Allison Tsai is a health and wellness journalist with over 15 years of experience at brands like Expectful by Babylist, Well+Good, SELF Magazine, Healthline, and The American Diabetes Association (among others), covering everything from chronic conditions to maternal mental health, and finding answers to all of your weird body function questions.

The PR team for hypnosis has been working hard. Where it was once synonymous with spooky mind control, disembodied "you are getting sleepy" voices, and swirling black-and-white vortexes, hypnosis, and more recently self-hypnosis, is experiencing a rebrand as a legitimate stress-busting, habit-changing form of therapy.

With the influx of research and rise of practitioners and apps, hypnosis by all accounts seems to be helping people meet all sorts of goals and challenges. It's been used to quit smoking, reduce anxiety for better sleep, and even to get through childbirth.

But, if self-hypnosis still sounds a bit out there, rest assured, I'm with you. As a chronically tired, low-key-always-anxious mom, I am open to trying something new, but skeptical of any app that claims to help me fall asleep faster with a self-hypnosis program. This is exactly what the app Reveri promises. So, I tried it for seven days to see if it worked. Here's what happened.

Before diving into the app, let's take a look at the research out there about self-hypnosis for sleep. While bigger, more controlled studies are needed, there are some promising studies that suggest self-hypnosis could be helpful for people with sleep issues.

One 2020 study looked at whether self-hypnosis had an effect on the sleep quality of menopausal women, a group that often struggles with sleep. They found that not only did their sleep quality improve, but the amount of time they were asleep increased as well. And, self-hypnosis reduced the perception of poor quality sleep in 50 to 77% of the 90 women in this study.

Another small study of 20 college students looked at a control week of sleep versus three weeks of self-administered hypnosis. They found that the amount of time it took for the students to fall asleep and sleep efficiency, which was measured with wrist actigraphy, significantly improved. Finally, a 2023 qualitative data analysis looked at 44 studies on hypnotherapy and sleep disturbances and found that 44.7% showed positive results.

Armed with that scientific knowledge, let's get into how the Reveri app actually works.

If having an expert endorsement is important to you, Reveri has you covered. The app was founded by Dr. David Spiegel, associate chair of psychiatry at Stanford University, who has been in practice for over 45 years and has been using hypnotherapy since 1967.

While I used the app to improve my sleep, you can also use it to better focus, reduce stress and anxiety, reduce chronic pain, and cultivate a growth mindset. After a free 7-day trial, you can choose to pay $24.99 a month or $99.99 per year.

Once you sign in, you'll have to answer some basic questions, such as what you're looking to improve and your main life stressors. Answering the questions and setting up the app was straightforward and easy. I marked down that I wanted to reduce my anxiety to get better sleep, specifically when I wake up in the middle of the night and immediately spiral into a pit of worst-case scenarios, which makes it difficult to fall back asleep.

Next, I took a "Brain Style" quiz to understand a bit more about how I think and whether or not self-hypnosis might be worth it. Unsurprisingly, I was named a "Poet" with my superpower being "imagination." The good news is that designation means I'm highly susceptible to hypnosis, but the bad news is my imagination is often the reason I can't shut my brain off and just sleep.

From there I did a quick intro to hypnosis and a hypnotizability test (no surprise I was confirmed as highly susceptible) and I was ready for my first session.

Each day I had one session to complete, plus extra sessions I could do if I so desired. Since I was using the app primarily for sleep, I made sure to do the sleep session every night before bed. It was the same exercise each time, so I got used to the prompts and got better at following directions. During the day, I'd follow along with the designated session, but I'm not sure how much that had an effect on my sleep (I did feel more relaxed, for what it's worth).

You can choose between an interactive session, where you have to speak or tap your phone to move to the next prompt or a strictly listening exercise. During the day, I chose the interactive mode, while during my sleep exercise, I chose to just listen. Most sessions last between three and 12 minutes, which I think is the perfect amount of time for those of us who have trouble committing to any app for more than 15 minutes.

During the session, you are asked to rate your stress and anxiety, and then you listen as Dr. Spiegel takes you through self-hypnosis prompts. He then walks you through some guided imagery to help you manage stress. Because my stress and anxiety peaks when I wake up at night, the exercise was focused around designating a time to take action during the day, rather than allowing myself to worry about it when I should be sleeping. If you can manage to compartmentalize your thoughts in that way, the idea is that it signals your body to calm down so you can fall back asleep faster. Let's get to how well the power of suggestion worked for me.

As a newcomer to self-hypnosis, I had no idea what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I picked it up. Each session starts with the same prompts to bring you into a state of self-hypnosis. It feels a little silly at first (one of the prompts is to let one hand float up like you are holding a balloon), but I noticed my body relaxing almost immediately.

During the exercise, Dr. Spiegel asks you to come up with one stressor that you can focus on. I found that sometimes it was hard for me to focus on one problem, because I have a tendency to think about all of my problems as one big tangled web. As I continued to do this exercise each day, I got better at cutting down the noise in my head to focus on one thing, rather than everything at once. I also found that I got better at envisioning a solution, and then designating a time to take action on that plan in my daytime life. While at first I would come up with vague solutions and a murky future time to work through the problem, I began to pin down tangible things I could do that would make me feel better, and stick to that plan during the day. It was like training my brain to "worry about it later."

On day three of the seven-day trial, I started to think it might actually be working. When I took stock of my last three nights of sleep, it was clear that I really was falling back asleep faster when I woke up at night. I can't say I was timing how long it took, but what sometimes turned into hours of restless worrying under the blankets had been reduced to mere minutes. I wasn't totally sure if it was the app that was helping, but the next night I mistakenly found out when I straight up forgot to do the bedtime exercise. No joke, I was awake for hours.

Here's the thing -- I'm still not sure how much the app influenced my sleep versus the ebb and flow of my normal sleep rhythms and my particular brand of anxiety. Would I keep doing the exercises if they were free or very cost-effective? Definitely. Would I pay the $25 monthly fee? Maybe not. My other critique is, if you're using the app specifically for sleep issues, the session is always the same. You can do different exercises for other goals, but there is currently only session available for sleep.

That said, if you're at all curious whether self-hypnosis might work for you, Reveri is a great way to give it a try. All you need is a few minutes and a (very) open mind.