Sleep - Ignore Snoring

And snoring can be loud. It can seem as if it's impossible to sleep. They are the ones making the noise with all the snoring but you are the one kept awake!

Having to suffer someone's snoring can make you feel angry, exhausted and even depressed.

Expecting the worst makes it worse

When you become distressed by noise whether it's snoring or any unwelcome repetitive sound then something happens in your mind.

You come to anticipate the sound so your expectation (that you'll be kept awake again by snoring) actually stresses you out before the snoring even begins.

Now you find yourself in the position of listening out for it. This 'listening out' can keep you awake even if the snoring itself doesn't happen or isn't that loud.

This session will help you 'switch off' even if there is loud snoring. Because the fact is your brain is designed to process sound as you drift into deep sleep.

How the brain processes sound as you fall asleep

When you begin to drift off to sleep your ears still hear sounds around you but your brain begins to process these sounds in a different way. This is called the auto-symbolic effect. So a sound outside will still be heard when you drift off to sleep but it will be changed by your unconscious mind to represent some other sound, which might then be incorporated into a dream.

Because your brain can do this then you don't actually need quiet to drift off to sleep. When you can do this reliably to the sound of snoring you'll have cracked the problem. But there is another factor and that has to do with the way we notice sound.

Stopping 'hearing' what you are hearing

The other point with noise is something we call habituation. This means that when you relax with a sound and no longer pay it any conscious attention you 'stop hearing it.'

People who work in noisy factories can talk to each other even when newcomers can't hear what they are saying because of all the factory noise. This is because they have become so used to the factory noise they have 'stopped hearing it.'

When your mind has registered something it can stop hearing it. You may have been at a party and become so engrossed talking to someone that you 'stop hearing' anything else around you. Of course your ears and brain still register others talking but your attention is elsewhere. This also happens when we use hypnosis to stop people feeling physical pain.