Frank Doesn't Snore

Sometimes we get a call from a woman who wants us to use hypnotherapy to help her husband stop snoring. This works, as long as HE sees it as a problem and believes that somehow his life will be better without it. If she's the only one who wants an end to it, we can help... by seeing HER for a session.

Snoring has to do with the level of relaxation in a piece of tissue that hangs down at the back of your throat. Too relaxed, and air moving over it causes excess vibration, and noise. Losing weight can help (less tissue there), and avoiding alcoholic drinks at night can help (less relaxation in that area). It also helps to sleep in a position other than on your back, which changes the angle of the dangle of the floppy tissue. Hypnosis helps by giving suggestions to the snorer to easily and comfortably make those changes.

But sometimes a husband (or wife who snores) isn't aware of his or her snoring, or is but doesn't care! That's when we have to see the person sleeping close by and give suggestions to that person to lessen the perceived noise level and/or choose a more helpful reaction to it.

In our business we sometimes use an indirect approach. Sometimes the subconscious mind is more receptive to "soft" suggestion rather than a hard command (STOP SNORING!). I like to talk during hypnosis about crickets. How the sound they make can either be annoying and keep you awake, or can be interpreted as sweet and soothing, like a lullaby that puts you to sleep. You actually have a choice in the matter, and if someone else's snoring has been p.....sing you off and keeping you awake at night, once you change your (subconscious) mind, you change your reaction, and improve your own sleep!

Frank doesn't snore. What he does though, on a regular basis, is this: After he has dressed in the morning, he brings his shoes and socks out of the bedroom and sits on a diningroom chair to put them on. Then when he stands he NEVER pushes the chair back under the table's edge. He just LEAVES it. Right where he USED it. Can you see how that would ANNOY me?

Well, only a little, and once I noticed my reaction (years ago) I decided to change it. Now when I find the chair out of place I smile and say to myself, "Ah, isn't that cute?" Then I remind myself of all the women out there who WISH they had a husband with such a harmless habit, and I put it where it belongs. The chair AND the minor aggravation.

He also has a tendency to leave his tools lying around, and papers piled, that he's brought home from a meeting, and a necktie draped across the coffee table. I call these "signs of life." If I lived alone in a sterile household, they wouldn't exist. (This realization helps when my granddaughters visit also. We let them have the run of the house, and when I'm tripping around Barbie dolls and stepping over color crayons, I smile and say a little thank you. )

If I lived alone I'd only have to pick up after myself.

I hope it never comes to that.