July 12th, 2008 by Phil

If you have ever suffered from insomnia, no one has to tell you how crazy it can make you feel. Not being able to sleep when you desperately want to can be incredibly frustrating. Not getting the rest you need can completely drain your energy and motivation. Plus, the sleep deprivation symptoms that build over time turn you into an accident looking for a place to happen. Would you like to find out how to beat insomnia? It can be done. But first it’s important to determine if your sleeplessness is related to sleep disorders.

Many people mistake insomnia for a disease or disorder. But inability to sleep is really a symptom that something is wrong. Mental conditions like stress or depression can cause insomnia. So can physical pain or side effects of medication. But if these common causes have been ruled out, you need to take a closer look at the possibility that you suffer from sleep disorders.

Sleep disorders are not like a cold or a skinned knee. That is to say, they are not simple conditions, nor are they easily understood. Medical knowledge about conditions that disturb your sleep is continuing to evolve. Research continually leads to new findings. New medications are regularly introduced. So if you’re dealing with a condition like obstructive sleep apnea or restless legs syndrome, you will need to stay informed about the latest advances. And you should realize that you may actually know more about your condition than most physicians.

Unfortunately, sleep disorders don’t play well with others. They tend to have a negative effect throughout your body. And they affect more than just your sleep. By keeping you awake all night, your daytime quality of life is harmed just as much as your sleep, if not more. As you continue to miss out on sleep at night, your immune system is weakened. Your reactions become slower. Your thoughts are muddled and foggy.

But none of this means that sleep disorders can’t be controlled. It is possible to do more than just survive. You can learn to deal with your sleep disorder and learn how to beat insomnia. Just remember this: sleep disorders are often around for a long time. To effectively manage your life and health, you may not want to just accept the flavor-of-the-month prescription. A much better solution is to learn how to manage your sleep naturally.

May 15th, 2008 by Phil

Hypnotherapy has been used successfully to cure addictions, phobias, cravings and even mental disorders. Hypnotherapy has been used for thousands of years and has been scientifically proven as an effective therapeutic tool. Practitioners such as the world famous hypnotist and TV celebrity, Paul Mckenna have helped make hypnotherapy popular.

Hypnosis works by tapping into your subconscious and implementing gradual changes to thoughts and behaviors, through visualizations or affirmations. Hypnosis works because the mind cannot tell from reality and vivid imagination.

Positive changes can be made in a very short space of time. In fact, hypnotherapy has been used to treat insomnia with great success. Through relaxation and positive affirmations the subject can drift into sleep much more easily and experience deeper and restorative sleep.

Hypnotherapy believe it or not, can be performed without a hypnotherapist. In an ideal situation you would have a hypnotherapist by your bedside guiding you into sleep, however this would be rather impractical and expensive. Many people use hypnosis CDs to help them drift into sleep. Hypnosis CDs work very much in the same way as a hypnotherapist does.

There is another alternative however which may surprise you and that’s self-hypnosis. Just as the hypnotherapist works as the facilitator, you can become your own hypnotherapist. There is nothing complex about self-hypnotherapy, it only takes time and practice to slot into the practice.

Through regular practice you can guide your mind into deep and relaxed states, enabling you to drift off into sleep. Using positive affirmations and visualizations you can communicate with the subconscious mind and ingrain positive thoughts, behaviors and habits.

You can learn how to self-hypnotize and tackle more than just your sleep problems. For more information on how to self-hypnotize, visit How to Beat Insomnia.

April 3rd, 2008 by Phil

Chronic insomnia is also known as long-term or hyper-insomnia. Sleep studies show on average that 10% of adults suffer from this condition. Unlike transient and intermittent insomnia, chronic insomnia sufferers rarely experience a good night’s sleep.

In fact many chronic insomnia sufferers have suffered for years and even their whole lives. What many people do not understand is that it’s a very serious condition that affects the sufferer physically and mentally.

Being an ex-chronic insomnia sufferer myself I understand how frustrating this condition can be. I thought I was going to go insane at some point; not being able to fall asleep for hours, tossing and turning every night, waking up frequently and having a barrage of thoughts circling my head, it was a living nightmare.

I guess it wouldn’t have been so bad, if I didn’t ‘need’ to sleep. But I needed it so badly. I could barely function in the day, feeling like a total wreck. I was irritable, moody and exhausted. My confidence was completely wiped out.

I couldn’t stand looking at myself anymore, I looked awful and god knows what people thought about the way I acted and looked. Chronic insomnia was the bane of my life. I had tried everything I could think of – sleep medication, aromatherapy and even acupuncture.

It was only when I started treating chronic insomnia as the symptom rather than the cause that I started noticing that my sleep began to improve. I began focusing on treating the underlying cause, tapping into the subconscious if you will with mind-programming techniques.

I started using alternative therapies to tap into the body’s meridian energy system to unblock negative energies that affected my sleep. I realized that sleep could just be another learned process like walking and cycling.

I realized that I had reinforced negative habits and thoughts into my subconscious over the years and that I had sabotaged my own ability to sleep. I had brainwashed myself in believing there was no hope and I had built an internal fear factor of sleep.

For chronic insomniacs out there, there is hope. If you believe that someone can learn to be confident, if you believe someone can learn to overcome phobias, if you believe that people can change, then you already know that insomnia can be beaten.

Subscribe for my Free Newsletter on the right and you will receive a Free Insomnia Report and Brainwave Entrainment Audio for free!

March 20th, 2008 by Phil

They say laughter is the best medicine. I couldn’t agree more, which is why I wanted to share this video with you. The Japanese come up with the most original pranks!

March 16th, 2008 by Phil

I found this interview with Tony Robbins. A great guy who has lots to offer anyone, no matter what state or situation you’re in. If you’ve got 12 minutes to spare, hit the play button and enjoy!

February 27th, 2008 by Phil

Have you ever tried meditation, but gave up because you find it difficult to relax and empty your mind for even just 2 minutes?

You may have heard about the health benefits of meditation and how it can help with sleeplessness and insomnia. Some other health benefits include:

• Increase oxygen levels in your body.
• Increase in blood flow.
• Reduction in heart rate.
• Lowered blood pressure.
• Reduction in muscle tension.
• Increase in self-confidence.
• Increase in serotonin production.
• Improves mood and behavior.
• Reduces stress and tension.
• Strengthens the immune system.

Insomnia can often be caused by poor mood, stress, worry, anxiety, tension and low serotonin levels. What’s more a lack of deep sleep can reduce the body’s immune system leaving it prone to diseases and viruses.

Deep meditation can help relieve these underlying issues so that sleep comes easier. What’s more through practice of meditation your brainwaves will slow and may even produce waves in the Alpha and Theta range. Theta waves are associated with REM sleep. With practice you can learn to enter the Theta stages at will – your gateway to sleep.

Confused? Here’s a little More On Brainwaves…

The brain constantly produces waves that flow through its neural pathways which are called brainwaves. There are four brainwave patterns; Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. Each one is defined by a different set of frequencies measured in Hz (Hertz).

The following is a basic look at the four common types of brainwave patterns, their frequencies and mental states each pattern is associated with:

Beta Waves (13 - 30 Hz)
Commonly found during an active or waking state. It is also associated with busy or anxious thinking, active concentration, arousal and other mental sates such as fear, anger and worry.

Alpha Waves (7 - 13 Hz)
If you’ve ever been relaxed and at peace, perhaps sitting in a park, soaking up the sun then your brain was probably producing alpha waves. Alpha waves are associated with a tranquil state of consciousness, on the edge of deep relaxation and meditation.

Theta Waves (3 – 7 Hz)
Associated with deep meditation, dreaming and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. During this state your mind wanders where it will and you are in the prime state of creativity, visualization and imagery.

Delta Waves (1 - 3 Hz)
When your brain is producing delta waves you are in deep dreamless sleep or a deep trance like state. This stage is essential for repair and rejuvenation of the mind and body.

So What Is Brainwave Entrainment And How Can It Help?

Brainwave Entrainment is the practice of synchronizing or tuning one’s brainwaves to a desired frequency.

How It Works:

If you play a tone of say 96 Hz in your left ear and 102 Hz in your right ear, your brainwaves will resonate at the differential frequency – 6 Hz. Playing this set of tones will produce a frequency in the range of Theta Waves.

Because of this naturally occurring phenomenon the brain has a tendency to change its dominant EEG (electroencephalograph) frequency towards the frequency of the dominant aural stimuli, in effect ‘synchronizing’ the two hemispheres of the brain.

The use of Binaural Beats can achieve exactly this. When listening to binaural beats, each ear is sent pure sine waves of different frequencies. As I mentioned the brain will resonate at the differential frequency. We can create a range of desired frequencies using binaural beats.

How can this help? Well I guess it’s obvious now, but if we can create a set of tones which create a frequency of between 1 to 3 Hz, your brain can be entrained to resonate at the same frequency. If you look at the brainwave chart above, you’ll notice that Delta Waves are produced at that frequency. Brainwave entrainment can be very helpful in getting into deep meditative states.

Brainwave entrainment can be used for other purposes other than to aid and guide you through meditation. Using binaural beats can actually help with sleep and guide you into deep sleep states.

Many insomnia sufferers have experienced dramatic improvements in the ability to fall asleep through brainwave entrainment alone. It has even been used to effectively treat psychosomatic illnesses like depression. As well as improving mental and physical health it can also increase concentration, memory functioning and even creativity.

If you’re interested in giving brainwave entrainment a try, sign up for my Free Newsletter and you’ll get a free Brainwave Entrainment Audio worth $29 – Visit: How to beat insomnia

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February 13th, 2008 by Phil

The regular routine things, like sleeping, eating and walking are so common that we hardly spare our time in thinking about them. It’s a vast territory of mystery, which Shakespeare once termed, “night’s second self”. We sleep as it is needed. It’s an inevitable part of our life. But a simple general knowledge about sleeping can make this almost overlooked part a strongly enhancing factor of our life. Let us take a deeper look at some interesting sleeping facts.

Sleep more - feel good, makes sense right? We know that at least eight hours we should spend in sleeping. We are, Bernard Shaw said, “slave to nature for that”. But the recent neo-scientific theory demonstrates the lesser we sleep, the more energetic we feel. It may sound heretic, almost breaking the standard norm of understanding. But the bone of contention goes, a five-six hours of sleeping can make you healthier and more awake. In fact, you may be taken aback hearing the fact that the world’s busiest people, CEOs, entrepreneurs, scientists, whose minds are constantly running relentlessly, sleep only four hours and wake up fresh to face the challenges the day brings.

With the world changing fast and strongly dependent on electronics, you have really a lesser time to adapt to it, both physically and professionally. Thus, there may have been some change in biological need as well.

Is the change destructive? Are those people victim of insomnia? Or do they hide some secret mystery? The truth is the more you sleep, the lazier you become. Sleep more than necessary and it’s likely you will feel tired and sluggish. Oversleeping makes you feel exhausted, and consequentially lazy.  After a particular point of time, you are bound to feel bored or irritated.

So is it possible to sleep less and feel vibrant? The answer is ‘Yes’, it’s astonishing that people are performing well while sleeping less. Actually, the old calculation goes, you should sleep eight hours a day, but how true is this? This mathematics strips you off one third of your life. The quarter of the rest is gone in performing nature’s duties.

In fact, this order has been set according to the load of the work. Previously people had much time to perform their work. But this ultra-sophisticated world demands from you more time to ameliorate it better. Thus the order of sleep has lessened accordingly. Science is in no way opposed to that. It’s only a matter of adaptation.

Now, prepare the statistics. Eight hours of sleeping gives sixteen hours of work. Add two hours to your work by deducting it from sleeping, and then calculate it for the next ten years. The amount can fulfill any number of dreams you set. In fact, you waste one-third of your life by sleeping. Imagine how much progress you could make if you were able to dedicate two hours extra to your work. The working proverb is not, early to bed and early to rise anymore.

January 24th, 2008 by Phil

Insomnia is a tough cookie to crack. Sleep deprivation is a doubled edged sword which most of us fail to understand. There are two mechanisms that govern our sleep and daytime functionality

On one side you have the sleep mechanism and on the other you have the wakefulness mechanism. With a majority of insomniacs, the wakefulness mechanism often beats the sleep mechanism. This is usually due to a number of reasons. For one when our conscious mind is too awake at night, we find it nigh on impossible to sleep. Often this is due to excessive worry, stress or anxiety. Psychological disorders such as depression can also affect the ability to sleep.

It’s the subconscious that knows how to sleep, not the conscious mind. You may have tried, but it’s absolutely impossible to will yourself to sleep with the conscious mind. What’s more lack of sleep is habit forming. In time your body and mind get use to not sleeping, you get used to the spiralling thoughts that keep you awake and sleeplessness becomes a habit.

To top it all off, sleep deprivation reinforces the inability to sleep. When we are exhausted in the day, we can sometimes sense that our body and brain wants to shut off. The only thing we can do is to fight the tiredness. You drink caffeine to keep you awake, you go get some fresh air, you force concentration, you try and wake yourself up anyway you can.

By fighting off sleep, you’re weakening your sleep mechanism, it becomes a habit. Even when you’re completely exhausted and ready to sleep, your internal wakefulness mechanism keeps firing up from habit, breaking up sleep and keeping you awake. You’re natural ability to sleep is weakened and your sleep/wake cycle becomes imbalanced.

People wonder why sleep medication fail to work. Well for one, sleep medication cannot substitute natural sleep. In fact the chemicals in sleeping pills affect brainwaves and disturb deep sleep. Deep sleep is the most essential stage for energy and restoration, without it, you will most probably wake feeling groggy, tired, dazed and irritable. Headaches and muscle aches are common symptoms of sleep deprivation and light fragmented sleep.

It’s not surprising that in recent tests a placebo (sugar pill) had a far better impact on its test subjects than sleep medication. It’s a myth that sleep medication helps you sleep faster and it’s a myth that it can improve sleep and daytime performance. What’s more sleep medication is addictive and unhealthy for the body and mind (it is a drug after all).

You might be thinking right now, that there is no hope, that if sleep medication don’t work, what will? Insomnia is just as much a psychological disorder as it is a physical disorder. So it’s really essential for a sufferer to be treated on both the mind and body to successfully cure insomnia or at least improve sleep.

January 13th, 2008 by Phil

Do the big pharmaceutical corporations really have your health in mind or are they just after the billions of dollar’s they make each year. If you thought it was the first, then it’s time to wake and smell the coffee.

Grab a coffee and watch this now:

Quote from Dr Mercola: “For over 100 years conventional medicine has seized control of the US health care system and as a result we have over 800,000 people who are killed by interacting with this system. It is likely that over 50 million Americans have died prematurely from this abuse.”

Check out his site www.mercola.com A truly awesome guy who knows what he’s talking about. I love coffee, but I try and avoid it (caffeine is a stimulant that can disturb sleep), so go grab yourself another drink, a herbal drink or better still a glass of fresh water and check out this next highly acclaimed video at www.mercola.com/townofallopath/index.htm

December 24th, 2007 by Phil

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably going to be eating like a horse over Christmas, only to make your New Year’s resolution to lose weight!

Burning fat can seem tedious and boring, not to mention hard work. People, who want to lose belly fat quickly, believe that if they could only be bothered to go to the gym or the pool just for a few hours a week, they could be sporting washboard abs even Arnold Schwarzenegger would be proud of.

Going to the gym is going to help, of course it is, however it is not the only important factor in how to get rid of belly fat. Reducing that waste line with a well balanced diet as well as a good exercise regime will ensure that you get rid of that belly fat with far more efficiency and speed!

Who on earth wants to spend hours a week in the gym, doing endless crunches, reps and sit-ups without seeing any results? The sweating, the aches and pains for absolutely nothing? Oddly this is far more common than it may seem. Many people will try to lose weight over years and still not see results. Worse still, they gain weight!

Why is this? Calories play an important factor in your success in losing belly fat. Most people assume that if they just eat less, they will lose weight. But if they do not burn more calories than they consume, they will inevitably gain weight.

Eating foods like junk food that contain high calories need more than just a few hours at the gym to burn off. What’s worse is that some people even believe that an hour at the gym deserves a cream donut or a slice of cheesecake just as a small reward –how wrong they are. They’ve just spent an hour at the gym only to pile it on again in a fraction of the time.

Eat less calories + burn more calories than consumed = lose belly fat quick; simple right? However where people often go wrong is by exercising when crash dieting or eating foods that lack the right nutrients, carbohydrates, proteins, fiber and fats. This can be damaging for the body’s health.

The food you eat is your body’s fuel, so it’s important to pay attention to what you eat and not just the quantity. Junk foods contain high fats and little nutrients to cater the basic needs of the body.

Going at it in the gym or pool on a poor diet will only make you burn out in the end. You’re body and mind will start to suffer, you’ll be prone to illnesses and fatigue. You’re body will dig into its reserves and you will weaken as a result. What’s worse is that your belly fat will remain. Of course you’ll have the six-pack underneath the fat, but it won’t be visible.

Knowing how to get rid of belly fat begins with knowing how to eat well, especially if you want to lose belly fat quickly. By eating the right foods in conjunction with your healthy exercise regime you will no doubt see better results.

To get a head start for the New Year, go to How to get rid of belly fat. Merry Christmas and Have a Great New Year!