Ask the Experts: Functioning on minimal sleep

A: Yes! HypnoMothering provides restorative rest in whatever time you have. It teaches mothers easy and fast self-hypnosis techniques to make the most of limited sleep, remain calm and balanced on challenging days, and find focus and mindfulness amidst the myriad feelings that mothers face.

Hypnosis is a powerful tool that allows for minutes to seem like hours. Hypnosis brings you into a deeply relaxed state, almost like sleep. When you come back to normal waking consciousness after only 10 minutes, you can feel alert and refreshed as if you had slept for hours. The technique can be easily learned and will certainly come in handy with newborns and throughout the infant and toddler stage (and beyond!).

A quick example of HypnoMothering is HypnoMama Breathing, which helps bring calmness into your daily life as needed. The technique is simple and can bring mom an almost instant feeling of peace and balance.

• Close your eyes.
• Find your breath by inhaling deeply into your lungs.
• Clear your head by breathing all the way up into your brain.
• Finally, warm your heart by breathing into your heart space.
• Find your breath, clear your head, warm your heart—that’s HypnoMama Breathing!

This breath can be used any time mom wants to quickly get centered and balanced. So, the next time you are kept up all night by a crying, hungry infant, take a few minutes to yourself, and you’ll feel like you’ve had eight hours of sleep.

—Suzanne Vecchi, director of maternal wellness at Acelleron Maternal Health & Wellness in North Andover, Massachusetts