[Yazumi]

Hi there! Yasmin from Singapore here. Chanced upon the insomnia coach podcast and have found the success stories really inspiring.
I’ve been having insomnia since 31 Oct this year. I have seen both the psychiatrist and psychologist since. Was prescribed dayvigo and pristiq (anti depressants) but I have not started on the anti depressants. Dayvigo doesn’t really work on me too. Would like to better improve my sleep through my psychologist as well as through the insomnia coach instead of relying on pharmaceutical intervention.

The cause of my sleep issues was due to anxiety (I think). After nights of bad sleep, I just can’t help but think about how I am going to function, if I am going to pass out and these thoughts are so sticky that I constantly think about them and worry throughout the day.

[Chee2308]

Hello Yasmin

Welcome to this forum! Yes having insomnia can be quite unpleasant but it’s not the end of the world. Insomnia is usually a result of too much unnecessary worry, overthinking and trying to over-troubleshoot things. Although of course, it can have a underlying health issue but this is usually quite obvious such as pain or discomfort and it makes sense to seek medical attention to address these.

But otherwise if you don’t have any health issue, the reason is usually psychological stress and therefore, purely of a mental origin. You are basically losing sleep over sleep itself. You take this issue way too seriously than needs be. It becomes an unhealthy obsession which then develops into a phobia. A phobia of poor sleep and an incessant, relentless and unhealthy urge to get out this as much and as quickly possible. It drives you to seek unnecessary medical attention such as seeing mental experts and popping pills. These are not a permanent solution but actually erodes your confidence and damages your prospect to a more natural and long term solution.

The reason to want to avoid insomnia is entirely understandable. But unfortunately, it is not practical because sleep is a regular activity that people do everyday. And so every night, the nightmare is relived over and over again with no respite in sight. If you have another phobia such as travelling in a plane, then you can just skip that entirely and you can live your life normally. Unfortunately with sleep, this is entirely unavoidable.

You must find a way to take your insomnia much less seriously. This lessens the stress. The way out of this is actually having more insomnia! That is really weird but true and even paradoxical. Doing the opposite is what helps people overcome insomnia. Things like sleeping less which then strengthens your sleep drive, getting out of bed to remove negative association between bed and unpleasant wakefulness. And the most important of which is having a regular bed time, especially getting out of bed consistently at set times. This realigns your biological clock and helps regularize your nights. Your body has the ability to right itself if you just allow it!

Start trying to reframe your insomnia in a different light. Having poor nights actually develops your skills in how you handle them and over time, getting desensitized by them. A sleepless night or even a string of sleepless nights is pretty harmless, you are just over-reacting. Taking a step toward recovery does require a change in mindset. How you view poor sleep and ultimately how respond to them is your key to a complete recovery.

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