Iain Alexander’s Blog

Just a quick one today.

I came across this interesting little piece in Scientific American Mind today.

According a recent study, listening to classical music may lift people out of their depression. After listening to Beethoven’s third and fith sonatas, depressed patients felt happier. This was true for most of the people they studied, but the greatest elevation seemed to come from younger people. It lends ever more weight to the findings that music therapy is an effective and (from the health services’ point of view) economical way to treat patients. Four of five patients that received music therapy experienced a significant reduction in their depression.

Music has a specific potential that can be used therapeutically to promote well-eing and alleviate symptoms like depression, anxiety, stress, anger and agitation” reports the study’s co-author Parvennah Mohammadian.

Clearly, this might not the be the case for all music.. I suggest you put away your Radiohead, Fields of the Nephilim and Joy Division when you’re depressed though..

One of the things I often help with is help getting to sleep and help returning to sleep (if they awaken during the night) - most peope report that it often works “a treat” (my phrasing not theirs). Sadly though I’ve not been sleeping well for, what seems like… well seems like forever. In reality it’s been about a ten days. For me, at the moment, it’s not a problem getting to sleep, that happens easily; nor a problem of awaking during the night (I often don’t). The problem, is that that my sleep feels so poor that I awaken feeling like I’ve barely closed my eyes. I feel that I’m always nearly awake- awake enough to know that I’m sleeping and awake enough to know that I’m turning over, or that I’m too hot, or that my back is stiff, or that that the birds are singing outside, or that it’s nearly time to get up, or that…. well, you get the idea.

With all the techniques that I know about helping people get to sleep, I’m at a bit of a loss for myself at the moment. Afterall, I actually am asleep (sort of), just not asleep enough for my liking. This seems to me, to be much harder to address and rectify.

So far in my quest for a good night’s sleep I’ve tried:

• Changing my diet -just making sure that I’m not eating carbs/sugars in the evening (as this can often stop people sleeping or sleeping well) - hasn’t helped as far as I can tell
• Altering my bed time - upon reflection I was going to bed awfully late… gradually brought that down to a more reasonable time (currently around 10:30-11:00) - again, that hasn’t made any difference
• Tried listening to music before sleep and during sleep: we have an alarm clock that plays “sounds of nature” (rain, waves, bird song etc) - it sounds ghastly but is actually quite pleasant. Having this on, doesn’t effect my dropping off to sleep nor the quality of sleep, although having it on all night became a bit annoying.
• Opening the bedroom window - I’m always too hot, so always like to ensure that the window is open, even in the winter.
• Tried Nasal Strips to open my airways - I’ve had sinus problems all my life and often find that my nose gets blocked at night - Nasal strips although expensive are great for helping me breathe more easily throughout the night, but haven’t made a scrap of difference to my sleeping quality.
• Tried more, less and just different pillows - sometimes the easiest things are overlooked and pillows are often the first thing I get people to play with - often sleeping better is vastly improved by new or different pillows or by varying the number that peope use. (I’m a 2 pillow person!)
• I normally have a little cushion that I use as a knee pillow, which helps my back enormously - lately I’ve tried using it differently or not at all.

Not even my trusty Camomile tea and honey (with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar) seems to be helping at the moment and as far as I can tell, there’s nothing on my mind. I’m not stressed or worried about anything either.

Lack of sleep, or lack of quality sleep does funny things. Physiologically it increases dopamine levels so it’s common to start focusing on negatives rather than positives and to have unhelpful or intrusive thoughts (as psychologists call them). When dopamine levels get very high its’ not uncommon to hallucinate or develop psychosis - it’s one of the reasons that things always seem better in the morning, because you’ve re-absorbed some of the dopamine in your system.

Apart from dog tired, I’m finding myself being overly critical; even more of a grumpy git than I normally am. My concentration is poor, I’m easily distracted and just overall lacking in any kind of energy. I haven’t been to the gym for nearly two weeks, nor really done any form of proper exercise other than walking the dog a few miles every so often. It’s entirely possible that I lack energy because i’ve not been exercising! I’ll test this out tomorrow when I’ll push myself to pop onto the treadmill and get some running in.

Fingers crossed, I’ll be back to normal soon.

Things don’t always go according to plan, sometimes during the course of my work I find myself questioning my abilities: When I’ve seen a client several times and nothing we try seems to work - that happens a lot more than I’d like, but thankfully it’s not often.

However, the other side of the coin is when things seem to go brilliantly - with that in mind I’m going to blow my own trumpet with this post and tell you about two success stories I’ve enjoyed in the last week.

Both clients came to me for weight issues. Now, as I’ve mentioned before I don’t really help people to lose weight per se, what I do is help them get back in touch with the way their body wants to eat. To get a better relationshiip with food and ultimately, this always results in them losing weight and maintaining a healthy “normal” weight thereafter.

I saw a lady 2 weeks ago for her first session, she has to have a hip operation as soon as she can, but is currently too heavy for the doctor’s to happily proceed. I normally like to see people a week apart (or thereabouts) between the first two sessions, but she was going away for a long weekend. Upon her return, we got together and she told me how she was amazed at how easy and natural it had been (which is exactly the point!) One of the things I ask people not to do, is weigh themselves, because it’s doesn’t really matter what the scales read, more important how you feel. However, she did weigh herself and found that in 11 days she’s lost 5llbs (2.3Kgs). This was without dieting… without depriving herself of any of the food she enjoys (quite the reverse). Now, rapid weight loss is not something I’d recommend for anyone, however, in her case it was clearly something that happened naturally as she wasn’t “dieting”… just eating according to her body’s needs. Needless to say she’s rather pleased!

The other person I’ve seen was also and lady who came for weight loss. Again I explained how it was going to more a case of learning to listen to her body and take your eating cues from your body rather than from when you would expect to eat. She was an excellent hypnotee (hypnotic subject) and was very easy to work with. However, I got a telephone call from her the next day in a little bit of a panic. She had gone home and eaten just a “fraction” of her normal amount, and finding herself not hungry any more, had stopped. The same happened the next day, she would eat because she was hungry and then find she wasn’t hungry after a few bites and then found she wanted to stop. She was very concerned that something was wrong. It wasn’t, I think it was simply that this was so markedly different from her regular eating pattern (eating at set times of day, clearing her plate and when she snacked, snacking quickly and without much thought to what she was eating) that was a little unprepared for how much of a change it would be and how easy it would be. She was a shocked as to how little she was eating now - and once again how easy it was and how she didn’t feel deprived. Hopefully I put her mind at rest, that all was indeed well and that she was simply eating enough for her body’s needs.

When hypnosis works well, it really works very well indeed.

Gimmick… well yes it would be, if I was selling something. (which I’m not)… but the notion of being able to sleep and stay slim, or sleep and lose weight might not be as far fetched as you might think.

According to research published in the Sleep getting a good night’s sleep seems to be key to not putting on weight. Eight hours a night is ideal as they discovered that people who sleep for six or nine hours per night (on average) put on more weight than those who sleep for seven or eight hours.

Not just a little weight either, they found that people, on average, gain 2kg in weight. Even worse was that people who got less sleep were 35% more likely to gain in excess of 5kg over six years than people who slept seven or eight hours per night.

Apparently (I didn’t know this before I read the articles). The amount f sleep you get can govern your weight because sleep affects your hormone levels - more specifically it affects those hormones that are responsible for appetite and feeling full.

Now, of course. Losing weight is more than just getting a good night’s sleep. But it adds another element to our knowledge and enables you to more easily make changes that really work. There are many things that all play a part in us gaining weight and by extension losing weight. It’s never just as simple as “I’ll cut out chocolate”, or “I’ll stop eating bread.. or fat… or… carbs… etc etc”, Nor as simple as just getting eight hours sleep a night. But they all play their part.

With this in mind, I urge to see how much sleep your getting… is it enough? Is it too much?

When people come to me and ask me to help them lose weight, I have to be honest and tell them that I don’t “do” weight loss hypnosis. I won’t help people diet and I don’t. Because although diets do work at the time – most people find that when they reach their goal weight they start eating “normally” again and put all the weight back on (often putting more on than they weighed before).

Instead of doing weight loss hypnosis I help people have a better relationship with food and get back in balance with their body. In doing so, they end up losing weight, but its’ a bi-product of learning about how your body works with food. Time and again, people who are generally overweight tell me the same thing

“…but I just love my food”

What they’re really telling me is that they don’t actually enjoy their food enough and this causes them to eat too much too often.

So, one of the things I have to explain that in all that eating, more often than not, they’re not stoping to take the time and really enjoy every mouthful of food. They eat so quickly, that they have barely swallowed one mouthful and they’re cramming the next piece into their mouths.

Let me ask: when you’re eating, and you’re chewing one mouthful, what are your hands doing whilst your eating? For most of you, I’ll imagine that you’re cutting up your next mouthful, or gathering it together on the fork waiting for your mouth to become free again, am I right? If you’re eating without cutlery (i.e. a sandwich), what do you do with your food when you’re eating one mouthful? Do you put the food down or do you hold it up, ready to take another bite when you’ve swallowed?

When you eat like that, you’re not really giving yourself a chance to taste and enjoy your food. Sure, the first mouthful might be lovely, but after that your palate gets used to the taste and you don’t notice it as much.

Here are a few of the tips I tell all my clients:

1. Eat slowly. Eating isn’t a race, you’re not competing for food with anyone. Take the time to really enjoy your food. Eat as slowly as you possibly can. Don’t worry if it gets cold, you have a microwave, or an oven and can always reheat it! Initially aim to take at least 4 times as long to eat now as you used to. Someone has taken the time to make the food, or, if you’ve bought it realise that you’ve invested money in it. Take your time to enjoy it.

   Put your knife and fork down between each mouthful. Don’t start cutting your next mouthful, nor arranging the food for you next time. Stop, concentrate on what’s in your mouth right now. If you don’t have cutlery – i.e. a sandwich. Put the food down between each mouthful. Make each mouthful a deliberate event.

2. Smell your food before you eat it. Seriously… how often have you ever done that? Most of the flavour of foods come from the aroma, what we perceive of as taste is actually smell. Evolutions has blessed you with a nose just above your mouth – for exactly this reason – Before you eat, just gently smell it. When you do, you’ll find that you enjoy the taste of it so much more.
3. Chew your food. No really, remember to chew it properly. You’d be surprised how many people don’t chew food thoroughly. Chewing is so important for releasing the flavours of your food. Chewing helps you break down the food and the enzymes in saliva start the digesting process. By chewing you are giving yourself the maximum opportunity to enjoy each mouthful and giving your body a helping hand in digesting it. Remember, when you chew that you can move the food around your mouth – chew on the left, and the right side of your mouth, move your food from the front to the back of your palate. You’re not playing with your food, you’re just giving it a chance to let you experience everything it has to offer
4. After you swallow, wait a moment. Let the food reach your stomach.
5. Have a glass of water between mouthfuls. This is really important for several reasons: Partly because it helps slow you down, partly as the water will help you digest you food, but mostly because the water will clear your palate and allow the next mouthful to taste just as good as the first.

Now the most important aspect of eating. The one that so many people know, but seem to forget.

STOP WHEN YOU ARE FULL!

If you’ve been overeating for a long time, you might not realise the signal your body sends you to tell you that are full. If that is the case.

STOP BEFORE YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE FULL

It’s always better to stop before your think you’ll be full than to eat too much and feel bloated. Stopping before you’re full means that you have time to check, if you’re still hungry you can have a little more, if you’ve had too much you can’t un-eat it. I liken this to a haircut: always better to cut off too little than too much. Too little and you can take a bit more off, too much and you look bald!!!

If you’re not sure when you feel full. Eat slowly, and stop before you think you might be full. That way, in time you learn how recognise the signal of being full.

What happens by doing this, is that in time. You learn to eat and enjoy just as much as your body needs. When your body realises that it’s regularly getting “just enough” food. It begins to shed some of the fat it’s been storing. It learns to balance your intake to match your output (more activity means you eat more, less activity means you need less) and you learn how to enjoy eating properly. The added side benefit is that you start to lose weight, to reduce down to the weight that is right for you. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen and because you then re-train yourself to eat more appropriately you maintain your weight easily.

If you like food, what better way is there to lose weight than to really enjoy eating even more than you do already!

Further to my last post about Age being no barrier to fitness, I came across this truly remarkable man today. 101 year old working, plumber Buster Martin..

Buster, it seems isn’t satisfied running a very respectable half marathon last week. Buster is planning the London Marathon this year and will be the oldest (bar far I imagine) person to do so. Let me just repeat something here….. HE’S 101 YEARS OLD. Not just that, the BBC have a video of him running – he runs better than me and I’m only 36! Three years ago he started work again as a plumber… Can I say this one more time HE’S 101 YEARS OLD!. Go watch the video, he’s fit, healthy and he’s going to run a marathon! He looks and acts like someone much much younger, watch how he stretches in the video… I’m 1/3 his age he bends better than I do.

Watch him. Be amazed. Be inspired!

Realise that if he can do this. So the hell can you!