Hypnosis Intervention for Sleep Disturbance: Determination of Optimal Dose and Method of Delivery for Postmenopausal Women

Abstract

Sleep disturbances are a pervasive problem among postmenopausal women, with an estimated 40 to 64% reporting poor sleep. Hypnosis is a promising intervention for sleep disturbances. This study examined optimal dose and delivery for a manualized hypnosis intervention to improve sleep. Ninety postmenopausal women with poor sleep were randomized to 1 of 4 interventions: 5 in-person, 3 in-person, 5 phone, or 3 phone contacts. All received hypnosis audio recordings, with instructions for daily practice for 5 weeks. Feasibility measures included treatment satisfaction ratings and practice adherence. Sleep outcomes were sleep quality, objective and subjective duration, and bothersomeness of poor sleep. Results showed high treatment satisfaction, adherence, and clinically meaningful (≥ 0.5 SD) sleep improvement for all groups. Sleep quality significantly improved, p < .05, η2 = .70, with no significant differences between groups, with similar results for the other sleep outcomes across all treatment arms. Comparable results between phone and in-person groups suggest that a unique "dose" and delivery strategy is highly feasible and can have clinically meaningful impact. This study provides pilot evidence that an innovative hypnosis intervention for sleep (5 phone contacts with home practice) reduces the burden on participants while achieving maximum treatment benefit.

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“…Therefore, the finding that Evia users are reporting sleep problems is in line with previous research. Hypnotherapy interventions have been shown to improve sleep in menopausal women [15,19]. Evia includes components to address sleep problems and this study suggests that those components should be kept or additional components should be added in order to help users who are reporting difficulty falling asleep and poor sleep quality.…”

Hypnotherapy and IBS: Implicit, long-term stress memory in the ENS?

“…Numerous studies have revealed that hypnosis is a nonpharmacological and cost-effective method that can be used as an effective and safe method for the management of diverse conditions, such as pain, anxiety, mood disorders, sleep problems, depression and anxiety, wound healing, haemorrhage, stress and pain associated with medical and surgical procedures, and gastrointestinal disorders [ 9 , [157] , [158] , [159] , [160] , [161] , [162] , [163] , [164] , [165] , [166] , [167] , [168] , [169] , [170] , [171] , [172] , [173] , [174] ].…”