Insomnia Coach® Podcast

After one sleepless night in Switzerland triggered panic attacks, Stephanie found herself trapped in a cycle of fear and fixes — strict rules, heavy meds, endless searches for answers at 3am. Nothing worked.

Her turning point came when she stopped fighting sleep and started meeting insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it with acceptance. In this episode, she shares how letting go helped her rebuild trust, presence, and her life — one night at a time.

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Laura’s insomnia began during one of the happiest times in her life. She tried everything to fix it but nothing worked. The real shift came when she stopped fighting her thoughts and started meeting them with openness and compassion.

This is her story of letting go of the struggle and moving forward — with or without sleep.

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Rebecca never struggled with sleep — until 24-hour shifts as a hospital-based midwife changed everything. To protect her patients, she stayed awake through every shift. Eventually, she couldn’t sleep even when she tried.

She turned to medication, tracked every detail, followed every rule — but sleep only got harder. It wasn’t until she stopped chasing sleep, and started reconnecting with life, that things began to shift.

Today, Rebecca lives fully. She has achieved insomnia freedom.

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Sleep was never a problem for Rupsa but after experiencing some professional challenges and moving to a new city, it became a struggle.

Although Rupsa found a new job and everything was going well in her life, her struggle with sleep continued. She started to fear each night. Her heart would race. It felt like her mind was working against her.

Things started to change when Rupsa realized her mind was actually trying to help her. When she stopped struggling with her thoughts and feelings, when she stopped trying to control sleep, when she practiced accepting what was out of her control, things started to improve.

Rupsa now sleeps well and whenever a night of less sleep shows up from time to time, it no longer has any power or influence over her life.

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A few bad nights during a stressful period triggered Tim’s struggle with insomnia. The more he tried to fix his sleep, the more difficult it became, the more power and influence it had over his life, and the more anxiety he experienced.

Tim’s transformation began when he realized that trying to control sleep was keeping him stuck and that his response to the fear of not sleeping was a bigger problem than being awake at night.

As Tim relinquished control over sleep and was less resistant to experiencing insomnia and all the thoughts and feelings that come with it, insomnia began to lose the stranglehold it once had over his life — and sleep started to show up all by itself.

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Sophie never thought of herself as a great sleeper but when her son was born, sleep became a real struggle. This was expected in the short-term but when things became more difficult over time, Sophie became increasingly desperate. Listening to the stories of others offered reassurance and gave Sophie a new way forward that led to improvements.

Unfortunately, after a few months insomnia returned and seemed to be taking over her life. This is when Sophie committed to an approach that involved committing to actions that reflected who she was and the life she wanted to live, regardless of how she slept. As she did this she realized how much power she still had over her life. How capable and resilient she was, independently of sleep.

Sleep started to lose its importance. It became less of a focus. And, as a result, it was able to take care of itself and it lost all its power and influence.

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When Danny experienced sleep disruption during a period of stress and an intense focus on health and fitness, he became very concerned. After reducing the stressors in his life, reducing the intensity of his exercise, and eating more appropriately he noticed that his sleep improved.

This led Danny to believe that sleep needed an absence of stress, a certain amount of exercise, and a certain type of diet to happen. When sleep difficulties returned, Danny realized the issue wasn’t stress, exercise, or diet. It was all the effort he was putting into sleep.

By exploring CBT-I and ACT-I techniques, Danny refocused his attention away from trying to protect or control sleep and toward doing things that mattered to him. With ongoing practice, insomnia lost its power and influence over him, the struggle came to an end, and sleep became effortless.

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When Esther stopped taking a medication for generalized anxiety disorder, sleep became a struggle.

New medication helped with her anxiety symptoms but a phobia of insomnia remained, no matter what she tried to do to get her sleep back on track.

When we started working together, Esther began to make some changes to deal with her insomnia phobia in a different way.

Instead of trying to control sleep, Esther refocused on controlling her actions. She explored and committed to new habits such as going to bed later at night, doing something more pleasant whenever she found herself struggling at night, doing things that mattered independently of sleep, and acknowledging her thoughts and feelings rather than battling with them.

This new approach gave Esther more options. Options that helped her reduce the pressure she was putting on herself to make sleep happen and break free of the vicious cycle of more trying to sleep and more difficulty with sleep.

As a result, insomnia lost the power and influence it once had over her.

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Irina thought that something was seriously wrong when she experienced a night of no sleep and all her ongoing efforts to make sleep happen were not working.

The turning point came when Irina committed to an approach based on accepting the presence of wakefulness and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that came with it.

This didn’t mean she pretended to like them. This didn’t mean she gave up. It meant that she moved away from trying to control what her experience was telling her was out of her control. She practiced and built skill in experiencing insomnia and all the thoughts and feelings associated with it, with less struggle.

When she let go of the struggle that came from heroically battling away, trying to fight or avoid what was out of her control, she was able to refocus her energy and attention on actions that helped her live the life she wanted to live. As she did this, her sleep took care of itself and she gained invaluable skills that are now with her for the rest of her life.

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Dulce found that the more she tried to control sleep, the more she struggled with sleep. And, the more she tried to resist the difficult thoughts and feelings that often come with insomnia, the more difficult and powerful those things became.

This awareness prompted a change of approach. Dulce let go of her strategy of trying to make sleep happen through effort (even though it was an approach she had been trying to make work for over 15 years). Her new approach involved letting go. She stopped trying to control sleep. She moved away from the sleep efforts, rules, and rituals. She stopped trying to control her thoughts and feelings. She used the energy that was once consumed by an ongoing struggle to commit to actions that helped her live the life she wanted to live.

This approach wasn’t easy and it took ongoing practice. However, it was an approach that allowed Dulce to take her life back from insomnia.

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