How Dan went from feeling broken to regaining confidence in his natural ability to sleep by changing his response to insomnia (#74)

Transcript

Martin: Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that by changing how we respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it, we can move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life we want to live.

Martin: The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. The statements and opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

Martin: Okay, Dan, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.

Dan: Oh, thanks Martin. Thanks for having me.

Martin: Great to have you on. Let’s start right at the beginning as always. Can you tell us a little bit about when your sleep problems first began and what you think might have caused those initial issues with sleep?

Dan: So I guess I’d go back to November, 2023 probably a month before the sleep problem started, and I’d never had any sleep problems in my whole life, so I never knew much about it actually. But I, there was a lot going on in my life. I was trying to change careers. There was some health issues with a very close relative of mine.

Dan: Had a pet that was on its last legs ready to pass away. So all these things built up into what I’d say it was a panic attack. Which then led to some generalized anxiety, quite severe. And funny enough, I was still sleeping quite fine for a, for about a month or so. Which proves your point.

Dan: I think that you say quite often that you can sleep with anxiety ’cause I was, no problem. And then probably about a month later, so I guess we’re talking December sometime 2023. I um, was sleeping and I just woke up at midnight and I I just couldn’t get back to sleep. This was strange. So I got to the morning and I was fairly tired and I got through the day and I thought, oh, it’ll be okay tonight.

Dan: I’ll sleep just fine. Anyway, that night came around and I just could not get to sleep. It was just not gonna happen. And, the anxiety started to rise as it were from that. And I didn’t get a wink of sleep that, that second night at all. By the next day I was feeling even worse and worse.

Dan: I thought tonight, surely I’m gonna get some sleep. So that next night, not a wink of sleep at all. Could just, could not get to sleep, pacing the house, checking the clocks, thinking, oh my God, it’s two o’clock in the morning. I haven’t slept for two nights now. I’ve gotta get to sleep.

Dan: And I would lie in bed, nothing had happen. And by that third morning, I was just a a horrible mess. I ended up in hospital talked to the doctors there. They didn’t gimme too much information on the sleep. They did give me one pill, I’m not quite sure what it was. And they said go home and have a good sleep tonight.

Dan: So I took the pill and I went home and I slept for maybe 12 hours that night. And I woke up the next morning. I thought, great, that’s all done. I’ve got that back on track. I’ve fixed that. And then of course, the next night off we go again. Couldn’t get to sleep. Maybe slept an hour or something here or there.

Dan: And then from then on it just went on and on from that, just randomly I, some nights I couldn’t get to sleep. Some nights I fell asleep, but woke up, an hour and a half later and couldn’t get back to sleep. I I had nights where I would swear to my wife that I’d never slept a wink. But she said when I came in, you were snoring.

Dan: Just so erratic, just all over the place. I just couldn’t get a handle on it. I didn’t know what was going on. And then that’s when the research started.

Martin: At first, the issues with sleep were seen as a symptom or were more of a symptom of whatever else was going on in your life, but then the longer that sleep disruption continued, it became the main problem.

Dan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think as time went on the daytime stuff that was going on all settled down for me, but the anxiety even through the day, was all directed at the sleeping at night. Yeah, definitely.

Martin: And I think that makes sense, right? Because whenever you identify a problem in life, you’re naturally gonna focus on it more.

Martin: It’s gonna consume more of your attention. So as sleep disruption or difficulties with sleep continue, it’s gonna become more of a focus and more of something that you see as a problem that you want to solve. And so therefore, just like you alluded to earlier, that’s when the research got going as you did the human thing and tried to fix this problem.

Martin: So can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Dan: Oh yes. So obviously Dr. Google. First of all, I did go and to my GP and nothing against the gp, but he didn’t really gimme any advice on the sleeping. He just said, oh, read a book but make sure it’s not too exciting book and you’ll fall asleep.

Dan: And I thought oh, that’s great. He did gimme some sleeping tablets. Which he also stated that. If they’re only temporary, and the more you have, the more you’ll need type of thing. So that got me more worried. And after that I thought I’m on my own here. I’m gonna have to research this myself.

Dan: So the first thing I bumped into on the internet was sleep hygiene. And I thought, oh, great this is the thing for me. But that actually made things worse for me. I reckon. So the sleep hygiene was all about doing everything at a certain time, no blue light at night. So at that time I was trying to have a shower at seven 30 at night on the dot, and then I’d have to go out and not watch telly, sit and be quiet.

Dan: And then at night, nine 30 on the dot, I had to go to bed. Then the room had to be dark and no lights. So I was doing all sorts of crazy things like even sticking sticky tape over the little red light on the television in the bedroom to try and make it dark. All this crazy type of stuff. And so that just seemed to make the anxiety so much worse, build me up even more.

Dan: So there, so I was still doing that ’cause I had no other option, but I was also thought, if I’m not sleeping at night, I’ll try and sleep in the day and not being someone who usually sleeps in the day much. In the last 20 years, I’d probably count on one hand how many times I’ve had a daytime nap.

Dan: When that wasn’t working either, that just added to more anxiety. And then I was getting more information, magnesium tablets, and ginger tablets and chamomile tea and just this whole array of things and anything anyone ever suggested. I tried it, I can tell you. But nothing seemed to help.

Dan: It just seemed to make it so much worse.

Martin: You’re clearly a problem solver, right? You are all in on trying to fix this problem. Which is a strength, it’s just you were caught out a little bit ’cause sleep is one of these things that, now, you know, from your experience. It’s like the more we try to control it or fix it or make it do a certain thing, the more difficult it becomes.

Dan: Yeah, exactly. That is exactly my nature is if there’s a problem, I’m gonna solve it. Being an electrician, you get in, you fix things, that’s what you do. But in this case, the more I try to fix it, just the worse it became.

Martin: One thing you mentioned was you tried the sleeping in the daytime, and that didn’t work.

Martin: What did you mean by that? Do you mean that you just couldn’t sleep during the day or that it just didn’t seem to help with your sleep overall?

Dan: I would lie down and close my eyes and in the daytime I would drift off and then that thing would happen where you would shock yourself to wake, and then I just couldn’t sleep and then I thought, oh, I must just be broken.

Dan: I just can’t sleep, but not thinking back that I never really ever had a daytime sleep in the past, so why now would I start doing that? But obviously in the moment I thought that was the best thing to try and do.

Martin: Problem solving requires action. And a lot of the things that we do when it comes to trying to fix sleep, involve actions that maybe don’t reflect like who we are or the life we want to live. So for example, we might start trying to sleep during the day, or like you said, we might force ourselves to have a shower at a very specific time at night and then deprive ourselves of TV in the evening.

Martin: Even though that’s something that we enjoyed, we start to take all this stuff out of our lives that matters and we maybe start to replace it with things that we wouldn’t be doing that don’t really reflect who we are or the life we wanna live. So then we’ve got all the sleep issues, but then we’ve also got that impact that it’s having on our overall life as well.

Dan: Absolutely Martin. If I had a bad night, I would not go to work. I would try and conserve the energy. And looking back, it just didn’t help because I’d be sitting at home tired as hell. I’ll be watching people drive off in their cars to work down the road, and here I’m home feeling guilty now that I’m not out going to work, I’m not contributing to society and it’s just making it worse for me.

Dan: Absolutely.

Martin: And on top of that, when you’re staying at home you, your focus is only ever gonna be on sleep or whatever other problems are going on. You’re not gonna have that distraction of living your daytime life and doing all that stuff that matters to you.

Dan: Yeah, exactly. And that’s exactly how I felt back then. Obviously in the moment, it didn’t feel like that in the moment I thought I was doing the right thing, but now looking back on reflection that’s exactly what was going on. Yeah.

Martin: You tried a lot, you did a lot of research. When you came across my work, what made you think there’s something different here or there’s an approach here that might be worth exploring or pursuing?

Dan: Yeah, it’s a funny one. I think initially I might’ve bumped into the sleep education YouTube clip and something just slightly resonated with me about here’s someone that’s just telling me about sleep stuff that I’ve never had to think about in my whole life. But it made sense. It made sense between the tiredness and the sleepiness thing.

Dan: That very first little thing was just a glimmer of something different that someone else hadn’t told me. And then I think I watched a couple more of your videos. And again, just things just made sense in my mind. I must admit at some point, Martin, I thought, oh, this is just another guy trying to sell me something.

Dan: I’ve been down this, gone down all these different paths. What, why is this any different? But the more I listened to the YouTube clips, the more I started to go, there’s something simple. Someone telling me I don’t have to change my life. You can live your life. You can add value to your life.

Dan: And, it just made sense. And I think after one particular bad night, I signed up for the free course initially. But then I had another bad night straight after that and I thought what have I got to lose? I’ve tried everything. Let’s give it a go with an open mind and see how it goes.

Dan: And I think I, I signed up for the full course the next day and got into it within hours.

Martin: Let’s talk about that a little bit more. So now you’ve you’ve gone all in, you are logged into the client area, you’re working through the course. As you reflect on that part of your journey what were the initial changes that you made that stand out to you as being something that you found particularly helpful?

Dan: The sleep restriction. What it did do for me was reassure me that I could get sleep. And to feel the difference between tiredness and sleepiness. Especially in my own body. I was trying to go to bed, tired, but wired as you would probably say. And although when I did get sleepy, sometimes I’d get in bed and then I’d wake back up again.

Dan: At least I had that. I do feel sleepy. We can work from there, if other things that really helped initially? Definitely not checking the clock at night. Like when I was really in the bad spot, I’d be up every half an hour checking the clock, 1:00 AM Oh my God, I’ve gotta go to sleep.

Dan: Oh, one 30 now. I’ve really gotta go to sleep now. Oh, I’ll look at that. It’s two 30 in the morning. I’ve gotta be up in two hours. So not checking the clock but initially was a really good thing. And also making myself do at least one good thing a day, outside of having the nighttime, like even though I was feeling like crap, I didn’t want to go anywhere, just doing one thing could be or could have been as little as going for a walk with a wife or, going to the beach or going for a ride on my bike or anything.

Dan: Just something small every day. And over, over time, I did find that even with a bad night’s sleep, I could get to the end of the day and say, gee I did have a good day today.

Martin: By making that commitment to just do one thing that mattered to you each day independently of sleep, it gave you that opportunity to open up a little bit more to what’s present at the same time as the insomnia.

Martin: So it’s not just the insomnia in your life. The insomnia could very well still be there. Sleep is still a concern, but whilst that’s present, there’s also something else. There’s also something else that’s more meaningful, more important, more enriching.

Dan: Yeah. Correct. Correct. So they were all the shorter sort of term things that worked for me, but I’ve broken it up into two sort of stages and the longer term fix for me was the AWAKE exercise at night where you’re you’re observing your sort of thoughts and your feelings without judgment.

Dan: So I found that longer term was more powerful than the initial tools for me personally. Knowing that you can observe your thoughts without judgment or without action was just so powerful. But that took a lot longer to develop. 6 to 12 months to develop that and train myself on that.

Dan: And I think that is probably one of the most powerful things in the course that I learned.

Martin: How was that different as an approach to what you might have been doing before when you were lying in bed and all these thoughts were showing up?

Dan: I guess when a thought would show up before I would assume that was the truth. You’re not sleeping, you’re gonna get sick.

Dan: You’re not gonna be able to work. And I believed myself, or I’m thinking it, it must be true. But with the AWAKE exercise, I started to notice I could go, ah, there’s that thought and that’ll probably generate this feeling in my body.

Dan: And then, over time by doing that over and over again, it just seemed to diminish somehow the feelings and the thoughts. Almost like my brain would say everything must be all right. It’s just time to relax. And but I guess we’re talking the six month mark here, where we’re talking pretty far down the line not in the initial stages.

Dan: So definitely something I had to work on and I still use today.

Martin: Our default response to especially the difficult thoughts or the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that we can experience is to try and get rid of them. To avoid them, to fight them, to resist them or to see them as something more than what they are.

Martin: Which are thoughts and feelings. They’re nothing less than that. They’re nothing more than that. They’re thoughts and their feelings and we get to decide what we do with them once they show up.

Dan: Initially, they were just overwhelming the thoughts. And but over time, you’d, you almost can get to laugh at them a little bit, oh, there’s that thought that you’re not gonna sleep tonight. Okay, no worries, that’s all right.

Dan: But we’re gonna go and do something else instead. I’ll go read a book or do anything else. And if the thought comes up again, just acknowledge it again and and continue with whatever you’re doing.

Martin: Sometimes we can get a bit tangled up in the thoughts because we really don’t want to experience them. So we might practice this approach of accepting them, acknowledging them, but deep down we’re only doing that because we want to get rid of them. And when that’s our approach, which is understandable, it’s really hard to emerge from that ongoing struggle.

Martin: The more practice you get in with, just allowing them to sit there, to be present, even though you might not want ’em to be there, you don’t have to pretend that you want ’em there, but it’s just about accepting that, trying to push ’em away, trying to fight them only makes things more difficult. The more space you give them, the more practice you get in with that, the less they jerk you around over time.

Dan: Yeah, absolutely. They seem to lose their power. I, the way I felt it is my mind went I’m bringing it up a thousand times and he’s not reacting to it, so why bother bringing it up anymore? You know what I mean? Potentially that’s maybe what’s happening.

Dan: It just really helped. Initially I wondered what, this is not doing anything. But just as the nights became less anxious, it was like, wow, this is really powerful. And yeah, I just can’t speak more highly of that sort of system, that feeling that it’s, it just diminishes the response of your mind and your body.

Dan: People say I can’t control what I think. But no, you can observe your thoughts and your actions can not reflect your thoughts whatsoever if you choose to. The way I think about, it’s imagine if there was a car out the front of your house that was running with a set of keys in it, with the door open.

Dan: Everyone would have that thought, geez, I could jump in that car and drive away, but we don’t do, we, 99% of us don’t do that. We have the thought and we go, that’s not the action I want to do. And then you move on. So I brought it back to that sort of simple level.

Dan: It’s the same sort of thing. I think you observe your thoughts and you go no, don’t need to action that thought. And by doing that, somehow it just gets diminished over time.

Martin: I think it can be really helpful to reflect on the controllability of our thoughts. Often I think when we’re honest with ourselves and we reflect on this, we can probably recognize that our thoughts are out of our direct control.

Martin: And the more we try to control our thoughts, the more kind of powerful and influential they become. But on the other hand, we can always control our actions, how we respond to the thoughts. So our brain is generating this stuff as it’s doing its job of looking out for us. We get to decide then what we do with that.

Martin: And like you said, the more we can respond in a way that doesn’t pull us into a battle and a struggle, the more we can acknowledge and make space for it. We’re also telling our brain that, okay, we’re listening. So you don’t have to keep yelling even louder and louder. And because these thoughts come from our brain doing its job of looking out for us, if we do try to resist them, it’s just gonna yell louder.

Dan: Yeah. I think that’s exactly what was happening with me. Yes, exactly. But I guess just to move back to after starting your course, Martin, I probably didn’t see much difference in my sleep for about four weeks, I think. And then I remember having three, three good nights of sleep. And I thought again after that I thought that’s all done and dusted. I’m over with that, but of course then the bad nights returned.

Dan: I just saw improvement as I was going along, which then boyed me more to continue to follow that path. And the more I did it, the more better nights I had. Certainly not a nice linear path. I can tell you.

Martin: Yeah, it would be great if progress was always just this perfect straight line, just beautiful diagonal line, just constant night after night improvement after improvement.

Martin: But, like you just described, it’s never like that. It’s not even up and down. It’s probably sideways, curly, squiggly, all different shapes, sizes it goes all over the place. And that’s a normal part of any journey. What matters is, again, bringing it down to our actions. How are we gonna respond to this?

Martin: How are we gonna respond when things are going well? And it’s often a lot easier to respond how we want to, when things are going well, but maybe most importantly, how do we respond when things aren’t going how we might want them to go.

Dan: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And many nights things didn’t go the way I wanted to go, but I found things to do.

Dan: And the other thing is, I did find it hard to do things at night. It’s pretty lonely at three o’clock in the morning when everyone else is sleeping in the house and everything you like to do is noisy and, playing guitar and banging around in the garage and this and that. So I really found it difficult to find an alternative.

Dan: So initially I was just stuck lying in bed thinking about it. But I’m not a big reader. But one night I picked up a book and actually thought, this is all right, this is quite calm and relaxing. So I ended up buying myself a little reading light and if the thoughts got too much and too much anxiety, I would just jump outta bed and pick up the book and read a page, read a chapter.

Dan: Couple of chapters, whatever, until I, until that sleepiness came back, and then I’d go back to bed and have another go at sleeping.

Martin: You gave yourself options by the sounds of it. So before when you were really struggling, it felt perhaps like there were no options. You just had to kinda stay in bed and kind of battle with the thoughts, battle with the feelings, battle with the insomnia, try really hard to make sleep happen.

Martin: And as you were exploring this, you realized that there were other things that you could do. You could practice building skill in acknowledging and making space for whatever the thoughts and feelings are that are showing up. And on a more physical level perhaps you can also just read a book.

Martin: You can get outta bed and read a book. You can stay in bed and read a book. You’re doing something other than struggling and battling away. You are not in a battleground in the middle of the night. You’re just doing something that helps you experience that moment with less struggle.

Dan: Yeah, exactly. And I do remember as I was more comfortable in bed when I was awake, but I was still getting up in the night to read my book on the couch, and I think I might have posted something in the forum about that. I think you came back and said if you’re comfortable in bed why don’t you try and stay in bed and read?

Dan: And I thought, am I allowed to do that? And yeah, of course you are, if you’re comfortable and stay in bed. So I did. Stayed in bed and I read my book and lo and behold went back to sleep. So it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, it’s all about how you react to those thoughts and those feelings.

Dan: Yeah, definitely.

Martin: This idea of should I stay in bed? Should I get outta bed? It’s something that a lot of people ask me about. And it, my answer is, it really doesn’t matter whether you get in bed, whether you stay in bed, or get out of bed. It really doesn’t matter. What matters most is are you engaged in a struggle?

Martin: And if so, what can you do to experience that moment with a little bit less struggle? And that could involve watching TV in bed and all the sleep hygiene people are going to probably start feeling faint hearing that. Or it could be getting out of bed and doing something else. It really doesn’t matter because your goal isn’t to permanently delete whatever thoughts and feelings are showing up ’cause from experience that doesn’t work, your goal isn’t to somehow magically make sleep happen because as you know from experience, you can’t make sleep happen through effort.

Martin: Your goal is to just experience whatever’s happening in that moment with less struggle. And that can be done whether you’re in bed, on the floor, in the kitchen, out in the backyard, jumping on a trampoline.

Martin: It doesn’t matter because what matters is experiencing that moment with less struggle.

Dan: A hundred percent. Yep.

Dan: I’d agree with that now. At the time it was difficult to see, very difficult to see, but now on reflection absolutely. Like I say, the thoughts still pop in even now when I’m sleeping.

Dan: If I do wake up, sometimes I’ve gotta go to the toilet or for whatever reason I do wake up. There is that little thought pops in, are you gonna go back to sleep? It’s thank, thanks, mind. Thanks for that bit of information. So that’s where we’re at now. 18 months down the track.

Martin: I think it’s important to emphasize too, that you are the expert on you and every client is the expert on themselves, and everyone listening to this is the expert on themselves.

Martin: So if someone is listening and they find it more helpful to get out of bed during the night, then maybe that’s what’s right for them. If someone else is listening and they prefer to stay in bed, then maybe that’s what’s right for them. Really what could be most helpful is to just reflect on your own experience.

Martin: Because our own experience is often our best guide as to what is most workable for us what kind of actions seem to draw us into more struggle. What actions seem to help us or could help us emerge from that struggle or make things a little bit better, even if only half a percentage point better, what action might help us nudge the needle a little bit.

Martin: And that could be different for everyone.

Dan: Those little percents add up over time. That’s what I found. Those just little 1% things they do add up. And eventually I got back on track in that way, slowly and steadily. So over time the sleep restriction, I back that off and just started to go to bed when I felt slept sleepy, so that sort of thing loosened it up, but I lent more into the observing the thoughts and feelings type thing.

Dan: And that’s why I think I ended up enjoying the course ’cause while I got bits of information from YouTube clips and whatnot, the course followed a a good step by step progress. Like sleep restriction was early on in the course. And then we moved to the AWAKE exercises and feelings. So the order of it just seemed to work for me.

Dan: And yeah it was just a natural progression in the end. But yeah, still, again, I go back to just how powerful that observing your thoughts and feelings can be. It just so powerful in the long term. So I certainly feel now if I ever had some sort of incident again, I’ve got these tools forever.

Dan: I feel that I’ve got something I can use straight away before it all gets out of control and out of hand. And that is so very reassuring. Now I don’t have to go to the doctor to ask for sleeping tablets as my only resort. I can just bring, I could bring black sleep restriction if I needed to or lean more into the observing thoughts and feelings, that sort of thing.

Dan: If it ever happening again. I think things would be a little bit different for me.

Martin: You are armed with these new skills now. I think if anyone listening to this thinks what am I skilled at? What is one of my big skills? And then you reflect on how long did it take to develop that skill? Did it just happen overnight or was it a longer process that involved ups and downs that involved frustrations and setbacks and difficulties.

Martin: Probably the latter, right? Skills don’t tend to just magically appear. They do require practice and commitment to action and ongoing practice, whether that feels easy or whether it feels difficult. But then once we’ve developed that skill, it’s with us for life.

Martin: We can always draw up on it.

Dan: Yeah, I totally agree. I actually thought all the things that I’ve learned in my life, this, there’s just another thing. I absolutely can learn this. It takes time, but I can do it. And now I have, you’re a hundred percent correct. It’s easier now that I’ve learned it and I can’t ever unlearn it.

Dan: So it’s just so helpful. Not only at the night, during the day as well. I was using it during the day when I was obsessed with sleep. Here’s that thought again. If you only did this, you’ll sleep at night. You’d think about that all day and then you get to night and it wouldn’t work.

Dan: So when those things pop up in the day, just accept them and go on, and it’s just led to a calmer mind all round really.

Martin: And that’s a good point too, that these skills can be used during the daytime too. Because so much of the struggle is experienced during the daytime as well, right? People that aren’t really familiar with insomnia would probably consider it just to be a nighttime problem.

Martin: But it’s much more than that. It really is a 24 hour a day problem. It’s always gonna be on our mind. We’re always feeling its presence. And a lot of that also comes down to the thoughts and the predictions and the kind of judgments that show up during the day and how that can just be so distracting and make it harder for us to do things that matter.

Dan: Yes, definitely. And it certainly overtook me there for a while. But and that’s why that doing that one good thing a day was really helpful. I think there’s something in the course about that, one good thing in the day or something. But I made myself do that and I still do that to this day.

Dan: It might be just 10 minutes, something for me. Maybe it’s a walk with my wife, maybe it’s a bike ride. Maybe it’s go and tinker with something. But that just every day now I can say I did something for me no matter how tired I was or or whatever. And I think that’s helped calm the mind as well.

Dan: And one thing I have noticed since my sleep has returned is the amount of sleep I get at night doesn’t seem to marry up with how tired I am during the day. Some nights I can have eight hours sleep and feel absolutely washed out the next day. But other nights I can have five hours and feel energized and have a great day.

Dan: So I think that myth of the eight hours a day, all these sleep myths that you’re taught over your life, I don’t think they’re quite accurate either.

Martin: We have these beliefs, I guess it would be, about shoulds. I should get X amount of sleep. I should only wake once or twice, or I should not wake at all during the night.

Martin: I should not experience anxiety. I should not feel frustration, anger or worry. And so then when that stuff happens that we believe that we shouldn’t experience, we have the difficulty of the experience itself, but then we have the difficulty of all the kind of judgment and self-talk that we add onto top of that.

Dan: Yeah, definitely. And the further down the rabbit hole you go, you just, you, you just get overloaded. Your brain just goes into meltdown and you’re researching things and you’re coming up with your own hypotheses and you really trying to become a self doctor. And you just snowball down the hole.

Dan: But I think you can snowball your way out of it as well, which is reassuring. The same things that get you down there can bring you back out, so just following the path that I went for me was the way to go. That observing the thoughts of feelings initially, the sleep restrictions and the not checking the clock and the finding something to do at night and to doing something in the day for myself just worked my way back to some sort of normal sleeping pattern.

Martin: It also sounds as though as you’ve gone through this journey, it’s not so much that you are back to where you were before sleep was an issue or a concern. Like back to that starting point. It almost sounds like you are further ahead now.

Martin: You’ve got all these new skills and you’re a lot more focused on values-based living. You are consciously choosing to do things each day that matter to you that reflect the life you want to live.

Martin: You’re doing more of that stuff that matters.

Dan: Oh, absolutely. Martin, I think I’m much better off than before. I just had no clue about sleep. No clue. If you had told me you can force yourself to go to sleep, I would say, yeah, sure, I can. I just jump in bed, close my eyes and I’ve got this.

Dan: So initially the sleep education, that was great. That’s knowledge that I can hold for the rest of my life. Then all the tools that I’ve learned, that’s knowledge I hold for the rest of my life. Not saying every night’s perfect, it’s not, but the way I react to it is totally different.

Martin: That can be really unusual for people that are still in the struggle to listen to episodes like this where people talk about maybe being stronger or having grown as a result of their experience. Because when we’re tangled up in the struggle, we’re like, we don’t see any possible upsides to it or any kind of learning opportunities from it or any sense of personal growth or development from it.

Martin: It’s only when we’re able to emerge from that struggle and look back that we realize that there was stuff there that we’ve taken from that experience. It’s contributed overall to some kind of positive in our lives that we can then take forward.

Dan: Absolutely. And I believe, and I and to be honest, I was one of those pers persons that would listen to the podcast and go, no way. No way. I’m stuck here now. This is my life. This is my, this is where I am. I’m broken. My brains must be mis wired. I’m different to everyone else. I was hearing the stories going this is almost unbelievable, but now looking back I can see my progression and the tools and everything I use to help me come back. You can absolutely be stronger after all this. Absolutely. I am a hundred percent agree with that now, but I can understand someone who’s in it not being able to see it ’cause I was there as well.

Dan: I could not see a way out of it. But I had faith in the tools that you provided. I saw a little glimpses of things and I focused on those things like I do feel sleepy even though I might still not have a good night. I know I can feel sleepy and I know I can go to sleep.

Dan: And then things just slowly improved. And then when things improved, I just built on it. That worked, well I’m gonna continue to go down this path and I feel stronger than before I had the sleeping issues for sure.

Martin: So those little glimmers that you experience, like the sleepiness showing up maybe when you, for the first time, strung a couple of good nights together you kinda held onto them or maybe consciously brought them into your awareness when things weren’t going as well as you wanted.

Martin: And that’s maybe what kept you moving forward, just bringing your awareness back to all those little glimmers of hope or those little successful moments or those little insights that you were picking up along the way.

Dan: Yeah, exactly. You’d have a, even after a bad night, I’d still have a good day and go at least I had a good day.

Dan: It was a horrible night, but it was a good day. Or yes, I fell asleep for three hours, that’s better than no hours, what I was getting a month before, so just the small things. They did add up over time and over time you put it in the bank and then you start to focus more on those things and start to feel stronger, and then that builds more sleep, then more stronger, more sleep, more positive and then just, yeah, just goes from there.

Dan: But I do stress that was many months of work. I say work, but, learning the tools and whatnot. I think I didn’t truly feel like I was getting reasonable sleep most nights for about six months after, after initially starting the course. And then I can tell you I was walking on eggshells now for another six months after that.

Dan: It was always, every now and again in that thought, are you gonna sleep tonight? There was a bit of disruption tonight. You’ve gone out to a concert, are you gonna sleep tonight? So definitely tentative for a long period of time.

Martin: And that makes sense because you are so vividly able to recall the struggle, and so obviously you don’t want to get pulled back into that again.

Martin: And it’s normal that from time to time you’re gonna be, because you’re a human being, not a robot. And it’s normal that your brain is gonna keep reminding you of how difficult that experience was and warning you about it. And what really matters is, again, going back to what we’ve been talking about is how we respond to it.

Martin: How we choose to respond to this stuff is what determines our level of struggle.

Dan: The knowledge that my brain was just trying to protect me . That’s a strange thing to say, but even the knowledge of that was really helpful.

Dan: Right, my brain’s learnt this way to protect me, and that is to feel anxious. That’s what it’s learnt and that’s what it’s doing. After I could step aside of that and observe it, things became a lot easier. But yeah, knowing my brain’s not trying to hurt me, that it’s actually trying to help me.

Dan: Maybe it’s a little bit skew if in the way it’s trying to help me, but it is trying to help me. That actually helped settle me down as well.

Martin: It can feel as though the brain is like an adversary, right? A lot of clients tell me it’s like my mind is working against me.

Martin: I can go to bed feeling really calm and relaxed and then my mind starts racing. Why is my brain doing this to me? Why is it not cooperating? And it can be a big mindset shift to be willing to explore this idea that our brain’s number one job is to look out for us. So it’s going to generate lots of thoughts and feelings about stuff, and it’s always going to focus on worst possible outcome every single time because that’s what keeps us alive.

Martin: Our brain is not gonna focus on the most positive possible outcome, only ever the worst possible outcome. And it’s not doing that to make things difficult for us, it’s doing that to keep us safe, to keep us alive. And understanding that, or recognizing that can really help because that can shift the relationship we have with our minds, right?

Martin: And so now, if we can recognize our mind isn’t an adversary, maybe we don’t have to battle with it, maybe we don’t have to see it as the enemy anymore, and that can move us on that path to making space for the mind to just do whatever it’s gonna do anyway.

Dan: Yeah I think absolutely. And I can’t remember exactly what point I sort of understood that at some point in the process, but at that point I kind of said right, your brain’s job is to keep you alive.

Dan: So it’s not trying to hurt you. You just need to work with it, and you and you hit a nail on the head. It did go to every absolute worst case every night when it was a bad night. It was, you are not gonna be able to get up in the morning, you’re not gonna be able to do your job.

Dan: You are gonna lose your job, you’re gonna lose all your money. You’re gonna, how are you gonna be able to drive to work? You can barely keep your eyes open. Just constant. Any bad thing, it would just bring it up. But as I negotiated every one of those thoughts, Hey that’s just not true, that thought.

Dan: And I think it’s important to note, not in a aggressive way would I attack my thoughts. I would just observe them and try not to judge myself. Just go, they’re just thoughts. And I think that was important too. ‘Cause attacking yourself is just not going to help the process at all.

Dan: And certainly early on I was probably betting myself up much too much. I was you are useless. You are you are never gonna be able to do anything again sort of thing. But as I tackled it, I managed to go no. We’re still gonna go out and we’re still contributing.

Dan: We’re still going out and doing our thing. We’re doing stuff for ourselves.

Dan: And yeah, just worked my way through that.

Martin: What kind of markers of progress did you have for yourself that kept you moving forward when sleep might not have been doing what you wanted it to do, when your thoughts and feelings might not have been doing what you wanted them to do?

Dan: I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t really have markers, but I would’ve take each day just as it comes. Maybe it was a time in the evening, what late afternoon, where I would probably sit and just say how was the day? But last night was no good, but I actually had a pretty good day. I did this and I did that, and that was fun.

Dan: And, or that was a great day at work or whatever. So for me it was really more day by day. I didn’t really set goals. In any way. It was really, yeah, just day by day for me.

Martin: It sounds like you were focused more on what did I do each day and if you were able to reflect that you did some stuff that day that mattered, that was aligned with your values, that reflected who you are, who you want to be, the life you want to live, that was more of a marker of progress to you perhaps.

Dan: Yeah, I think absolutely at the end of every day I would just, yeah, that was a good day. I didn’t really keep record of all that.

Dan: It was just a real truly for me, it was day by day, just as time went by I just saw improvement in everything, to be honest. It was a lot of, it’s a bit of a blur now. I do definitely remember day by day, just, I think I said it once stage, we’re just gonna do this day by day. Every night’s a new night, as it were.

Dan: What happened last night could be totally different tonight. So let’s not take last night as a sign of how tonight’s gonna be. It’s a brand new night and anything could happen.

Martin: Would you say that you became more focused on being present?

Martin: So for example, when we are really tied up in the struggle, so much of it, our brain is just time traveling, right? It’s predicting what’s gonna happen that night. During the night it’s predicting what’s gonna happen the next day. In the morning it’s predicting what’s gonna happen in the afternoon.

Martin: And as your approach changes, perhaps you became more focused on the present moment, like noticing when your mind is time traveling, bringing it back, redirecting your focus and attention on where you are at that moment, what you want to be doing at that moment, what’s around you at that moment?

Dan: Absolutely. That’s yes. The answer to that is yes. And I still get distracted today and I still can catch myself in those thoughts and go let’s just bring it back to what we’re doing right now. Obviously you need to plan what you’re doing for the day and this and that, but I think that’s a little different than getting wrapped up in a negative thought cycle.

Dan: And I did absolutely could pick myself up and just go bring myself what’s happening right now. Middle of the night I’m reading this book. Just come back to this book. It’s fun. I’m gonna read that and then I might find that thought would come back. Same thought. And I just acknowledge it again.

Dan: There it is. It’s come back. I’ve been distracted. It’s okay. Just bring it back to this book again. And eventually it, my mind just gave up trying to convince me of something. And then the sleep just happened.

Martin: Dan I really appreciate you coming onto the podcast and sharing all these great insights with us.

Martin: If someone with chronic insomnia is listening and they feel as though they’ve tried everything, that they’re beyond help, that they’ll just never be able to stop struggling with insomnia, what would you say to them?

Dan: First thing I’d say is, you are not broken. I thought I was broken, but I wasn’t. And you won’t be either. The second thing is learn. Learn about sleep. Sleep education. Learn the difference between sleepiness and tiredness. You want to get that sleepy feeling to come back or at least understand how it feels.

Dan: Third thing is you can absolutely observe your thoughts and your feelings, and you can absolutely teach yourself to react in a different way to them. Absolutely. But it takes time. It, for me, six, six to eight months it took. But you can absolutely do it. And the very last thing, and most importantly I think is be kind to yourself.

Dan: There’s no point beating yourself up. Many people are going through this and beating yourself up will not be helping in any manner at all.

Martin: I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your journey with us, Dan. Thank you so much.

Dan: Thanks Martin.

Martin: Thanks for listening to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. If you’re ready to get your life back from insomnia, I would love to help. You can learn more about the sleep coaching programs I offer at Insomnia Coach — and, if you have any questions, you can email me.

Martin: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Insomnia Coach Podcast. I’m Martin Reed, and as always, I’d like to leave you with this important reminder — you are not alone and you can sleep.