induce a sleep state, then you will have to give yourself the proper "suggestions".
Realize that, over the years of battling RLS and insomnia, you may have conditioned yourself to believe you don't sleep or you don't STAY asleep. You will HAVE to RE-condition your thinking. You've GOT to believe you DO sleep and you WILL sleep through the night....as soon as you get this technique down. It's possible. You CAN do it. You've just got to start telling yourself that this is your plan, this is your method, and sleep WILL be the result.
Through the years of facing RLS problems when trying to sleep, we've actually conditioned ourselves with "suggestions" that tell us we do not enjoy sleep or bedtime because it hasn't been a time of success and positive reinforcement for us. It's been a time of frustration, disappointment and failure (at trying to sleep, like everyone else). This is why it's even more important to realize how we have to change our THINKING about sleep. We have to see it as something we CAN do and WILL do. Start telling yourself, "I AM a sleeper!"
When you use the pillow and music to help you sleep, you will NOT be concentrating on sleep. You'll be concentrating on the job of listening to the music. Sleep will come on its own. If you think, "I want to sleep...I've got to sleep" right when you are trying to sleep, it works against you. Concentrate on the music and the plan of attack, and you WILL sleep.
MORE THOUGHTS:
1. DEEP BREATHS: When you get into bed and position yourself on the pillow, take a few DEEP breaths in and out. Then, turn on the music. Then take a few MORE deep breaths and make sure you are comfortable. Then, tell yourself what you're about to do. "I'm will concentrate NOW and focus so hard on this music, that the rest of my mind will NOW shut off for the night, and I'll FALL into a deep sleep until morning."
The word "now" is important. You are telling yourself this is to be immediate...not put off for 20 minutes. It will be a quick process that starts here and ends in a deep sleep. If there is any reason it can't be NOW....like that you are still listening for sounds in the house, or you haven't finished thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, etc. etc....then get OUT of bed...take care of it...and start again.
2. With normal hypnosis procedures, you would start relaxing your whole body at this point. But not with RLS!!!! Pay quick attention to your position...are you comfortable? Is this the position you want to spend the next 6 hrs in? Is that a strange questions? YES, you are planning to spend the next 6 hrs in this position!!! That's the plan!! So be ready for it. Be sure this isn't just a tense position that you brought from the rest of your day? Just make sure you are in that good sleep position for you and then forget your body. Take two more deep breaths and concentrate only on your ear being pressed to the speaker in the pillow. If you feel RLS...that's okay....even if you have to move once or twice...but don't focus on your legs...focus on your ear to the speaker and the task at hand...or "at ear" as the case may be.
3. Going down. With self induced hypnosis, you are taught to picture something like an elevator, going down one floor at a time, coming out way below...maybe at a beach...where you will be in a deep state of relaxation. With the sound pillow and music, the songs are your elevator. Each song will take you to a lower level, like the elevator. You may still be aware of your thinking, during the first few songs, but with each song, you are going lower and lower, or deeper and deeper, until you'll be in a full sleep. The longer you stay "on the elevator" or in this case, the longer you can stay with the music, the deeper you will go. Tell yourself you WANT to concentrate on every word and every instrument sound until the very last sound of the last song. That's the goal. Do NOT tell yourself, "I want to be asleep by the end of the first song." Say, "I'm going to focus and concentrate to the very end. My mind will NOT wander." If it DOES wander, you might want to start the whole process again. After a few times of starting over, you'll start getting the hang of concentrating and sticking with the music. Keep telling yourself, "I HAVE to think of nothing else but the sounds coming into my ear and I'll analyze and identify each sound." TRY to stay with it until the last song. My guess, is that you won't be able to. You'll be shocked, in the morning, or whenever you wake up, that you can't remember ever hearing the last half of the album, even though you wake up with your ear still pressed to the speaker and you KNOW you heard it all.
4. Waking up during the night. This becomes a bad habit. We don't like it, but we perpetuate it. The way to break the habit is to exaggerate it. Make a list of what you will do, if/when you wake during the night. When you wake up, do everything on that list. For example:
1. go to the bathroom
2. make a cup of tea
3. do 50 heel lifts
4. pay two bills
5. go back to bed and use the music again.
After doing this list, several nights in a row, the temptation will be great to skip parts or to do old habits, like staying awake on the computer for hours. Force yourself to stick to the plan. After a few times, you can make yourself a deal. Say, "Okay, I'll let you go to the bathroom and skip the rest, but you have to come right back to bed and do the music and go right back to sleep. You KNOW the music will work!" At this point, you are calling your own bluff. You're saying to yourself, "either it's go back to bed and go to sleep with the music, or stay up and feel sorry for yourself when you didn't have to".
Eventually, when you wake up, you'll prefer the efforts and results of the music, to the long hours of sleeplessness, and you'll be changing a bad habit to a preferred habit. This is the idea...it's the plan.
Using the Pillow
1. Find the speakers. Mine move around. Sometimes I have to push them to the center of the pillow, or to the part where I want to put my head. They definitely have a right and wrong side. Sometimes I have to either turn the pillow over or push the speaker around until it flips over inside the pillow. I like it facing my ear. A direct hit. :) If you can't locate the speakers, turn the volume up real load until you find them...then move them...then adjust the volume.
2. The idea, mentally, is that you are going to bring home all the mental thoughts of the day and focus them all into the one spot...the speaker. It's like your mind is a horse that's been out in the field all day. Now, at the end of the day, all it can do is think of going back to the barn, eating, and sleeping. NOTHING will stop it. It suddenly doesn't want to stop at the stream or eat the plants....it just wants to go home. VERY focused. You JUST want to listen to that music and wake up in the morning. Not the room noise, nor the leg sensations, nor anything else will change your focus.
3. Choosing music. I like my Meatloaf CD and another CD of Irish songs, that was made by one of the RLS group members, Ray Stephens. What's similar about them is that they both start out with loud snappy songs, and then switch to a quiet slow song. The first one helps me focus, and the second one drops me into the next level of relaxation. It has to be music you can focus on. I like something with words, so I can concentrate on the words and meanings. Something with a good beat, rhythm, or strange sounds (like the nature albums) might also work.
Changing music. Recently, I started staying awake through the whole CD. I finally realized that I knew the music so well, after listening night after night, that it was impossible to have it keep my attention anymore. I didn't have to listen closely, because I KNEW it. So, that's when I switched to the Irish music. What a change from Meatloaf!!! It all started working like a charm, again. So, be sure to vary it, if it stops working. And be sure to experiment until you find music that DOES work for you. You might even do well with words, only, as in an audio book.
4. Quiet spots in the music. I try to keep the volume as low as I can and still have it keep my attention. I concentrate better when I have to listen closely. Experiment with the volume. I really believe that the most important parts of the albums are the quiet spots BETWEEN the songs. I think I focus so hard on the song and then, when there's nothing, I DROP off. Right then, I drop to a deeper level of relaxation. Then another song comes on, hopefully slower...and I focus...and I "cement in" that new, lower level of relaxation. Then another break between songs, and I drop to a deeper level, etc. etc. So, do NOT worry that you are still aware of the music and you're already on the third song. You might be aware, but you are in a deeper state of relaxation and you are that much closer to sleep. You only THINK you are just as awake as you were when you started. Stick with it.
NOTE: Try using a music source that doesn't need to be turned off and/or that doesn't click off or awaken you when the tape or CD is finished.
5. Reluctance to turn it on, even though you know it will work. This is common. I've been in bed with RLS going and just KNOWN that I should reach up and hit the button and listen to the music...but I don't. And of course, then the RLS gets worse (having totally missed the point of Zero Tolerance, right?). Why do I procrastinate about using the music, if I KNOW it will work?
.....1. It isn't a matter of passive listening. It takes energy and concentration and commitment to "use" the music. Sometimes I'm too tired and too frustrated to want to expend that energy. BUT, I have to remember that the alternative is NOT good. I either expend a little energy to listen to the music, or I'll be up walking around or on the computer for the next two hours and paying for it in the morning! .....2. Sometimes it's just stubbornness. I'm mad because I have this damned RLS and I'm mad that I have to do all these tricks to live with it and get sleep.
The only answer is....ask yourself, "Do you want to sleep, or not?" If you want to sleep, then DO what you know will work.
6. Practice and the learning curve. There's a definite learning period. When I first used the earphones and music, I'd get through a whole CD and start it again. Later, I'd get through three songs. Now, I'm usually asleep when the second song starts. At one time, I even got to where I could go to bed, feel the RLS start, and just think to myself, "Well, you KNOW you can turn on the music, OR, you could just go to sleep, since that's what you'll do with the music, anyhow." Then, I'd just turn over and go to sleep. But that was after a few months of conditioning with the music. It's a learned skill. You get better with practice. AND, if you don't use it for a while, you'll need to refresh yourself on the techniques, when you go back to using it again. At one point, I thought, "Okay, I'll try music again." But, I just turned it on and let my thoughts wonder. I'd forgotten that when it worked in the past, it was because I concentrated so hard on it and MADE it work. So, do it every night for at least a week. By the second week, I'd guess you'll notice it working much better than when you started. Keep it up for a few weeks and see if you can get it to work with just one song.
With hypnosis, the first few times you go into a hypnotic state, it takes a long time and many suggestions. After you're good at it, just a single word or phrase can drop you into that state. But you have to keep up the practice or you lose it and have to start at the beginning. You won't have to use the music EVERY night...but probably at least once a week, or on bad nights.
7. Middle of the night use. If you wake up during the night....use the music again, when you go back to bed.
8. Bedtime routine. This is VERY important. Your routine helps you wind down.
..........Try for the same exact time every night.
..........Realize that if you are to hit the pillow at 10pm, then your "bedtime routine" might have to start at 9pm. Make it a habit.
..........Take bedtime pills EARLY in the evening so you can empty your bladder from all that extra water BEFORE going to bed.
..........Do the same routine every night: turn off house lights, lock doors, do personal hygiene, set up aroma therapy, check room temperature or turn on a fan or heater, make sure sinuses are clear so you'll breathe clearly, make a list of things to think about when you wake in the morning, etc. etc. Try to NOT have conversations after you get into bed. Do everything outside of bed (unless reading in bed works for you) and make it a habit to get into bed, turn on the music, and press your ear to that speaker, and go to sleep.
9. Expect the RLS to be there every night and whenever you wake during the night. It's like a pet dog. Faithful, waiting for you. Kewl. At least we know that and can count on it. We don't have to fear it. But we CAN also count on having tricks that work. We can COUNT on being able to hit the sack, turn on the music, and be asleep in no time. The RLS can just keep it up all night...we won't notice. This, of course, is just an "attitude". It's not always possible...but it's more possible than you think, and having this attitude is far better than going into a fear-panic-anxiety cycle whenever the first twitch appears.
Note: This all works for me about 90-95% of the time. The times when it doesn't work, is when I just have an overall body restless feeling and can't shake it. I get to sleep, but I keep waking up. That's when I resort to hot tea, computer games, and waiting until my body settles down. Then it's back to bed and turn on the music.
A thought on waking up at a certain time in the middle of the night:
Sometimes, my body gets into a habit or cycle of waking every night at the same time. I can go to be at 9pm or 10pm, or 11pm, and I will be up at 2:20a.m. like clockwork. When I've noticed that it's become a habit or cycle, the one trick I've found that works to break it, is to purposely stay up late one night. If I stay up until about 12 or 12:30, then when 2:20 comes, I haven't been asleep long enough and my body gets fooled and stays asleep. Even if I wake up at 4a.m....at least I've broken the cycle. Usually, the next night, I'm more tired (from having stayed up late one night) and I can get back to a full night of rest.