How Rose battled with insomnia as a teenager but now looks forward to going to bed at night (#6)

Transcript

Martin Reed: Welcome to The Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that nobody needs to live with chronic insomnia and that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques can help you enjoy better sleep for the rest of your life.

Martin Reed: All right. So thanks for being with us today, Rose.

Rose Fullerton: Thank you very much for having me.

Martin Reed: So can you tell us a little bit about when you started finding that sleep was becoming a problem for you?

Rose Fullerton: Yeah, so I would pinpoint it back to about July, 2013. I was around 12. And up until then I absolutely loved residential sleepovers, all that kind of stuff. So I was away family friends. On the second last night, I just couldn’t fall asleep for whatever reason. But it sort of manifested itself into this anxiety that when I went to bed I would never be able to fall asleep. And it’s something that I’ve dealt with every single day up until about May of this year. When I would go to bed, I would just get so frustrated, I would be tossing and turning. I just would never be able to fully relax.

Rose Fullerton: And then my exams hit, my A-level exams, which are for uni, and the stress just made everything explode in May and I was having panic attacks, I couldn’t eat. It was just awful. And I was getting two to three hours of sleep per night, which were really light sleep and they were disturbed and interrupted and yeah, I had just tried to put it into a box and just not really deal with it. And I think that sort of came back to bite me this year when everything met head on.

Martin Reed: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So you mentioned that you had a lot of worries going on, like when you got into bed. Were they specifically sleep-related worries right from the start or was it something else going on in your life that kept you awake and then it kind of turned into sleep related worries?

Rose Fullerton: Yeah, I think that when I got into bed I just over-thought the entire sleep process and that sparked that anxiety. And then because my adrenaline would start to run, then I’d be like, oh my word, now I’m so much more awake, I’m never going to be able to fall asleep. And it just turned into this complete vicious cycle and I had the wrong mentality of, I refuse to get out of bed if I felt like that, even though, because I had so much adrenaline, I was buzzing, I was banging off the walls, I refused to get out of bed and I just had to stay there because I was like, if I got up out of bed, I’m going to wake up even more and I’m not going to be staying in the place where I will fall asleep. And it just, I think that, first of all, the fact I’m never going to be able to fall asleep then because I was never able to relax and then the thoughts of what was going to happen the next day, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep. Was I not going to be able to concentrate in school if I had an exam? Was the exam going to go badly? And then that just sort of piled in on top of itself and just made everything 10 times worse.

Martin Reed: Yeah. So you know, it’s really common the way you’ve just described how it just can… it just progresses, right? It just starts with this one night and then you start to worry about it and the more you worry, it kind of triggers this vicious cycle where your sleep response to the worry by getting worse and obviously that just makes you worry even more, so it can just seem like a really desperate situation. Do you identify with that?

Rose Fullerton: Yeah, 100%. It came to the point where, when I was waking up, sleep was the only thing that I thought about the entire day. I literally could not cut a break from it. It would be, is tonight going to be as bad? Am I going to have this anxiety throughout the day? Am I going to have a panic attack? Am I not going to be able to concentrate? It was just every waking moment was, how bad is it going to be tonight? Basically which obviously, when it came to actually trying to go to sleep, because I had just been thinking about it and worrying about it all day, it was just, it was never going to go well because it had just become this massive big monster in my head.

Martin Reed: Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people are going to identify with that, you know? And for people that have never experienced insomnia, they don’t recognize that it’s really this 24 hour thing. It’s not just something that affects you at night. It affects you all during the day as well because you’re thinking about sleep, you’re maybe researching about sleep, and you just spend all your time just thinking about what the next night is going to be or how your day is maybe suffering because you had a bad night of sleep.

Rose Fullerton: Yeah.

Martin Reed: So you recognized that sleep was becoming a problem for you. What kind of things did you try to help improve your sleep?

Rose Fullerton: Literally everything. I just typed in, how to fall asleep quickly into Google and literally anything it said, I just did it. So like breathing exercises, having a hot shower before I went to bed, no phone, and no coffee from a certain time, literally anything. My life at one point was so restrictive because I was like, oh my word, if I do this, maybe I’ll not get to sleep tonight. Everything was just done to a T, like you’re not having a coffee after four o’clock dah, dah, dah, dah. So there are so many rules, so many regulations.

Rose Fullerton: But it was really frustrating because none of them ever really seemed to work. It was just because at the end of the day it was me, it was my mentality, it was my brain. And having coffee at half six wasn’t really going to change my way of thinking, even if it was adrenaline-based or anything like that. I think to research all of that for it not to work kind of made it 10 times worse again, because I was so frustrated. I was like, am I incurable? Am I just going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life, when none of them actually turned out to work?

Martin Reed: Yeah. You know, I was going to ask you that, how it felt when you tried all these things and they weren’t working. This is the problem with… I mean, the thing about coffee and… The things you just described there are all to do with sleep hygiene, right? And that’s always the first advice that people with insomnia are given. But the problem with sleep hygiene is it’s really kind of… It’s more to do with prevention, and just like dental hygiene is. Like where you brush your teeth so you don’t get a cavity. But if you develop a cavity, you can brush your teeth all 24 hours a day, it’s not going to help, right?

Martin Reed: But the real problem that I think with sleep hygiene for people with insomnia, is when they try the sleep hygiene techniques, they don’t work, which is to be expected. But people with insomnia don’t know that. So they try them and then they don’t work and then they worry even more, just like you said, they worry like, oh I’m incurable. And it can just descend into even more worry and even more disrupted sleep. So I think that sleep hygiene probably does more harm to people with insomnia than it does good.

Martin Reed: So you mentioned you tried the sleep hygiene, that didn’t work. Was there anything else that you tried before you discovered cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia techniques?

Rose Fullerton: I think I have, an Apple watch. I know it seems a bit off topic, but it tells you about active calories burned. And I had read this article that was like, if you burn a certain amount of excess calories a day, your body’s going to need to recover in some sort of way and that recovery is going to be through sleep. So every day I’d be looking down at my Apple watch being like, ooh, have I burned this amount of calories? Because that means I’m going to get a good night of sleep tonight. Which obviously, it doesn’t work like that. But then I became fixated, it was 500 calories so I became fixated.

Rose Fullerton: So sometimes even if I was exhausted after dance school I was going to the gym because I was like, this is the only way that I’m going to fall asleep. And again, it just didn’t work, which just became frustrating because I was exhausted but then I was so anxiety-ridden that I wasn’t able to sleep. And again, just vicious cycle again and again.

Martin Reed: Yeah. You know you kind of threw me off a little bit there because when you mentioned your Apple watch, I thought you were going to talk about sleep tracking.

Rose Fullerton: No.

Martin Reed: I thought that’s a whole another rabbit hole that can obviously lead to worry because people just obsess over those numbers. But yeah, made a great point because I actually talk to a lot of people with insomnia and they tell me, oh, I tried exercising really furiously in order to make myself sleepy at night. And exercise is great and it actually does help us sleep but not when we… It doesn’t create sleepiness. Exercise can create fatigue, which can actually be another problem because we can mistake fatigue for sleepiness and therefore go to bed before we’re actually sleepy. So again completely normal that we’re not going to sleep. But then we worry because we’re expecting to sleep because we burnt all these calories and had this furious workout, you know? So that’s a great insight. I think a lot of people are going to identify with that. So thanks for sharing that one. That was really good.

Martin Reed: So, all right, so moving on, so then you discovered cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia techniques. Had you heard about CBT-I before you found my website or-

Rose Fullerton: I had been doing just normal CBT sessions. I think I had done one or two before, then Mum then found your website and signed me up for the sleep training. So I had had… I think I talked to her about sleep, but really the only thing they told me about it was just breathing exercises. And she actually told me before I went to bed, just say like, brain go to sleep when I was in bed. Which sort of seems a bit silly, but I was actually grabbing on to anything. So I guess the breathing exercises were okay because they calmed me down and sort of kind of relaxed me because that was all I was focusing on. I wasn’t falling down the rabbit hole of these really anxious thoughts, but when I found, when mum found your sleep training website and signed me up for that, that is sort of the point that I was like, there was a pivot there, there was a change and the sleep training was just, it was incredible. It really, really has changed the way I think about sleep.

Martin Reed: That’s awesome. So CBT-I is kind of like this collection of techniques. So they’re all designed to address, what are really the three contributing factors to insomnia? Which is like, there’s a sleep drive disruption, which is, we might go to bed before we’re sleepy are mistaking fatigue for sleepiness or stay in bed too late in the morning and not give ourselves enough time to get sleepy before we go back to bed or napping during the day.

Martin Reed: And then we have the… So we can have circadian rhythm disruption, which is like we’re disrupting our body clock. Maybe we get out of bed at a different time every day. We try and conserve energy, we’re kind of not very active during the day. And then there’s the big one, which is the arousal system. You know, our anxiety. We can have high levels of anxiety and CBT is this collection of techniques that addresses all three of them. So some people might identify with one of them or two of them or three, but it doesn’t matter. And CBT-I is just so effective because it tackles all three of them.

Martin Reed: So when you were going through and implementing CBT-I techniques, did you recognize that maybe it was more of a sleep drive issue for you or a body clock issue or anxiety or maybe all three?

Rose Fullerton: It was definitely more the sort of arousal system, because my body clock… I was going to bed at half 10, I was getting up at around eight each day. So that was very standard. On sleep drive, I was doing a lot of activity. I was walking around school all day, so that was building. But there was I’d say some definitely, I could have been sitting downstairs absolutely exhausted, but I’ll not walk up the stairs into my bedroom. My anxiety would just spike because it’d be like, oh no, right now I’m going to have to go into bed, which was just this awful task and it would just mean that I would be, all of a sudden so much adrenaline. I could’ve gone and run a marathon. I was not then ready to go to bed because my anxiety had just spiked. So it was definitely the arousal system, yeah.

Martin Reed: Oh yeah. You know, that is so, so common. So many people say they can… Another example, this is a similar thing, is they’ll say, I’m really sleepy at eight o’clock at night. Like really sleepy, I’m drifting off to sleep. But as I try and fight through it to build up this sleep drive to get to the start of my sleep window, but then I kind of miss that window of sleepiness and I’m not sleepy anymore. And that’s this conditioned arousal because you’ve just had a negative experience so many times over and over and over. When you get into bed, your brain has kind of learned that the bed is this horrible place to be. So as soon as you think about bed or start walking to bed, your brain is like, and this is fight or flight mode, because it thinks there’s a danger there it has to protect you from. And so obviously we can struggle to fall asleep when that’s the case. So how do you think that you managed to overcome that?

Rose Fullerton: I think probably mainly through your sleep training because I’m quite a logical person. I like facts and everything and because there was so much information on how sleep actually works, like sleep drive and stuff like you said, it just allowed me… You can’t argue with the facts. So because I had developed that understanding and now I had that information, I was able to just sort of… Oh no, I’ve just lost my train of thought. What was I going to say, Rose? Sleep drive understanding…

Rose Fullerton: Because I had that understanding, because I had that knowledge I felt more confident that I was like, okay, I gained that trust back. I was like, okay, well if I’m not tired right now, my body knows what’s best and if I’m not tired then fine. Let’s go read a book, let’s do something exciting. I understood that my body knows when to send me to bed, when to make me sleepy, it’s in control. And I think that that was something I had lost, that confidence that I could be… that trust in my body, that it’ll make me sleepy, it’ll send me to sleep when it needs me to go.

Rose Fullerton: I had been bombarding myself with all of these irrational thoughts, that I’m never going to get to sleep tonight and this night’s going to be the worst night and everything, and I would just fall down that hole. But through the sleep training I was able to combat those irrational thoughts.

Rose Fullerton: So now, for example, I’ve kind of not had a setback, but at the beginning of this week, my results day is coming up, there’s a lot of stress and that affects me through the sleep anxiety. That’s where it all comes out. And I also have just been a wee bit worried about it more than usual. But I found myself lying in bed and just had this wave of anxiety and I began to freak out because I was like, am I back to step one? There’s all of this work over the past couple months, has that just vanished?

Rose Fullerton: But then I was able to say, well look, I’ve slept every single night of my life regardless of whether it’s been two or twelve hours, I’ve fallen asleep at some stage. And that was massive to be able to use the stuff that I learned from day 10, that’s why I know what day it is, because I always refer back to that email day 10 to be able to combat that with rational thoughts and to be able to be my own medicine in a way. Not to have to rely on sleeping pills or teas or whatever, that I’m the one who can sit there and be like, no, that’s so irrational. We can just chill, calm down, we can go and get a glass of water, we don’t have to force ourselves to do this, is huge. And even though you can regard that as a setback, that was your sleep training and that was the information that you provided to me and anyone else that wants to do it. That has been massive for me and has just changed the way I think about sleep.

Martin Reed: Yeah. And you know, I think it’s really important as well to recognize, it’s completely normal for sleep to be disrupted when we’re going through stressful periods. You know, like if we’re waiting for the results of big exams or we’ve got a job interview coming up or we’ve got to hit a deadline at work, it’s completely normal. And I think a big part of it and the whole kind of process of recovering from insomnia is being able to recognize external causes of sleep disruption instead of immediately just worrying that insomnia has returned.

Rose Fullerton: Yeah.

Martin Reed: And then it is related to having confidence and trust in your body’s ability to sleep, because when we have insomnia, we just have sort of lost that confidence and lost that trust. You know, we somehow, we don’t believe that our body is capable of sleeping anymore or of getting a good night of sleep when ultimately if we just leave our bodies to do what they need to do to sleep, they’ll do it. Sleep only tends to become a problem when we worry about it and try and get involved in the process and try and control it.

Martin Reed: And that really is a lot to do with all these perpetuating factors of insomnia, so we have a bad night, so we won’t go out with our friends that night because we had a bad night of sleep. So we guarantee the insomnia has a bad outcome and then that makes us worry even more. And we inadvertently perpetuate the problem.

Martin Reed: And one of the reasons I love the CBT-I techniques is because it’s not just saying, oh, don’t worry about sleep. Because when you worry about sleep, it’s going to make sleep difficult. I think everyone with insomnia knows that there’s some worry and anxiety is the problem. But you can’t just tell someone not to worry and not be anxious. So CBT-I it kind of deflects the attention into more productive and more constructive things you can do that you can focus your attention on. And by doing that, like by setting the stage, you’re kind of letting your body take over and giving it the best chance of sleep. Yeah, so that’s great.

Martin Reed: So you mentioned that one of the key things that you learned was about identifying these automatic thoughts or sometimes perhaps irrational thoughts. Was there anything else that you learned that you feel helps? Like for example, maybe getting out of bed when you couldn’t sleep instead of staying in bed, or not going to bed before a certain time, always getting out of bed by a certain time. Things like that?

Rose Fullerton: Yeah, definitely the getting out of bed one. I dealt with something when I read it first. I was so skeptical about it because I trained myself to be like, I must stay here because this is where I’m going to fall asleep. But once I took the leap and went and actually did that, I found that it actually really, really changed too.

Rose Fullerton: I had basically got it into my head that when I was in bed in this pitch black room and I could never fall asleep, that time had just stopped and I was never going to get out of that situation, the sun was never going to rise and I was just going to be stuck tossing and turning and getting frustrated.

Rose Fullerton: But I found, when I got out of bed and I went downstairs, I said hello to my cat and I looked at the clock and I saw the time was ticking on, it sort of grounded me in a way and I was like, well, those thoughts are irrational, they’re not true. And because I had relaxed myself through that way, through getting up and just removing myself from that situation, nine times out of ten when I came back to bed, I was asleep in about 15-20 minutes because I didn’t lie there. I forced myself to be there, which just heightened the anxiety and made me more frustrated. I had just removed myself from the situation, come back down to reality and then gone back in with a better approach and a better mindset. So that definitely was a huge one as well for me. Yeah.

Martin Reed: Yeah, I mean it’s just this is such a good conversation because everything you’re saying is what I hear all the time. When I explain the whole concept… So this concept, this is known as stimulus control and it involves getting out of bed when you can’t sleep. And when you first tell people, what do you mean? Get out of bed when I can’t sleep? I want to sleep, how is getting out of bed going to help me? It sounds completely illogical.

Martin Reed: But the whole idea is that we don’t want to reinforce the idea that the bed is the place where we’re just wide awake, tossing and turning, worried, anxious, and frustrated. So if you experience that, the idea is, you get out of bed until you feel relaxed and sleepy again, then you return to bed and just see again, see what happens.

Martin Reed: So it’s not necessarily designed to improve your sleep on that exact night you try it. On the first night it probably won’t do anything because just as it took time to learn this association that the bed is this place for wakefulnes and worry, it takes time to retrain yourself to see it as a place for sleep. So getting out of bed teaches your brain that, look, if we’re awake and we’re feeling anxious, we’re not in bed because that’s not a place for us to do that. Well, the bed is no place for that to happen.

Martin Reed: And another thing that you touched upon, which I think’s really important too, is that it’s not pleasant being in bed wide awake, worried, tossing and turning and feeling anxious. So I think that just that alone, getting out of bed and doing something else can actually make you feel better in and of itself. So yeah, I think that that’s a really good insight.

Martin Reed: So was there a certain point when, I mean you’ve mentioned that you found those techniques really helpful. Was there a certain point when things kind of just clicked and everything started to make sense and you started to think, huh, I’m getting my sleep confidence back, my sleep is improving?

Rose Fullerton: I think that it was probably a couple of days after I finished the sleep training. I had had that time to kind of absorb the information, to implement a couple of the CBT-I techniques, that I found that it wasn’t my first thought when I woke up and I was able to go and do other things. And yes, for the first couple of days it was maybe 70% of my thoughts, but compared to 100% of my thoughts, I was like, I’m actually making progress, this is good. And then there was one time, I think I finished the sleep training course at the beginning of May, and I think at the beginning of June I actually said to my parents, oh, I just want to go to bed and there was just this moment, all of us were like, what, you want to go to bed? Because before it had been like, oh, I’m dreading going to bed.

Rose Fullerton: And it was just that point where I was like, I feel confident enough that I know that I can cope, if I feel anxious I know I have the techniques at my fingertips and I understand how sleep works in your body, that even if I do encounter problems, I’m going to be able to overcome it and isn’t going to have as a detrimental effect as it had previously and I think that, yeah, that was the moment I was like, oh, I’m actually making progress and things are actually beginning to look up. Because if you had said to me at the beginning of May that I would’ve said, oh, I want to go to bed at the beginning of June, I would have laughed and been like, no way has that happened because I just thought there was no cure. I just thought I was going to have to live like that for the rest of my life and literally a month later I was looking forward to going to bed, which is just absurd.

Martin Reed: That’s great. It’s so amazing to just hear people’s transformations, because it can just feel so despairing. You just feel like there’s no cure out there for me, I’m just going to have to live with this forever and ever. But I think that no matter how long someone has had insomnia for, they can get better. I think that the longer you’ve had insomnia definitely can make it more challenging to get sleep back on track because just all the beliefs and all the behaviors that just have become so much more entrenched. But there is hope out there for everyone and I think you coming on and just sharing your story is just going to help so many people. So again, I just really appreciate you coming on and just sharing this. I think so many people are going to identify with everything that you’re saying.

Martin Reed: So you mentioned that things started to click and you were no longer thinking about sleep. You got your life back, really. Did you find that it was just this sudden transformation or did you make a little bit of progress and maybe there were a couple of setbacks along the way?

Rose Fullerton: Yeah, no, definitely. I think that I sort of… One of the main things I had was my mentality that I knew it wasn’t going to be plain sailing. Even though, yeah, there was a click and everything sort of started to go forward, I still understood that it was never going to be perfect the entire way. There’s no way that I had dealt with this for six or seven years, whatever it is, and that it was just going to be fine and there was going to be no setbacks.

Rose Fullerton: Like I said, at the beginning of this week I had setbacks and I had to deal with that. And I think that… I went on holiday with my parents at the end of June and for the first couple of days I was like, ooh, maybe I’m back to square one because I was feeling unnerved. But I think that’s good because, my mom actually said to me that even though at the time I was like, oh I’m back to square one, this is so bad, a setback for me in May would have been filled with panic attacks, not eating, only thing I’d think about. Whereas a setback this week was, oh I had a little bit of anxiety when I was in bed, but I got over on it and in 15 minutes I was asleep. To look back and see the amount of progress I’ve made or that anyone has made, just should give you this massive burst of confidence that even though, yeah, it’s a setback, it’s a setback completely different from what it was before and it’s kind of progress.

Martin Reed: Oh absolutely. And I mean, it’s so easy to think of every bad night as a setback or going back to square one. But again, it’s so important to recognize, is there an external cause of the sleep disruption? Like in your case, if you’re waiting for your exams to come out, that’s going to lead to stress, you know? So it’s normal for your sleep to be disrupted. Even someone that has never experienced insomnia in their lives probably going to have a little bit sleep disruption when they’re going through a period of stress like that.

Martin Reed: But it is so important to recognize that it’s kind of this journey back towards regaining trust and confidence in your ability to sleep. And though there are setbacks along the way, so many people worry and they put pressure on themselves to make this perfectly linear progress where it’s just better and better and better every day. But it doesn’t work that way. There are setbacks because we’re all human and sleep is something that we can’t control. The body kind of takes care of it. Sometimes it will give us a big chunk of sleep, sometimes it won’t. But the key is just to not get involved in that process and just try and focus all your attention on the good nights that you have instead of those bad nights.

Martin Reed: So overall now, how has your sleep improved as a result? I mean you mentioned that you’re not really thinking about sleep anymore, you’ve got a lot less sleep anxiety. What is a typical night of sleep like for you now?

Rose Fullerton: So normally I’m in bed at about 11 and typically I’m asleep about half 11 and I will sleep completely, not disrupted the entire night. I will normally be sleeping from half 11 straight through to my alarm the next day. Whereas before, I was waking up at least two times during the night and having to get up and walk around. And when I woke up I was like, oh no, is that me for the night? Whereas now, I’m sleeping straight through and the next thing I hear, I let my head hits the pillow, the next thing I hear is my alarm. That’s a typical night at the minute.

Martin Reed: Wow, that’s great. And how are your days now? Have you noticed differences in how you feel during the day or just your outlook on the rest of your life?

Rose Fullerton: Yeah, definitely. I’m a lot more positive and I play a lot of hockey and I found before I was so fatigued, I could barely lift my stick to hit the ball. Whereas in training, now I’m running and I’m 100% the entire session, which was just something I thought that I had lost because of my sleep. And it’s kind of nice because even though I know we’ve talked about exercise, but when I’m tired after a training session, it’s nice to be able to look forward to bed rather than be like, oh no, this is another fight I’m going to have to have before I eventually fall asleep to sort of come off and to go, oh yes, I can go to bed now. Just to have that shift in mentality has been amazing. It’s been so, so good.

Martin Reed: Wow, that’s so good to hear how everything just changed. I like to say it’s kind of like the opposite of that vicious cycle. So instead of more worry leading to worse sleep and more worry, it’s kind of less worry about sleep leads to better sleep and then you’re less worried about sleep so it just leads to better sleep. So it’s this positive cycle and it just flips it right on its head and it’s so good to hear.

Martin Reed: All right, so I’ve got one last question for you because I don’t want to take up too much of your time and it’s this. If someone with chronic insomnia is listening and feels as though they’ve tried everything, they’re beyond help, they can’t do anything to improve their sleep, what would you tell them?

Rose Fullerton: I know it sounds cliche, but probably never give up. It sounds so cliche, but I think that I am a… Like I’ve mentioned was so hopeless. I thought that that was it, but there are so many resources and so many tools. I literally recommend your sleep training to every single person I meet regardless of whether they have sleep problems or not. I’m like, you have to try this. There are so many resources and there also are so many other people that are going through the same thing.

Rose Fullerton: I think that was something when I was in the thick of it, I was like, I’m literally the only person experiencing this. Whereas there are so many people, you are not alone. And as well, the mentality thing I talked about. Don’t also think that it’s just going to be five minutes and you’re sorted. It is going to take time. There is going to be a process, there is going to be setbacks but don’t give up hope because it really, really is worth it when you come out the other side.

Martin Reed: That is a great message and I have nothing to add and I 100% agree with it. All right well Rose, thank you so much for coming on. I think this is going to be a really great conversation for people to listen to. I think people are going to identify with your journey and hopefully it’s going to inspire and motivate people and help them realize that there is still hope for them and that they can get past their insomnia and just enjoy a better life.

Rose Fullerton: Thank you so much for having me.

Martin Reed: Thank you.

Martin Reed: Thanks for listening to The Insomnia Coach Podcast. If you’re ready to implement cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, CBT-I techniques to improve your sleep but think you might need some additional support and guidance, I would love to help. There are two ways we can work together. First, you can get my online coaching course. This is the most popular option. My course combines sleep education with unlimited support and guidance and is guaranteed to improve your sleep. I will teach you and help you implement new CBT-I techniques over a period of eight weeks. This gives you time to build sleep confidence and notice results without feeling overwhelmed. You can get the course and start right now at insomniacoach.com/online.

Martin Reed: I also offer a phone coaching package where we start with a one hour call. This can be voice only or video, your choice. And we come up with an initial two week plan that will have you implementing CBT-I techniques that will lead to long term improvements in your sleep. You get unlimited email based support and guidance for two weeks after the call along with a half hour follow up call at the end of the two weeks. You can book the phone coaching package at insomniacoach.com/phone.

Martin Reed: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Insomnia Coach Podcast. I’m Martin Reed, and as always, I’d like to leave you with this important reminder. You can sleep.