4 Reasons Why Focusing On Sleep is Not the Answer to Insomnia Recovery
Without a thorough understanding of insomnia, it is natural to focus all your attention on how to get more sleep. Focusing on sleep is often actually part of the problem though, since it is often driven by fear. Had I realized this earlier on in my struggles, I may have not spent years spinning my wheels. Although better sleep is what everyone with insomnia wants, getting that does not necessarily mean that your insomnia will be healed. If the fear still remains, any disruption to sleep again could trigger the insomnia to come back. This is why it can continue for so long.
As an insomnia coach, therapist and recovered insomniac, below I explore why focusing primarily on sleep is not the most effective approach to recovery and where to shift your focus instead.
Pema Chödrön’s ‘How We Live Is How We Die’ and 3 Ways to Notice Impermanence
In buddhism, a bardo specifically refers to the transition period between life and death. In practice though, our whole life can be seen as a bardos with a beginning, middle and end. If you apply that concept on a micro level, you can even start to use the concept of a bardo as a metaphor for the various events in a single day. As Pema Chodron elucidates, ‘we are always in a bardo because impermanence never takes a break.’ (p. 12).
One benefit to this practice is if I can really be with the moment by viewing it as a whole lifetime, I might be enamored, grateful or joyous for things which I previously took for granted.
7 Ways to Navigate the Insomnia Rollercoaster
It’s so normal for the brain to go berserk when you can’t sleep. It is, after all, a survival machine, and it likes to send out alerts that insomnia is a threat. This often shows up in all kinds of stories the mind creates about the experience of insomnia. Some common ones I experienced include: ‘This is never going to end, ‘Am I going crazy? ‘, ‘Am I going to die?’ or ‘Will I be stuck in this misery forever? You get the idea. While these stories may seem dramatic, they feel very real in the moment.
When you're struggling with insomnia, your nervous system is often in a state of hyperarousal, affecting the functioning of your prefrontal cortex. We need the prefrontal cortex to think more clearly, exercise good judgment and learn from experience. So, it’s very understandable and common to get caught up in the fears, and believe that they are true.
7 Steps to Take for Insomnia Recovery
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 often 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.