Sleep Self-help

Yesterday, I watched a TedX talk called “Trick Your Brain Into Falling Asleep“. In it, a musician (drummer) and educator named Jim Donovan tells his story of extreme anxiety that saw him taken to hospital. Long story short, he looked at his lifestyle and particularly his lack of sleep and realised he must do something about it. He devised a very simple self-help technique which involves a few minutes of rhythmically tapping on the right and left sides of the body whilst breathing slowly. He exhorts people who have sleep difficulties to try it for 5 consecutive nights to gauge its effects.

I scrolled down and read some of the comments and although I don’t have sleep difficulties myself, decided to try it out on myself. The first time I tried it, I had the most vivid dream - a pleasant one by the way. Now that might not seem of particular note but I very rarely remember my dreams. I also shared the video with my sister who does have difficulties falling asleep and staying asleep and she reported a good night’s sleep, again after the first try of the technique.

As a musician, the speaker talks very much in terms of his musical knowledge. As a therapist, I was not only interested in that but also in the bilateral stimulation aspect. There is a variety of therapies that use bilateral stimulation, either by tapping or eye movements, that work very effectively to reduce trauma and emotional charge in memories. Integral Eye Movement Therapy which I practise as one of my treatments is one. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is another.

It is thought that part of the reason these bilateral stimulation therapies work is because they co-ordinate the right and left sides of the brain allowing memories to be properly processed. With this in mind, it may be that the tapping in this self-help method similarly allows the right and left sides of the brain to work together more effectively.

Here is a link to the video. If you have sleep difficulties, I urge you to watch it, try it out and judge for yourself.