insomnia due to fear

All of us manage our lives relying heavily on both our conscious and unconscious minds. Doing so allows us to operate efficiently, and automates much of our everyday life.

Our automatic response sustains us, allowing normal responses such as breathing, drawing away from hot objects etc to ensure our safety. However, this same system is a double edged sword, as we will see from the story below.

At the time of the mishap, Desmond had been working so hard that he slept only 2 to 3 hours over 4 nights. He was driving along the expressway in the afternoon on the way home for some long overdue rest.

Desmond must have dozed off as he was driving, and his car slowly veered right and came into contact with the centre road divider. For the next few hundred meters, it was metal against concrete. We can only imagine what a racket that must made, but Desmond was still fast asleep.

Imagine Desmond’s shock when the he was finally woken by the strong vibrations of his steering wheel as he slowly guided his car to the road shoulder, trembling in fear.

After the incident, each time Desmond wanted to sleep, his hands would tremble uncontrollably, and he would wake in fear. It was under these circumstances that Desmond came to me for help.

Now, most people do not seek help unless they believe that they’ve ran out of options, so it was fortunate for Desmond that pure frustration prompted him to seek help.

I asked Desmond to demonstrate to me how his hands vibrated, while clutching the steering wheel, at the time that the metal of the car was grating against the concrete of the centre divider.

Desmond focused on re-creating the experience as it happened.

I then asked Desmond to lie down on the couch and asked him to recreate the experience. The moment he closed his eyes, fear stuck and he was unable to relax.

With Desmond still vibrating his hands as requested, I taught him how to relax and fall asleep in 3 deep breaths. He promised to do what he was taught the same night.

No prizes for guessing what happened. Desmond slept so well that he overslept the following morning.

You may be wondering how this works.

What happened was that, through the exercise, Desmond regained conscious control over the unconscious vibration of his hands, and because he can consciously control the vibrations, he can therefore put a stop to it as well. In Desmond’s one and only session with me, concerted intervention facilitated him with tools to break an automatic response that his unconscious created for his preservation and protection.

In focusing on both vibrating his hands and breathing deeply, his conscious mind was fully occupied with both tasks (it was suggested that the conscious mind can only process 4 bits of information simultaneously), thus his unconscious mind took over and he was able to sleep, rest and relax.

This simple but effective way of helping Desmond regain normal sleep patterns was done through application of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) tools, and it illustrates how applying the right tool, can effectively address behaviors that may seem impossible to change or control, simply because it functioned at the unconscious level.

So, I wonder at the amazing resources that each of us possess, but yet, may not be fully aware of. When we are indeed aware of these resources and tap in them, would you be fascinated with what we may discover about ourselves?

- edited by Jan

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