Insomnia Coach® Podcast

Anna had been experiencing short episodes of insomnia for five years, but when her mother fell ill and required surgery, Anna’s sleep problems worsened. She found it difficult to fall asleep and even after her mother recovered, Anna’s sleep issues persisted. Over the next two years, Anna tried various methods to improve her sleep, such as sleeping pills, supplements, relaxation techniques, light-blocking glasses, sound machines, and weighted blankets, but nothing seemed to work. Her ongoing worry and research about sleep only added to her stress.

In this episode, Anna shares her journey towards improving her sleep and provides insight into how she coped with setbacks along the way. Her experience shows that there is hope for those who struggle with insomnia, and that evidence-based techniques can be an effective way to improve sleep.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Sara lived with insomnia for a year and resorted to sleeping pills because she didn’t know how to improve her sleep. Luckily, Sara did discover cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia — and after just eight weeks of implementing CBT-I techniques, she went from averaging four hours of sleep each night to six hours of sleep each night.

One year later, Sara now averages seven hours of sleep and no longer takes sleeping pills. In this episode, we’ll learn more about how Sara got her sleep back on track and how she regained confidence in her ability to sleep.

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Like many people, David struggled with the odd night of poor sleep every now and again — but three years ago a night of absolutely no sleep led to sleep-related worry and the fear that he had lost the ability to sleep.

This led to more nights of bad sleep (and many nights of no sleep whatsoever) and this compounded the problem.

Eventually, David discovered that it was his worry and obsession with sleep that was perpetuating his insomnia. His recognition of this, along with the implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), acceptance, and mindfulness techniques helped him get his sleep back on track.

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