Insomnia Coach® Podcast

Anafer struggled with insomnia her entire life, believing that she was born with it. Despite her health-conscious lifestyle, her sleep problems persisted, leading her to years of research and experiments. Unfortunately, these efforts proved futile.

Determined to address her sleep issues before starting her career in dietetics, Anafer came across my online coaching course. In this episode, Anafer shares her journey of ups and downs and the transformation she experienced as a result of addressing her sleep problems in a more workable way.

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Dr. Mendelson is a highly respected figure in the field of sleep research and medicine, with expertise in psychiatry and sleep medicine. He is renowned for his extensive research into sleeping pills and their properties, as well as the impact of medication on sleep.

During this episode, Dr. Mendelson provides insight into the history of sleeping pills, sharing how they work and outlining the potential risks associated with their use. Additionally, we delve into over-the-counter sleeping pills and supplements and explore a safer alternative to sleeping pills for chronic insomnia – cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), the recommended first-line treatment backed by evidence.

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For 60 years, Sally suffered from insomnia and relied on sleeping pills for a decade. She felt hopeless that she would ever have a restful night’s sleep. However, everything changed when Sally changed her approach and her response to insomnia.

Before making any changes, Sally only slept for about three hours a night. But now, she consistently gets around seven hours of sleep each night and rarely thinks about sleep. In this episode, Sally shares her journey towards better sleep after struggling with insomnia for so long. Her experience serves as a testament that it’s possible to overcome sleep issues and live a better life.

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Rick’s insomnia started in 2017 after retiring, leaving him waking up during the night and struggling to fall back asleep. The anxiety he felt every time he woke up made him worry about the next day, causing him to cancel social events and make other lifestyle changes to improve his sleep. He tried a variety of pills and supplements but none helped.

Luckily, Rick found evidence-based cognitive and behavioral techniques that changed the way he viewed sleep and implemented behaviors that improved his sleep in the long term. Over time, he began sleeping better without taking any pills or supplements. In this episode, Rick shares his techniques for improving his relationship with sleep, with the hope of helping others who suffer from insomnia.

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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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