7 Steps to Take for Insomnia Recovery
Why Insomnia is So Hard
Insomnia can be treacherous, in part due to how we as humans perceive threat. Our brains are survival machines, and when they notice a threat, they will alert us. With insomnia, the brain learns to perceive being awake at night as a threat. It’s a similar concept to someone getting into a car accident, and then developing a fear of driving. In other words, two wires (fear and being awake) become crossed that would not have otherwise become crossed. To use myself as an example, I did not have a fear of being awake at night before I developed insomnia. Those wires were not crossed then. Maybe I had a bad night if I was staying at a noisy place, or had a big event the next day, but I didn’t think twice about it then. It was not until I developed a fear of not sleeping that it became a problem. This is key, because once you understand that it is the fear of not sleeping driving the whole insomnia machine, then knowing what to do next becomes easier.
Without being armed with this information though, people tend to do the opposite - desperately try to fix it. The brain perceives threat, alerts us, and we react to it: ‘Oh, this is dangerous! I need to find a cure immediately!’
Why Trying to Fix Insomnia Often Backfires
Insomnia is a paradox. The more you try to fix it, either the worse it gets, or the more you feel dependent on the supplement, medication, gadget, ritual, or routine that seems to be temporarily helping in that moment. This insight - that the attempts to fix are actually perpetuating the problem - was a big turning point in my healing process. The information was empowering: it was only in giving up control and accepting my reality as it was that I could regain my sleep back. Rather than react from a place of fear, I learned to address the fear layer by layer, until the worries about sleep no longer existed.
I have learned from my own experience and supporting others, that there are tangible steps one can take on the road to acceptance-based insomnia recovery. It often is not a dramatic, single moment of healing, but rather, involves shedding the layers of fear gradually.
Acknowledge what is happening for you right now in this moment.
The pain can be very real with insomnia. Acknowledge what is happening for you in the moment, whether you are scared, frustrated, fed up, sad, ashamed or an emotional medley of all of the above. This takes us to a place of noticing what we are experiencing rather than being completely taken over by it. It’s a subtle but quantum shift. As soon as we are able to notice, we are present with what we are experiencing, and as soon as we are present, we are well on our way to acceptance. So, even if your experience right now feels torturous, name and acknowledge what is coming up for you. If it’s an emotional smorgasbord or soup, that is ok. It is very common to have an emotion that comes up first, like fear, and then another emotion in response to it, like shame or frustration. You can start to get just a little bit curious about your emotional landscape in the face of insomnia. If you want to take it a step further, you can also notice the thoughts and physical sensations that are present. Voice noting on your phone or journaling can make this practice particularly powerful.
Stop consuming fear-feeding content.
The internet is rife with studies claiming with unwavering certainty the insidious health consequences of insomnia. It’s important to know that a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard for research, is impossible to do for insomnia so any of the health scare research out there is correlational. Insomnia can very easily feed into health anxiety. Choose the content you consume wisely. If you are experiencing insomnia, you are already dealing with enough fear, your nervous system is in fight or flight, and feeding into that fear will only add insult to injury.
Learn to be gentle with yourself.
This can be a tough one if you are used to being hard on yourself or beating yourself up. If you have a history of complex trauma, being mean to yourself may even feel habitual. Regardless of where the self-criticism is coming from, rather than think that you need to get rid of the self-criticism, you can learn to invite gentleness around it. Inner critics often show up in the context of insomnia. They tend to express themes of worthlessness, failure, not measuring up, not being good enough, and just all around, being a colossal disappointment. Keep an eye out for these flavors, because that is your inner critic talking, which is a part of you, but not all of you.
My favorite way of working with inner critics is using a variation of an exercise I often share with clients based on parts work which I have outlined below.
a) Name the self-criticism as a part of you - i.e. the critical part. As soon as we get used to calling it a part of us rather than all of us, it does not feel as all-consuming. This is a new way of talking about oneself that often has to be repeated several times before it sticks.
b) Hear what the part has to say. Ex: she feels like a disappointment, she feels like a bad person, she feels lazy, or she feels useless. These are just examples.
c) Notice what it is like to name it as a part of you and hear it out.
d) Once you have heard the part out, come up with one (or a few ways) you could treat yourself with more gentleness and self-kindness - it has to be something simple that you can do almost right away, or at least on the same day. It may be making yourself a tea, putting on a show you like, going for a walk outside, or chatting with a friend. Simple acts of kindness towards yourself like this might seem obvious or trivial, but bit by bit, they shift the critical narrative.
Invite choice (especially when you’re wide awake at night).
What happens when you stop consuming fear-feeding content, learn to be a little gentler with yourself, and get to know your emotional landscape in the present moment? You realize that you have options.
They may not seem ideal but you can still exercise some agency with the choices you make, even when struggling. If you wake up at night or can’t fall asleep, instead of following a rigid sleep hygiene protocol, allow yourself some flexibility. Oftentimes, rigid rules are quite effortful, but we know that sleep happens once we let go, and try less. Why? Because sleep is a passive process. It's a lot more like catching a wave than acing an exam.
Even if being awake at night is not your choice, how would you choose to spend the time whether you fall asleep or not? Lying in bed listening to music? On the couch watching TV? Journaling? I encourage you to try what will be enjoyable, relaxing. If that feels unreachable, think of what might help you feel even 5-10% more comfortable than you are feeling in the moment. This sets you on the path to accepting wakefulness when it comes, rather than fighting it by trying to will yourself to sleep. It’s a behavioral way to teach your brain that being awake at night is actually not a threat, and once you learn to feel safe awake at night, the fight or flight response drops, and sleep inevitably follows.
Make adjustments as needed, but don’t stop living your life.
I recall when fears of not sleeping would not only consume my nights, but also my days. It was hard to focus on anything else. Of course, obsessing about my need for sleep was not helpful, and made me partly lose out on living my life. It’s important not to give up on the things in your life that matter to you, even if you are struggling. These are the things that provide you with connection, joy, calm or pleasure - essentially anything that feels nourishing.
You may need to alter your routine temporarily if your sleep issues are severe, but don’t completely wipe out your calendar. If taking a break from work is necessary, that is OK, but don’t stop doing all the things you care about. If an intense workout is something you loved but can no longer do, it could be a chance to try something softer, like a walk or slow yoga class. If the idea of a big social event feels exhausting that is ok, but try and keep contact with your most loved humans.
It’s extremely common to fall into black and white thinking while dealing with insomnia, and I invite you to view things more as a spectrum. You may have to modify your life a bit based on your energy, but don’t stop living it entirely. When we fully stop doing all the things we enjoy, it gives the insomnia a whole lot of power. That further feeds into the fear of not sleeping, which makes us feel more desperate to fix it, and so continues the cycle of insomnia.
Try not to check the time when you can’t asleep, and only go to bed when you’re actually tired.
Checking the time usually feeds into obsessive fear loops. Forcing yourself to go to bed early to get more sleep often backfires. Again, this is not about forcing or rigidity - if you don’t feel tired and it’s 1 am, it’s better to lie on your couch with some Netflix then force yourself to bed.
Think of insomnia recovery as a process.
Acceptance is simple, but here is the catch - you can’t force it. It then becomes just another attempt to fix the problem as quickly as possible. So how does it work? Well, it usually follows a pattern. For simplicity’s sake I am putting it in linear form, but in reality there are troughs and valleys along the way. First it usually makes intellectual sense, and people think yes, my fear has been driving this and I have to let that go. I get it. Then, over time, as you work through the fears, the emotional charge reduces. You feel less scared about not sleeping, but your sleep may not have improved or stabilized yet. Finally, the body gets on board and you actually start to get your sleep back.
Most approaches to healing insomnia do not address the root fear. Our society has also internalized the fix it mentality, which does not make much space for presence, or in turn, the possibility of learning to let go. Yet, that’s the very principle we need to learn in order to recover from insomnia long term. The practices I described are a way of learning to let go, bit by bit. These very same practices to help recover from insomnia can also be applied to other areas of life, and over time, lead to more space for self-kindness, presence and gratitude.
If you’re currently dealing with insomnia, and looking for more support, you can read more about how I work with insomnia here or you can sign up for my free insomnia course below.