Could Entrainment be a Cure for Insomnia?

Insomnia is no laughing matter. Those of you who have experienced it on a short or long term basis will vouch for that. It literally messes with your life and, unless properly addressed, will dominate the way you interact with the world around you every day. Insomnia sets up a vicious cycle whereby you become more and more desperate for sleep and yet end up getting less and less. Consequences range from reduced effectiveness through to depression, anxiety, hormonal imbalances and other serious health conditions.

I know. I had mild to severe insomnia since I was about 6 or 7 years old, right through my teenage years and well into my 20s. Often I would hit the bed exhausted at 10pm and not get to sleep until at least 3 or 4am. This is the condition that first got me into the field of brainwave entrainment. The biggest frustration for me with insomnia is the lack of effective solutions out there to address the problem at an underlying level. Using sleeping pills only compounds the problem by eroding your confidence in your ability to drift off to sleep naturally. Another big frustration is the vast number of articles and supposedly helpful suggestions that never really make a dent in your sleeping habits.

My aim in writing this article is to provide you with some breakthrough suggestions that hopefully will guide you to the root cause(s) of your insomnia and provide a straightforward and novel way to restore your sleeping patterns. I’ve been passionate about the topic of insomnia for decades now so hopefully you will find relief in the insights shared below.

Are you stuck in ‘Beta frazzle’?

The main solution for me in overcoming insomnia was the combination of properly engineered brainwave entrainment and relaxing visualizations to calm and control my overactive, anxious mind.

In my view, insomnia is a natural consequence of your body responding to a chronically over-active mind. When you think too much, or are overly anxious about certain events in your life, your brainwaves remain stuck in a constantly frazzled state at the Beta wavelength level. When this happens for an extended period of time, you become used to this overactive level of thinking at night and it becomes the norm. This Beta frazzle is also associated with an overactive sympathetic (excitatory) nervous system and too much cortisol and adrenalin at night (the stress hormones), which makes it much harder to fall asleep, or alternately will wake you up in the middle of the night once any initial exhaustion has worn off. In conjunction with calming your mind, you need to engage your parasympathetic (calming) nervous system.

Sleep is an autonomic (subconscious) process that you can’t consciously direct to happen on command. If you assess the traits of people who sleep well under any conditions, when they go to bed their brainwave patterns naturally drift from Beta, down to a relaxed Alpha state and then down to the Theta level – where at a particular frequency they naturally ‘click out’ into sleep state automatically. This process should happen for all of us unless we override it with too much mental activity or anxiety. We literally establish a pattern of behaviour that keeps our brainwaves stuck at the Beta level and an over-active nervous system. The solution therefore is to find a way to take your brainwave patterns down to that ideal level naturally and effortlessly so that your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in.

We’ve found that audio entrainment using a ‘monaural’ tone designed to take your brainwaves down to a specific frequency within the Theta range makes it dramatically easier for insomniacs to fall asleep. When you combine a listening session with a visualization that allows your mind to ‘switch off’, it’s much easier to guide your brainwaves down to the state where you naturally ‘click out’ into sleep state.

In terms of a useful visualization to help activate your relaxation response while listening to the recording, you could imagine your mind slowly dimming like a light-bulb and just let go mentally, or even imagine walking into an elevator and sitting on your favorite chair in the center of the elevator. Then imagine seeing on the control panel that you are at level 10 and that you click on level ‘0’ and feel your mind and body descending slowly level-by-level and just letting go. As you descend through each level, feel yourself shedding more and more tension and mental activity, while progressively relaxing your mind and body. As you reach level 0, direct your mind to just let go completely and allow yourself to reset your stress and tension levels to a baseline of zero.

What you are actually doing is helping to retrain your brain and, after three weeks or so, you should be much more able to reach the Theta level naturally.

Other tips to overcome your situation

In addition to using properly engineered brainwave entrainment, the following suggestions may be helpful in conjunction to address your situation. Please review carefully as you may be able to identify where you are going wrong:

• Light management: In order for your pineal gland to work effectively and produce melatonin (the sleep hormone) at the right time, your environment needs to be dark in the evening from around 7pm onwards. Keep lighting to a minimum in the room with a low-wattage bulb and try to avoid back-lit devices like televisions and computers for at least an hour prior to sleeping. Reading with dim lighting behind you is a great alternative. In fact, lying down completely horizontal in bed with a dim reading light behind you while reading a novel can put just about anyone to sleep. Conversely, make sure you get sufficient natural sunlight each morning to help regulate your pineal gland.
• Blood sugar levels and the 3am wake up call: When your blood sugar levels are too low, it’s very hard to fall asleep. Make sure you have a balanced meal of protein, good fats and complex carbohydrates for dinner and don’t leave it too long between that meal and sleep time. Some people also find it really useful to eat a handful of almonds about 30 minutes before going to sleep at night. Almonds are a healthy mix of protein & fat with with low carbohydrates that can help keen your blood sugar levels even throughout the night. Likewise, if you find you wake up at 3am and cant get back to sleep, you blood sugar levels may have dropped and adrenalin kicks in to compensate. If you wake up and feel wired then have a light snack like a banana or muesli bar, as the rebalanced blood sugar levels will make it much easier to drift back off to sleep. Waking up at 3am can also be a sign of too much stress and an over-active sympathetic nervous system. You may fall asleep easily due to exhaustion but then wake at 3am and can’t get back to sleep, as you have too much noradrenalin circulating. Following our relaxation protocol above, while listening to our brainwave entrainment recording is essential to break this cycle.
• Anxiety and accepting your situation: If you suffer from anxiety, for whatever reason, then you will want to overcome or accept the underlying situation that is causing this. Everyone has challenges in life, but at the core of anxiety and excessive worry is the feeling of unresolved issues that you haven’t accepted yet. It’s how you feel when you hit the bed each night that counts. Whether you find a counsellor to talk to, or make a list of all the factors and decide whether to take action to address or accept each factor, managing your anxiety will make it much easier to sleep. Our RevitaMind product also contains an anti-anxiety track (‘Tranquility’) which takes your brainwaves down to a frequency within Alpha that is modelled on some of the most calm and blissful states possible.
• Effective exercise: We all know that exercise is good for us and helps us sleep but few insomniacs actually ensure that regardless of how tired they feel the next morning, they get up at the same time and exercise. They tend to have an over-active mind, relative to their level of physical activity. Ideally if you can stimulate your cardiovascular system every day out in natural sunlight, this will prepare you for sleep at night and also help regulate your pineal gland naturally.
• Nutrient support for an over-active nervous system: Great sleepers don’t need to take supplements to get to sleep and this is our ultimate goal, but there are several nutrients that can help you in the short term. Often with insomniacs, an over-active nervous system goes hand in hand with an over-active mind. Valerian root can be excellent for calming your mind and helping you to fall asleep naturally. Make sure to take a good quality supplement in capsule or gel form (not tablet) from a reputable brand with a guaranteed, standardized amount of extract. Similarly, taking a calcium/magnesium formula in a 2:1 ratio can make a big difference in helping to calm your nervous system. Make sure to ask for a highly absorbable formula with supporting nutrients and take this at lunch time as well as before bed. Supplementing melatonin (either directly or through concentrated cherry juice) can also be useful on a short term basis if the first two supplements don’t have any effect.
• Temperature regulation: Make sure you don’t overheat in bed as when your body temperature starts to decline, it is much easier to fall asleep. Try and have just the right amount of covers, but no more, so you are at a comfortably cool temperature.
• Feel your tiredness: Instead of over-thinking and worrying when you can’t get to sleep, another good distraction for your conscious mind is to just feel or notice how tired you are – ie feel how tired your neck and shoulder muscles are; notice how tired your feet and legs feel; even how tired your mind feels – but just don’t start over-thinking it and that you need to sleep. When you direct your attention into an inner feeling/sensation mode, your subconscious sleep mechanisms will naturally kick in.
• What to avoid: Eliminate caffeine, nicotine and any other stimulants from your diet. Also make sure to avoid sugar-free sweeteners (e.g. Nutra-sweet or anything containing aspartame – this is critical). Remove all electrical devices from next to your bedside (including alarm clocks and ensure mobile phones are switched off). Put those devices in the far corner of your room if you have to.
• The essential mindset: Lastly, perhaps the most critical factor in overcoming insomnia is what mindset you adopt when you hit the pillow. We mentioned above how falling asleep is an autonomic (or subconscious) process. If you look at perfect sleepers, they just hit the pillow and literally don’t think about falling asleep. Their minds just wander about effortlessly at a very low level of mental activity and then ‘click out’ naturally. Basically, your conscious mind needs a distraction so it doesn’t get in the way of stopping you sleeping. After years of trial and error my suggestions are to lie down with a very dim light still on in the room for a few minutes to acclimatize to being in bed and slowing down your thinking. Enjoy relaxing in bed and just have an intention to rest, never to sleep. Then after a few minutes, turn off the light and make your room as dark as possible. Keep your eyes open but relaxed and just notice the darkness of the ceiling (further stimulating the pineal gland to release Melatonin). Then at some point, close your eyes and effortlessly visualize some scene or situation that is non-stressful for you (a “sleep movie”) – for example visualize what you’re planning to do this weekend, or going for a relaxing walk in the forest. Using a visualization will help to keep your conscious mind distracted and your brainwaves relaxed so that you transition into sleep state.
• The checklist mentality: Ultimately, the key to everything mentioned above lies in you creating a checklist to consistently apply all of the above factors over a set period of time (ideally three weeks or more). The good news is that if you carefully check off the above elements, it should really make a big difference to your sleep and well-being.

*If you would like to try brainwave entrainment to help you overcome your insomnia, then all three of our products contain a monaural track (the first track on each device) designed to take your brainwaves down to the Theta level where we all naturally ‘click out’ to sleep. We’ve had many, many testimonials from customers who have overcome their sleeping problems in this way. Our RevitaMind product also contains another audio track (‘Tranquility’) designed to help you manage anxiety more effectively. Unlike sleeping pills, the ‘side effects’ of using our products are increased cognitive function, mental clarity and feeling more refreshed the next day.