Tired of being tired.

It stopped being about "sleep hygiene" a while ago.

You've probably already tried the obvious things: no screens before bed, a cooler room, magnesium, cutting the second coffee. Some of that may have helped at the edges. And still, some nights, the mind simply will not switch off, running through tomorrow's list, replaying a conversation, or worrying specifically about not being able to sleep.

That last one is its own trap. The harder you try to make yourself sleep, the more alert the trying makes you. Insomnia is often less about the body being unable to rest and more about the mind running a loop of vigilance it can't seem to release, even when everything else is quiet.

This is common ground whether it started after a stressful stretch, or crept in slowly, or arrived with no clear cause at all. Occasional bad nights and a settled pattern of poor sleep are different things, and if this has been going on for a while, it deserves more than another article about sleep hygiene.

How hypnotherapy helps, and what it doesn't promise

Hypnotherapy works with the part of the mind that keeps running the vigilance loop after the lights are off, the part that treats a quiet, dark room as an invitation to think rather than to rest. The aim is to help your mind read bedtime as safe to switch off in, rather than trying to force sleep through effort, which tends to backfire.

You are alert and aware throughout the session. Hypnotherapy does not put you to sleep during the session itself, and it does not take away your control. It's a focused, clinical process, closer to deep concentration than to sleep.

I want to be straightforward about what the research actually shows. A 2015 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials found hypnotherapy significantly shortened the time it took people to fall asleep compared with no treatment, but did not show a significant difference compared with a sham (placebo-style) intervention, and the authors noted most of the included trials were small and methodologically limited. A broader 2018 systematic review of hypnosis and sleep outcomes found just over half of the studies reviewed reported a benefit, around a quarter reported none, and the rest were mixed, again pointing to a promising but still under-researched area. The honest summary: there is real signal here, but the evidence base is smaller and less settled than for some other uses of hypnotherapy, and no reputable source will promise you a guaranteed fix.

Where sleep difficulty sits alongside an underlying medical condition, sleep apnoea, or a diagnosed sleep disorder, that needs a doctor first. Hypnotherapy sits alongside medical care in those situations, not instead of it.

Who this is for

People who are functioning during the day but running on far less rest than they need, and who notice the problem is less "I can't sleep" and more "my mind won't stop when I try to." People who've tried the sleep hygiene checklist already and are looking for something that works with the automatic pattern itself, rather than another list of rules to follow at 11pm while already wide awake.

This is not aimed at anyone with an undiagnosed or acute medical issue affecting sleep; that needs a doctor first. For most other situations, hypnotherapy sits alongside your GP's advice, not instead of it.

Sessions are online, via video, from wherever you are in Australia, or in person in Fremantle by arrangement.

Your practitioner

Sessions and pricing

Every option includes your private one-on-one consultation, so the work is matched to you rather than run from a script.