How Eric changed the way he responded to insomnia, stopped battling with his mind, and improved his sleep for the long term (#44)
Like many people with chronic insomnia, Eric found that the more he tried to make sleep happen, the more difficult it became. Although he didn’t have any real issues falling asleep, he would regularly wake during the night and find it hard to fall back to sleep. His mind would start racing and he would experience a lot of anxiety. Eric found himself getting obsessed with sleep. He was thinking about it all the time and no matter how hard he tried to relax and no matter what he tried, things just didn’t improve.
When we started working together, one of the first changes Eric made was to reduce the amount of time he allotted for sleep to more closely match the amount of sleep he was getting at the time. Eric also started to respond to nighttime wakefulness in a more workable way. Finally, Eric committed to doing things that mattered to him — to live the kind of life he wanted to live — independently of sleep.
Eric experienced rapid improvements in his sleep as he changed his response to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it. He no longer takes sleeping pills and today, more than one-and-a-half years after we worked together, Eric is no longer engaged in a daily (and nightly) battle with his mind and he continues to sleep well.