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Hello! My name is Laura, I’m 25 years old and I am from Portugal – Madeira Island.
My insomnia story started on January 15th this year, so almost 3 months ago. I went 2 days without sleeping at all, which made me believe something was wrong with me. On the third day, I slept because of exhaustion but it lasted only 3/4hours and in the next day I couldn’t sleep at all again. This situation led to sleep anxiety – I started to feel really nervous at the evenings because I honestly believed I had lost my ability to sleep. I found myself thinking about sleep ALL day long! I couldn’t think of anything else. My family and boyfriend were worried about me so they suggested me to go to the doctor, and even though that was the last thing I wanted to do, I still went. The doctor advice me to take a mix of sleeping pills and I did, thinking that was the best solution. I was sleeping for 5 to 6 hours maximum, but I was waking up with the feeling that I had no sleep at all. It was weird, I knew I slept but it didn’t feel like I did. After 1 month, I stopped taking the pills, even though my family was pressuring me to keep taking them, not because they thought that would hurt me, but because they thought they were helping me. They weren’t. My second best decision during this period was to stop taking medication to sleep. My first was to watch Martin Reed’s videos.
Martin Reed’s videos regarding insomnia just changed everything. For instance, my doctor – the same who prescribed sleeping pills – said I should go to bed at the same time everyday, even if I wasn’t sleepy. Yes, that’s right – that was such a bad advice for a person suffering from insomnia!! When I stopped chasing sleep, sleep came to me naturally. That is when I realized the less I cared about sleep, the more power I had over insomnia. Just a simple thing changed my life: CARE LESS. RELAX. That’s it. And keep going with your days as if you had the best sleep of your entire life. That’s another thing I was doing wrong, I was letting insomnia control my life, I was cancelling plans with friends and exercising less because I was not sleeping properly. Now I can see how that was such a huge mistake!
Right now, I am sleeping better, I still wake up once or twice during the night, but my anxiety levels really have decreased a lot. Since 2 weeks ago (that’s when I started to implement Martin’s suggestions), I have slept every single day, which was something that before it didn’t happen. I slept 2, 3 days (badly) and then I was spending nights fully awake. That is not happening anymore and even if it does, I know for sure I am better mentally prepared for that 🙂
So thank you Martin! And I wish all the best luck in the world for the people who are going through the same as me or worse! I hope things get better for you (spoiler alert: they will!).
Wow, thank you so much for sharing, Laura!
When we stop chasing after sleep, when we aren’t engaged in the struggle, when it’s no longer the focus of our attention or the boss of our actions, things typically start to get a bit easier — just as you described!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Well done Laura and thank you for sharing your experience! My insomnia started in January too and I totally understand the anxiety towards sleep! Like you, I have been watching/listening to Martina’s incredible videos and interviews. They have helped me too! While I am getting 5-6 hours of sleep already every night( for the last 5 nights), I find that there is still a little bit of sleep anxiety lingering on after 9pm every night! I guess this just takes time to overcome. Thanks to Martin’s work, we are all on the right track now!
Hey Lynnbet! I know exactly what you mean! Even though my insomnia has gotten a lot better, I still struggle with some anxiety at night! I guess it is normal because this is a process and we can’t expect things to change drastically, we need to be patient! Also, we need to make sure that we understand that a bad night of sleep can eventually happen (no one has a fantastic night of sleep every single day for their entire lives!), and that’s ok, it doesn’t mean that our insomnia is getting worse, it is just one night ,and again, this a process that is not linear!
I know that my anxiety is still here and I still need to work on that, its an everyday battle with our minds, but we can do this! Things look so much better now than they did 1/2 months ago, so I’m staying optimistic! Good luck for you 😉Yes Laura. Out of my 8 good nights now, I have already encountered a bad ish night. Took me a good hour to fall asleep on one of the nights. I think it was because as I was doing ok, I was already hoping to achieve consistency in this momentum. Mistake! I think we still very much have to treat sleep as a bonus every night and only then, there is going to be less pressure and less anxiety. We just have let TIME to dilute this mind anxiety. I trust there will be less and less of these thoughts over time! It is so nice to “running mates” on this journey. Good luck to you Laura!
Laura, how did you manage to control your anxiety after so many sleepless nights? I find I can do okay if I don’t sleep for one entire night, and okay-ish if I have to do a second sleepless night in a row. But when the third one rolls around, when my sleep window “opens” and I lie down and find myself still awake an hour and a half later, that’s when the uncontrollable panic starts. I just can’t face a third day. I should mention I’m on my second week of sleep restriction, and following the programme religiously, but seem to be getting nowhere. All the mindfulness in the world isn’t enough to quell the panic at having to do a third 24 hours awake. I know the sleep pressure is building up, but it just never seems to be enough.
For as long as your goal is to quell or control your thoughts or feelings, perhaps you are hitting that big red button labeled “STRUGGLE” — and that, in turn, is making everything more difficult?
I’d love to hear Laura’s thoughts on this, too!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Rubylight!
First, ask yourself why are you so scared of not sleeping? In my experience, my anxiety started to develop because I was so aware of the benefits of sleep and since I was not sleeping, I thought my health was going to be really affected by this. This kind of thinking was building my anxiety day by day. I wanted so desperately to sleep to avoid all the bad consequences regarding insomnia and sleep deprivation, but ironically, by chasing sleep, sleep was running away from me! Once I decided to not care so much, my anxiety started to decrease and my sleep was returning to me without any effort from my side. That is why my advice to you is to reflect about your fear of not sleeping and start practicing an attitude of “I don’t give a damn”. This might sound like it is nothing, but trust me, it does help! This also follows what Martin is saying above.
I still found myself having anxious thoughts, I am not going to lie to you. What I try to do is just stop for a bit and reflect about what I’m thinking. Sometimes my mind fears that I am not going to be able to sleep that night. And I think to myself “there were several nights that you were scared and you still slept”; also, I think “so what if I don’t sleep at all? I don’t care, I will be just fine”. By doing this, my minds gets calm and I start to relax. With relaxation, sleep comes along.
I really hope this helps you! I know it is not easy going through this, but engaging in a different perspective can help.
Thanks, Laura. I know you’re right. And sometimes I’m able to do just that. Other times, not so much. But your success is really encouraging to me. It’s so good to hear from a fellow sufferer who’s doing so well!
Great insight @LauraG7! My perspective on sleep is exactly like yours. Sleep is just NOT WORTH LOSING SLEEP OVER. Take care of everything else in your life EXCEPT sleep. To @Rubylight, good luck. You can do this too, because everyone here is cheering for you from the other side. The difference between success and failure is literally a very thin veil, because once the correct mindset is adopted, the push to get on the opposite end is almost effortless. Anyone can recover practically overnight if the mindset is correct. Anyone can be a normal sleeper or an insomniac, these two are basically two sides of the same coin. It’s like yin and yang, they’re both inside you already, you’re just only too focused on one side that you completely miss the other which has always been there all along. If you can forget about your insomnia, it basically disappears. This is the weirdest thing about it. Pay no attention to it, it’s no longer there. Best wishes to you.
Wow! Your words should be set to music! So encouraging! I’m feeling 100% more hopeful!! Thank you!
So nice to see the support here! Overcoming insomnia is hard, but it is not impossible. Change your perspective, live your life regardless of your sleep situation and literally make no effort to fall asleep and you will see some improvement.
Have you ever wanted to find an item so badly but it always seems so elusive? Then when you focus your attention elsewhere, and stop looking for it, it starts showing up everywhere! LOL. Sleep is kinda like that. Stop chasing it, let it chase you! Chase the things you want to achieve in life, sleep will be following closely behind. On the contrary, when you start chasing sleep, it keeps moving further away. Achievement without any intention. You get it when you don’t want it. Good luck!
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