Insomnia Coach® Podcast

Sally had been living with insomnia for 60 years and had been taking sleeping pills for 10 years. She believed that she would never be able to sleep properly — but this all changed when she started to change the way she thought about sleep and began to implement new sleep-related behaviors that made it easier for her body to generate and sustain sleep.

Sally used to average around three hours of sleep each night. She now averages around seven hours of sleep each night and barely thinks about sleep. In this episode, Sally shares what she did to improve her sleep after living with insomnia for 60 years. If Sally was able to improve her sleep, you can too!

Rick’s insomnia started in 2017 shortly after retirement. He started to wake during the night and would find it hard to fall back to sleep. Before long, he started to feel very anxious every time he woke and began to worry about what the day would be like after each difficult night of sleep.

Fortunately, Rick discovered evidence-based cognitive and behavioral techniques that changed the way he thought about sleep and helped him implement behaviors that would improve his sleep for the long-term. Today, Rick averages somewhere between seven and seven-and-a-half hours of sleep each night. In this episode, Rick shares all the techniques he implemented to transform his relationship with sleep. Just as Rick was able to improve his sleep, you can too!

For five years, Anna experienced short episodes of insomnia that would last for a week or two before disappearing. However, when her mother fell ill and required surgery, Anna found it very difficult to fall asleep and this time, even though her mother recovered, Anna’s sleep did not. Anna got to the point where she just didn’t feel sleepy when she went to bed and this made her think that her sleep system was broken.

Today, Anna doesn’t really think about sleep and she gets somewhere around seven-and-a-half to eight hours of sleep each night. In this episode, Anna shares everything she did to improve her sleep and also reveals how she coped with the typical setbacks most of us experience on the road to recovery.

Gretchen is a pediatrician and the mother of three children. Her sleep was regularly disrupted as she worked shifts during college and was on call during her pediatric residency. After having children and then entering early menopause, Gretchen started to spend hours awake during the night. This led to sleep-related worry and anxiety that combined with work stress to make sleep more frustrating and more difficult.

In this episode, Gretchen talks about how changing the way she thinks about sleep and implementing constructive sleep-related behaviors helped her improve her sleep significantly — and how setbacks along the way didn’t lead to insomnia working its way back into her life. Gretchen went from believing she was the world’s worst sleeper to looking forward to going to bed at night! Gretchen did it — and you can, too!

Dave often experienced difficulties falling asleep and staying asleep and this became more of a problem once he became a father. After an overseas trip, Dave’s sleep really took a turn for the worse — not only did he find it hard to fall asleep, he would also wake around 3:00 AM and find it very difficult (if not impossible) to fall back to sleep.

Fortunately, Dave found out about sleep restriction — a core component of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). In this episode, Dave shares his transformation and explains how sleep restriction improved his sleep and why consistency and persistence are so important if you want to enjoy better sleep for the long term.

In August 2018, Bill was admitted to hospital with a suspected heart attack and this triggered an intense period of insomnia that led to progressively worse sleep. Bill soon found himself following a long list of pre-sleep rituals that did not improve his sleep but did lead to more sleep-related worry. Fortunately, Bill was told about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and was able to get his sleep back on track. In this episode, Bill tells us how his insomnia developed, all the ways he tried unsuccessfully to improve his sleep, and he shares the specific techniques that he found to be most helpful for improving his sleep.

Dr. Jade Wu is a clinical psychologist and behavioral sleep medicine specialist at Duke University School of Medicine. In this episode, Jade and I discuss a number of concerns that are common among people with chronic insomnia — we talk about how much sleep we need, whether we can lose our ability to sleep, whether insomnia is caused by a chemical imbalance in the body, whether chronic insomnia causes any serious health problems, and whether we have any control over the negative impact insomnia can have on our lives. My aim with this episode is to help change the way you think about sleep and insomnia. I hope this will help reduce the intensity of any worry or anxiety that might be making it more difficult for you to improve your sleep and encourage you to pursue CBT-I so you can enjoy better sleep for the rest of your life.

After trying to implement cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques with the help of a book, Jeff continued to struggle — until he started implementing CBT-I techniques with the ongoing support and guidance of a sleep coach (me!). In this episode, Jeff shares the specific CBT-I techniques he found most helpful and why working with a coach proved to be the most effective way to recover sleep confidence, get rid of sleep-related worry and anxiety, and enjoy better sleep.

Eileen is a registered nurse of almost 30 years. She was always a light sleeper who felt that she needed perfect conditions for sleep to happen. After becoming a parent she started to get less sleep and this triggered more sleep-related stress and worry that made sleep even more difficult. Before long, Eileen became totally focussed on sleep and soon developed the mistaken belief that she just couldn’t sleep. After seeking help from her physician, Eileen ended up on Ambien — a drug she took almost every day for 15 years. In this episode, Eileen describes how insomnia became part of her identity and how she went from constantly worrying about sleep and struggling with sleep to someone who now sleeps very well without sleeping pills.

Dr. Steve Orma is a clinical psychologist and specialist in the treatment of insomnia and anxiety. He is the author of the book Stop Worrying and Go To Sleep: How to Put Insomnia to Bed for Good, and he provides online treatment for insomnia and anxiety. In this episode, we talk about how Steve got through his own insomnia using cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques and the common challenges people face when implementing CBT-I techniques. The fact of the matter is that, in the short term, CBT-I techniques can be hard to implement — but if you are committed and consistent, your sleep will improve.