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I wonder what might happen if you simply thanked your brain for all those thoughts it generates, rather than trying to fight them, avoid them, or label them?
“You’re doing this to make this stop” — thanks, brain!
“You’re trying to make sleep happen” — thanks, brain!
“Tonight will be a disaster” — thanks, brain!
” You’re too worried for sleep to happen” — thanks, brain!
etc, etc, etc.The alternative is a night of struggle, battling endlessly with your thoughts.
—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.
CBT-I techniques can be helpful if we are engaged in a lot of effort to sleep — when there’s no effort, sleep happens all by itself!
—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.
Trying to suppress feelings is no different to pushing that beach ball under the water! We all know how that ends (sunburn, no David Hasselhoff wisdom, and the feelings remain anyway).
Of course you want the feelings to go away — but you can’t control that. So, perhaps it’s worth using all that energy in a different and more constructive way?
With all this being said, the process is hard and it takes a lot of practice!
PS: You can sleep, even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings! It’s the struggle — donning the suit of armor and going into battle — that makes sleep really difficult. No human brain is going to allow the body to sleep when it’s heading into battle!
—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.
Great question!
I think it comes down to acknowledging the presence of anxiety rather than trying to fight it, avoid it, or otherwise trying to control it.
Imagine that your anxiety is a beach ball. It arrives next to you as you’re hanging out in the pool, topping up your tan, and reading David Hasselhoff’s autobiography.
You don’t want that anxiety near you because it doesn’t feel good. So, you try to push it under the water so it’s not near you.
What happens? The beach ball pushes back even harder. So, you put even more effort into pushing it away. You push and strain and use all your energy to keep that beach ball away.
When your arms turn to jelly with exhaustion that beach ball explodes back up toward you — you expended all that energy and yet the beach ball is still there.
Perhaps even more importantly, during all this struggle you haven’t been able to continue reading the magic contained within the Book of Hasselhoff and you haven’t been able to apply any sunscreen so you’re also burned to a crisp.
As an alternative, what if you acknowledged the presence of that beach ball instead of trying to push it away?
Of course, you don’t want it there — but it’s there.
Then, perhaps you allow it to sit there for as long as it likes. While it’s sitting there, you do things that are important to you.
You put on that sunscreen, you read that infamous autobiography. Sooner or later that beach ball might drift off. It might come back. It might drift off again.
The difference now is that you’ve not used up all that energy trying to get rid of that beach ball. Instead, you’ve used it more productively — you’ve done things that are important and meaningful even in the presence of that beach ball.
Is there anything helpful here?
—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.
Reading sounds good if it’s something you enjoy! Remember your goal isn’t to make sleep happen, it’s simply to make wakefulness more pleasant!
—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.
If something is disrupting our sleep it’s usually quite obvious. If gaming was disrupting our sleep we would find that any nights we didn’t game we’d sleep great. If coffee was disrupting our sleep we would find that when we don’t consume coffee, we’d sleep great.
If this is the case, great — problem solved!
Otherwise, if sleep issues continue or if there’s ongoing confusion and ambiguity, the sleep disruption is almost certainly caused by our effort to make sleep happen and to avoid wakefulness.
With sleep, the more we try, the more we struggle!
—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.
Yup, it sure is!
—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.
Yes, the brain fog and the headaches are really difficult — so I hope you can give yourself credit for still engaging in activities that are important to you and help you move toward the kind of life you want to live, even in their presence.
Sometimes the brain fog and headaches can come from all the struggle — rather than the amount of time we spend awake. The more we battle with difficult thoughts and feelings, the harder they often push back (and the more energy they take from us and the more influence they can have over our lives).
The sleep window can’t generate sleep — it’s simply a tool that prevents you from chasing after sleep (by going to bed really early or staying in bed really later) while reducing the amount of time available for nighttime wakefulness. So, you can certainly experiment with it if you like — but I wonder if exploring your relationship with the anxiety and other difficult thoughts and feelings has the potential to be more productive?
—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.
It’s definitely on the “to do” list!
—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.
What you are going though is really difficult — I appreciate you sharing your experience. Since difficulties with anxiety is common, and since your experience with insomnia doesn’t sound unique or unusual, I see no reason why you wouldn’t find it helpful to practice some new habits that might make conditions better for sleep and help reduce the influence of difficult thoughts and feelings (such as anxiety).
—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, we know you can sleep and sleep well — since you did just that when on vacation!
I wonder whether there was a difference in the amount of effort you put into sleep or the amount of pressure you put on yourself to sleep when you were on vacation?
Perhaps there was also a shift in attention away from sleep (something you can’t control) onto all the great activities you were engaged in when on vacation?
That experience sounds like it could be the source of some helpful insights!
Thanks for sharing that you’re enjoying the Insomnia Coach YouTube channel and that you’ve been implementing some new habits to help create good conditions for sleep to occur!
—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.
Thanks for sharing! Learning more about how sleep works can be so helpful!
—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.
I wonder what might happen if you allowed yourself to worry rather than trying not to worry?
—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.
You’re welcome — I appreciate your kind words!
—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.
I wonder if the sleeping medication might be a way of “trying” to sleep? What about the breathing exercises?
—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.
