Does Paul McKenna's Insomnia Cure Work?

I have insomnia. It's not constant, but it has been a night visitor on and off most of my life. Right now it's on again and this time it's affecting my health so I would like it gone for good. Two evenings ago I dug out my copy of Paul McKenna's book, I Can Make You Sleep. I tried it to follow his suggestions before, a year ago or maybe more, but it didn't work.  Or at least it didn't seem to, but at the moment I am so exhausted it seems worth another go.
Rereading the book I've noticed several mistakes I made.
McKenna says that most people are cured of insomnia by following his method. But some are not, so there's no guarantee. But, reading on, I discover that it turns out almost everyone who didn't get vastly improved sleep didn't follow his instructions to the letter. They missed out an exercise, or tried it a couple of times and then gave up. Just moments ago I read an article in which a journalist had tried listening to his hypnosis CD for two nights, slept brilliantly, didn't listen to the next few nights and slept badly. So she concluded his method only worked if she played his CD.
I made the similar mistake.
Isn't it funny how you can read something and yet not see it? I missed several things the last time I read McKenna's book.
I missed that:

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• You need to do all the exercises. 
• While some people see rapid improvement others will see no change for several days and then a big improvement, perhaps followed by a few bad nights and then more improvement. 
• Insomnia is a HABIT, not something wrong with you. 
• You need to follow MeKenna's method for 2 months, even if your sleep drastically improves before you will have fully reprogrammed your mind and corrected your sleep patterns. 

I did get that the most common reason for sleep difficulties is worrying about sleep difficulties. I laughed wryly in recognition when he explained that throughout the day people visualise lying in bed awake and so when they go to bed that's what they do.
I did get that reprogramming the mind is what it's all about. Okay, I sort of got that. I also sort of thought I didn't really need to do his exercises because I was already using other techniques, mainly The Sedona Method and The Work of Byron Katie, to change the way I looked at life. So I tried some of his suggestions, but not all of them.
In particular I didn't try the visualisation exercises more than once. I found them hard - actually I can't even remember if I found them hard back then, but I certainly did when I tried them last night so it's a fair bet the same was true first time around too.
That leads me to another thing I missed: he says the exercises that you find hardest to do are probably the ones that will be of most benefit to you. After all, as he points out, if you find something easy you are probably already doing it right, whereas if something seems hard, then it shows there's room to learn a better way.
Hmm, yes. Now that I think about it I can see that makes sense. Practise makes perfect, or at least repetition retrains the brain. So I will be practising visualising leaving my worries behind every day for the next two months at least. By then, let's hope it will be second nature.
So that's the plan. How's it going so far?

Day/Night One
In a way this is day 2 since I listened to the CD the night before last, but since I hadn't read through the book or done any of the exercises I'll say that last night was the first.
Rule One: Only go to bed when you are sleepy. 
I had been sleepy most of the day, so didn't feel the need to stay up late, and got into bed around 10.30.
Rule Two: Bed is for sleep 
You are not to do anything in bed except sleep. No watching TV, eating or reading (except I Can Make You Sleep.) The only other thing you can do in bed is that thing nobody does when they are sleep deprived because they are far too tired…
So I read a chapter of I Can Make You Sleep, did the worry visualisation and then settled down with the CD (which I have loaded onto my ipod.)
I fell asleep before the end, but it looped round and I woke up as McKenna's voice boomed out, warning not to listen while driving a car.
A dog barked outside. One of my kids came in to tell me she couldn't sleep. I suggested she focus on her breathing, since that usually works for her. The dog barked again. My shoulder hurt (did I mention my shoulder and neck and neck have been sore for years?) But I fell asleep.
When I woke it was 3.25 am.
 Rule Three: No clock-watching. 
Here's the bit of the book that still confuses me: McKenna says not to look at the clock.
But on the same page he says that if you are awake for more than 20 minutes you should get out of bed.
Rule Four: Don't lie awake in bed. 
Lying in bed awake makes your mind associate lying in bed with being awake. I can see his logic, but how do you know when twenty minutes is up if you don't look at the clock?
This was another part of the plan that I didn't follow last time round. I've always had a belief that if I get up in the night I can't get back to sleep, so it's better to stay in bed. But if I'm going to follow this method to the letter it's time to challenge that belief. So, I lay there for a while and then decided to listen to the CD again. It lasts over twenty minutes, but I assumed that those wouldn't count. I was still awake at the end, so waited some more and then took a peek at the clock. 4.25 am.
It's December and at 4.25 am, our house is not very warm. Okay, it's not just not warm - it's freezing. So I wasn't too keen on getting up, but I'm also sick of being awake at 4.25 am. So I got up, put on a dressing gown and a coat and stood downstairs hovering over an electric heater. In the dark. You are not supposed to do anything interesting in this middle-of-the night arising, or your mind will see it as a reward, an excuse to party. (I don't think he said that exactly, but heck, I'm sleep deprived, I'm allowed to exaggerate.)
So, anyway, there I was in my dressing gown and my duck and feather filled coat, still freezing and I realised a recurring thought in my mind was that if I am awake I should at least be doing something useful, not just wasting time by standing over a heater.
Okay, maybe that's part of why I can't sleep: I think I should always be doing something useful, so feel irritated at myself for lying awake in the night. That could be a belief that is causing me to lose sleep, a belief I can challenge.
But 4.40 am was not the time to do that. Thinking that having realised this I would get to get back to sleep, I headed for bed. For good measure, I played the CD again.
Half an hour later I was back by the electric heater again.

Can Paul McKenna make me sleep?
Right now, I don't know the answer to that question. But in 2 months time I will. Keep your fingers crossed.