[LauraA]

I am not sure if I am allowed to post as a success story here, as I never completed the full course. However, I completed the two week mini email course, used the resources on this website extensively and listened to the podcast frequently. After struggling with crippling insomnia and feeling like I had tried everything, this method was the first that actually addressed the root cause of the issue and led to lasting improvement. These resources, along with the Youtube account Fearless Sleep (she is great and shares a lot of the same ideas), is what finally pulled me out of such a dark place. I am writing my story here as a testament to the effectiveness of this approach, and to maybe give some hope to someone struggling with insomnia who might stumble across this forum like I did, and find some inspiration.

My insomnia started two years ago, right after my now husband had proposed to me (I know that sounds bad, but hear me out). The night that he proposed, we had gone out after and were on the phone with friends and family until late. I was so amped up that I just couldn’t sleep, but I didn’t think much of it because I knew it was from excitement and that once that initial buzz was over, I’d be fine. However, the next day we were leaving to go on a trip abroad and our flight was a redeye. I can’t sleep on planes, so this marked the second night in a row of almost no sleep. As day one of the trip came to a close, I started ruminating on this and telling myself that I really needed to sleep that night so I could enjoy the trip. In retrospect, everything I told myself and everything I did to try and force sleep is the complete opposite of how I would approach it now. However, I had never experienced this before and so I started shaping my days on this trip around the need for sleep. You can probably imagine how this went. I spent the next 9 days completely miserable, averaging maybe 1-2 hours of sleep a night.

When the trip came to a close, I was hopeful that a return to my normal environment would bring about normal sleep. Little did I know, it wasn’t the environmental factors that were causing my insomnia, but my thoughts and actions around trying to force sleep. So I returned home, and continued to lay awake. I am a teacher, and this was about a week away from the start of school for the year so I began to completely panic. I told myself that I couldn’t possibly function at work with no sleep. This, in turn, led to even more struggles with sleep. The school year began and I felt like a complete mess. I was emotional all day, up all night, and felt like I was going crazy. I’m sure most of the people who frequent this forum know exactly the feeling I am talking about.

At this time, I tried so many different tactics to try and sleep. I began with the basic google search of “how to improve sleep” which had me going through an insanely long pre bed ritual of no blue light, eating dinner alone without my husband because the internet said I should eat earlier in the day, turning off overhead lights, taking a warm bath, doing yoga, lowering the temperature in my room, keeping a weighted blanket next to me, and more. Not only did this not work, but making the 3-4 hours before bed ALL about how my night would go was making it so much worse.

Next, I went to my doctor and was prescribed 2 medications; one to help with my anxiety and one to help me sleep. I did find that the anxiety medication helped with my overall state of wellbeing, but the sleep medication worked for about two nights and then left me feeling even more helpless when I stayed awake on night 3 despite taking it. At this point, I tried an online CBT-I program and went to a naturopath. I was journaling, taking melatonin and magnesium, and even considering taking FMLA to take some of the pressure off of me with the stress of not sleeping while having to work. Knowing what I know now, I am so glad I did not take time off from work.

It was around this time that I stumbled across the following article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/first-person-insomnia-saniya-warwaruk-1.6573785

This was the first article where the author’s description of her thoughts around sleep actually resonated with me. I felt like I had read so many “inspirational” stories of people that experienced occasional sleepless nights, maybe from work or relationship stress, so they did a breathing exercise or listened to the right frequency of sleep music and BOOM they were insomnia free. If you’ve had debilitating insomnia, you know how unrelatable that is. Finally, this woman described the crippling fear and desperation that I was feeling. It was so validating. I had a sense that I had found something really useful, so I followed some of the links embedded in the article and that brought me here to Martin Reed’s website.

The next 6 months was spent learning how to trust myself and my body again. I had to convince myself that I was not broken. I read through this forum when I needed support, I followed the daily emails, I listened to the podcast, I read articles and watched Youtube videos. I had a complete epiphany from this research. I had been approaching my insomnia (and my anxiety in general) all wrong, and in many ways I had been making the problem exponentially worse.

It was at this point that I stopped all sleep efforts. If watching TV before bed is what made me happy and calm, that’s what I did (blue light be damned). I started drinking coffee again in the mornings because even though the internet’s sleep advice implied that caffeine was a mortal sin, a pumpkin spice latte brought me joy in the mornings and momentarily took me out of my negative mental headspace. I ate dinners again with my husband, even if that meant eating late. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I stopped the rigid routine of getting out of bed after 15 minutes without sleeping to sit in a dimly lit space and read a boring book until I was sleepy again. Instead, I just let myself do whatever made me most happy and comfortable in the moment. Sometimes that was playing video games or watching TV, and other times I just let myself lay in bed and day dream without trying to fall asleep. Most importantly, I stopped cancelling plans. I once heard someone on the podcast describe doing things during the day as the “needle in the tire” that slowly let the air seep out of her insomnia. I couldn’t agree more.

At first, I wasn’t immediately sleeping better. I was, however, immediately feeling more moments of joy on a regular basis and it wasn’t long before this started paying dividends. I spent more time with my friends and family, I showed up at work more fully, I started working out again and getting fresh air, and slowly but surely, I started sleeping more. I stopped making every waking minute about sleep. After all, I was suffering enough at night and clearly that ruminating was getting me no where. This new approach just made me generally happier, and thus I started seeing improvements at night. Instead of going into fight or flight mode when I couldn’t sleep, I was able to just say “oh well, at least I get to catch up on the bachelor tonight.” As I got better at shifting my perspective on night time wakefulness, I started sleeping better. Sleeping better led to less anxiety, which led to better sleep and so on.

Around this time last year, I was hitting a pretty tough speed bump in my recovery and it was starting to get the best of me again. I had commented on this forum asking for advice on “controlling” hyper arousal at night and as I look back on that post, I realized how much I have continued to learn over the last year. Hyper arousal at night isn’t something that can be controlled any more than sleep can be forced. Dr. Reed reminded me that I don’t need to place any value judgements on this physical feeling of anxiety, and instead I can just accept it and let it be. Armed with that knowledge, my sleep started improving almost immediately. I just needed a little reminder. This just goes to show that the healing process is not linear. I am actually writing this in the midst of a little uptick in my insomnia, which is what brought me back to this forum to begin with. However, my fear and anxiety does not even compare to what I used to feel when this first started a few years ago. I have learned so much about myself in this process, and there are times when I am actually able to look back and feel grateful that this happened to me because it made me SO much stronger. I now have an innate sense of “this will pass” which is not something I could tell myself with confidence 2 years ago. Not only did this approach improve my sleep, but it has helped me in so many other areas of my life. I find myself thinking “you don’t need to control this feeling right now, just let it be” at least once a day. It’s an approach I would not have come to on my own, because everything else on the internet suggests that you should practice positive self talk, but that just didn’t work for me. It was easier to just let my thoughts exist without trying to resist or change them because it made them far less “sticky” as my therapist calls it.

2 years ago, I really thought that I was broken. I was in such a dark place, and it was hard to describe it to other people. When I told concerned friends and family that I wasn’t sleeping, their reaction was often to try and compare their own occasional sleeplessness with my situation and suggest I try melatonin or meditation. To anyone who has ever gotten this advice in their darkest moments, I hear you. This kind of insomnia is different. It requires mental reframing and an unwavering commitment to the notion that things will get better. So to wrap this up, if you are in the trenches right now, you are certainly not alone. There is hope and light at the other end, even if it is hard to see right now. You will come out of this a stronger version of yourself, trust me!

[Kelly]

This made me cry and smile and feel all of the feelings! It’s such a dark place when you’re in the thick of it. I’m so glad you’re here sharing your story. Thank you for the reminder that it is not linear but that it does get better.

[Sandysnore]

Hi Laura, thank you so much for sharing your story. I have only recently come across Martin reed and like you have found his words resonate deeply with me. I have suffered bouts of insomnia all my life. It has got worse in recent years and I have ended up on various medication. I have come to believe that my only way out is said medication and now that has also stopped working. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to come across Martin. His approach felt absolutely right. I should say that I have had a lot of therapy in the past, which has helped me in many areas of my life but not my insomnia. I now feel like I have permission to stop trying so hard. I also recognise limiting my life because of the insomnia and the constant anxiety and panic. For the first time in a long time, I am feeling hopeful that I can find a way through this. I have stopped thinking, I should…. Get up/meditate/nap/don’t nap/take more medication/come downstairs (I really don’t want to!). I know I have a way to go and that there will be hiccups along the way but I am glad to have found this forum and wish you well on your journey

[LauraA]

I’m glad you could resonate and I wish you the best of luck on your journey!

[mazzy1]

Laura, what you wrote is remarkably similar to what I’ve been experiencing. While I’ve had some issues with sleep on and off for years, this summer I went on a three week trip that set off a wave of insomnia that affected my entire summer. I’m in graduate school, and the weeks leading up to the start of the new academic year were putting extra pressure on me, especially because I’d been assigned to teach a class at 8am, and I have to wake up at 5:30am to commute, which I’ve never had to do before. Over the summer I started to dabble in these more CBT/ACT approaches to dealing with insomnia, but I only recently found Martin’s website when I was panicking about having to wake up so early and was considering telling my university that I could not take on the class — this would have been a shame because it’s a particularly rewarding class to teach, and I would be giving up on very valuable professional experience out of fear. So, reading your post gives me a lot of hope that I can come through this with a new mindset. Last night I slept about 3 hours before having to wake up and drive to school, but I was surprised by how mostly normal I actually felt, even after the “worst thing” happened. So, I’m hopeful.

Thanks for sharing!

[amanda1201]

This story makes me so happy and hopeful to read. You mentioned taking anti anxiety medication. Are you still on that medication or did you manage to taper it off successfully? I beat myself up constantly for having to rely on medication, but I also try to remind myself to be kind towards myself, see that this is a long process, and remain hopeful that one day I can be completely medication-free again.

[Sandysnore]

Hi Amanda. Be kind to yourself. Sometimes medication is necessary. At the end of the day you need to be able to function to work through these things. I am on a low dose (25mg) of sertraline. It has taken the edge of my panic and allowed me to think clearly. Since I last commented on Laura’s post over 3 weeks ago now, I have received Martin’s 2 weeks of emails and like Laura I am beginning to sleep better. I am worrying less about my sleep and my days are much more normal than they have been for the last 4 months. I still have days where the fatigue catches up with me but I am trying to accept them and use them as an excuse to catch up on a box set and cuddle up with my new puppy. I have been on sertraline before and know I can stop it without too many problems. I hope that this time my new learning about my insomnia will continue and will stay with me when the next bout comes, as it surely will! So be kind to yourself Amanda, do what you need to do to get through this and remain hopeful that, as Laura says above, this too will pass.

[LauraA]

I am still taking a very low dose of anxiety medication, as I found that it helped me overall (not just with sleep). I feel like it just takes the edge off of the panic and anxiety and helps me manage unhelpful intrusive thoughts. I completely agree with what Sandy wrote and think it’s important to note that everyone is different and I believe in using medication for its intended purpose when its needed. I hope to one day be medication free, but I’m not putting any pressure on it for now.

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