Insomnia Coach® Podcast

Martin Reed, MEd, NBC-HWC, CCSH, CHES®
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Insomnia help and real success stories from people who got their lives back from insomnia

  1. FEB 28

    How Courtney went from panic-filled nights and endless struggle to trusting her body and sleeping naturally again (#78)

    Courtney’s experience with insomnia didn’t start overnight — but when it hit, it hit hard. Looking back, she could see some early signs. As a child, she was sensitive to her environment. New places, travel, small changes — sleep didn’t always come easily. But it wasn’t something that took over her life. That changed in 2020. With a new baby, the stress of the pandemic, family tension, and untreated anxiety, everything began to build at once. Then the nights started to change. She began waking up in the early hours of the morning, wide awake. At first, it was confusing. Then it became frightening. The moment she noticed she wasn’t asleep, panic would take over. Her heart would race. Her body would react as if something was wrong. Nights became something to fear. Sleep became something she felt she had to make happen. She tried everything — supplements, routines, changes to her environment, and eventually medication. But nothing brought consistent relief. Her days started revolving around sleep. Avoiding things. Planning everything around the night ahead. Trying harder, doing more — all in the hope that sleep would finally come. But the harder she tried, the more difficult it became. What began to shift things for Courtney wasn’t another strategy — it was a different way of understanding what was happening. A realization that nothing was broken. That her body already knew how to sleep. And that the struggle itself might be what was keeping her stuck. From there, things didn’t change overnight. It took time. Practice. Setbacks. Learning how to respond differently to difficult nights and the thoughts and feelings that came with them. But slowly, something began to change. She started trusting her body again. Sleep became less of a battle. And instead of her life revolving around sleep, she was putting more of her energy into the things that mattered to her each day — and insomnia lost its power and its influence. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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, Courtney, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Courtney: Thank you very much for having me on. Martin: It’s great to have you on. Let’s start right at the beginning as always. When did your sleep problems first begin, and what do you feel caused those initial issues with sleep? Courtney: So I think what caused the insomnia battle that I dealt with was some background things that got, had, had gone on in my life. For example my mom has always struggled with sleep, so I have wondered if there’s a genetic component to that. Even as a kid, I’ve just always been more sensitive to my environment. Courtney: For example if I went to a friend’s house, I wouldn’t sleep very well. There was times I’d have my mom come and get me because I wasn’t sleeping. Probably get really anxious if the, if we’re traveling, I don’t sleep well, if the room is too hot, I don’t sleep well. Just things like that. Just very sensitive to shifts in my environment. Courtney: And then in 2020 is when I began my battle with insomnia. What also added into that was just some unhelpful beliefs about sleep that I just picked up from the media. Courtney: For example, like I feel like there’s a lot of times that they’ll do a study or they’ll release an article that doesn’t tell the full story, but is enough to cause fear in you about insomnia. So for example, if someone doesn’t get seven to nine hours a night, that could lead to whatever catastrophic thing or. Courtney: Insomniacs are, you know, shown to struggle with, you know, fill in the blank there. So I had that kind of fearful mindset already. And then yeah, you just add in. My husband and I had our first child in 2019. Around that time I was struggling with an un untreated anxiety disorder, and I was trying to muscle my way through that. Courtney: And then, as you know, the years progressed. We had some family and relational tension and my husband has some job changes due to the pandemic that happened, let alone the pandemic itself and the fear around that. So there was just a lot of lifestyle changes at that time that I think I had a hard time with, and I just never slowed down to kind of process that or make space for that. Courtney: And I think my body was trying to communicate that to me through anxiety, but I just didn’t slow down to listen. And then it, it. Overflowed into a, a sleep disorder or insomnia right around 2020. And I’ve struggled with that for quite a few years and finally I’m in a better place where I feel like I can talk about it having been on the other side of it. Martin: So it sounds like for you, concern or a focus or issues with sleep was always something that was kind of with you, maybe perhaps more in the background. It would show up every now and then, but then in 2020 around then there was lots of change going on. Lots of stresses, lots of different stuff happening and so the sleep issues resurfaced, but this time it felt different. Courtney: Yes. There was just a few nights that I started waking up at like 3:00 AM just wide awake. And I was like, huh, this is weird. And then it started getting more and more frequent, and there was a few nights that I did not sleep at all. And what shifted was my focus on it and my fear around it. So I started becoming very fearful, like, what is wrong with me that I can’t sleep? So as that fear grew, I started to become more fearful of nighttime. Courtney: And it was on the week of Halloween. There was a few nights that I, I didn’t sleep at all. Like, I would lay down at night and I, I lay there for maybe about 15 minutes or so, and it’s like, as soon as I was aware, oh, I’m not sleeping yet, I would instantly have a panic attack. I mean, I was sweating, my heart was racing. Courtney: I was in full panic mode. I had my, I called my dad up ’cause he lives, you know, nearby. And my husband stayed with our son and I had him take me to the emergency room at about 3:00 AM just panic stricken. Courtney: And I didn’t even know, I just, I needed help and I didn’t know where to go. So he took me there and I mean, I went in and I was just like, I just can’t sleep. I, I can’t sleep. And I’m sure they thought. You know, I was on something ’cause they ran a full drug screen and of course that came back clean. I was just panic stricken, severe anxiety. Courtney: But it probably looked to them like I was taking a stimulant of some kind. ’cause how else, like, would I end up there? Not able to sleep. But unfortunately, like they didn’t really have any answers for me. I remember talking with the nurse and just telling her my story and she acknowledged, she’s like, you’ve been through a lot of life change and, you know, that can contribute to this. Courtney: But there was no real like, help. I think they gave me two Benadryl and I think that made me doze off for an hour in the ER while I was waiting to be discharged. And I think that only came from the fact that they were treating me for something like they were taking care of me. So I feel like I could like come down a little bit and then went home and I don’t think I slept the rest of the night after that. Courtney: The next morning I think I crashed on the couch for maybe an hour, and then the following Thursday, I ha ended up having my husband take me into the emergency room. ‘Cause we had stayed at my parents’ house that night and so they were with my son and my husband took me in and I was again just begging them to help me sleep. Courtney: Prior to that I was able to get in with the local psychiatrist’s office and I think I went to them that Thursday and, you know, they gave me medication and they gave me an anti-anxiety medic medication. And then also she called it a heavy hitter sleep medication. I think it was Restoril, which is an older generation drug. Courtney: And I was like, okay, this will do it for me. And she was pretty confident. She’s like, well, you know, put you on this for a very limited time, maybe two weeks. And we’ll see how that goes. So I went home that Thursday night and I took it and it didn’t help. And I, so I can’t even tell you the fear, the shame, the confusion of, they gave me a heavy hitter as she put it, sleep medication. Courtney: And that was not enough to help me sleep. So hence, I, I ended up back in the ER and all they could do was give me another dose of that, just because I think you were allowed to take two and that was the maximum. So I, from then on, I was taking the maximum dose of that much longer than the two weeks. And so I felt completely just weak, broken alone, confu, I mean, anything you can think of in a dark season like that, I felt it because I was like, this is not helping. Courtney: Like this is the strongest that they have and this is not enough to knock me out, like, what is wrong with me? Martin: Well that was a really difficult sit

    1h 16m

  2. JAN 31

    How Amber stopped trying to fix sleep — and insomnia stopped being the boss (#77)

    Amber had always been someone people counted on. A nurse. A mom. For most of her life, sleep wasn’t something she worried about. It just happened. Then life changed. After her second baby — who arrived early and had some health problems — nights became more difficult. She’d lie down only to wait for the next cry. It felt easier to stay awake than to sleep. Years working as a NICU nurse added another layer. More responsibility. More pressure to perform. Sleep felt increasingly fragile and one night she couldn’t sleep at all. Panic showed up. Heart racing. Mind spinning. Insomnia became something to fix. She researched. Tightened her routine. Optimized sleep hygiene. Tried teas. Tried prescriptions. Got in and out of bed. Tried relaxing harder. Tried doing everything “right.” Nothing worked. In fact, the harder she tried, the more she struggled. Nights became lonely and exhausting. Life started to revolve around sleep. Then, in the middle of the night, searching for help, she stumbled across stories of people who weren’t fixing sleep — they were changing how they responded to being awake. Less fighting. More flexibility. More focus on living. It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t perfect. But little by little, Amber’s struggle loosened. And sleep stopped being the boss. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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. So Amber, thank you so much for taking the time out for your day to come onto the podcast. Amber: Thank you. Martin: Let’s start right at the very beginning, as always. Can you tell us when your issues with sleep first began and what you think might have caused those initial issues with sleep? Amber: Yeah. For the most part I’ve been a pretty good sleeper. Amber: However, I’ve had some points in my life where it’s become a little bit hard and I would say the first time that I noticed a significant change was that was after I had my second baby, he was early, he had some health problems. And I noticed, that I started losing my sleep then. Obviously every new mother does anyways, but I was worried about feeding him. Amber: I was worried about him getting enough to eat. I would get him settled and then I would lay down and just be waiting for that next cry. And so it was like almost easier to stay awake in a way, but not in the long run. So that was the first time I noticed it. And then the bulk of my career I have been a NICU nurse, which also made me a little anxious about my newborns. Amber: Sometimes I would be a little bit anxious before certain shifts. Not always, ’cause I worked for 25 years and it was great. But occasionally I would be anxious about getting to bed and in time and getting enough sleep. And so I noticed it there. And then I went back to school a few years ago to become a nurse practitioner and I probably had a little bit of a harder time sleeping during school. Amber: I got a lot more sensitive to my husband’s snoring during that time and, very light sleeper. And then after that, when I got my first job as a nurse practitioner, I was very on edge and very anxious. And while I was orienting for that job, I did not get a lot of sleep. I still at that time wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the sleep itself. Amber: Just aware that I wasn’t sleeping enough. Then I would say a couple years ago is where it really came to a head. I had various just normal life stresses going on with various kids and things. And one night I just could not sleep. And I started to recognize that I was having a bit of panic attack and I had some experience with panic and anxiety in the past, like mainly around that baby that I told you about. Amber: I had learned to work through that and I really hadn’t experienced a lot of it for probably a good decade and a half, but I noticed it that night and that generated a real fear response to me. And I thought, I remember distinctly having thought, oh my gosh, is this gonna keep me from sleeping now? And that’s, that was the hallmark. Amber: That’s what started it. And it became its own beast from that point on. Martin: You can recall a lot of times in your life when there were some stressors going on, for want of a better word, and that impacted your sleep. But it tended to be the case that once those initial triggers were no longer present or as relevant, things tended to get back on track. Amber: I had experienced times in the past where my anxiety was higher and I have always known that my personality goes a little in that direction, but it was manageable. I had been able to manage it and I had learned to manage it pretty well previous to that. Amber: But this time it I think the fear that it was going to affect my sleep, I did not know how to deal with that, and that scared me on a whole new level. And so now I feel like I was dealing with two things, just, being an anxious sort and now not being able to sleep on top of that. Amber: I value my health and I work in healthcare and so I do pay attention to details for sure. Amber: And getting enough sleep was very important to me. I know all the health benefits of that I’ve, and so the thought of not being able to have that and trying to function without it was quite terrifying to me, especially thinking of taking care of other people’s health. Martin: So you’ve got that added pressure to perform sleep because it’s not just about you, it’s also about all the other people you’re interacting with and caring for each day. What were you doing to try and get things back on track? Amber: I just go right to trying to problem solve. And of course that’s an important part of my job. That’s how I’ve dealt with being a mother and any other role I’ve had is to figure out, okay, what do I need to do differently? Amber: I need to understand this better. I’m gonna research it. I’m going to read about it. I’m gonna see what other people do and I’m gonna try all those things just, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna fix this. That’s what I thought. I’m gonna fix it. And so I did several different things. A lot of things that I’ve heard described on your other episodes. Amber: Sleep hygiene was a big thing, and that is actually something I talked to patients about. And so I thought I need to make my sleep hygiene better and I need to make sure I get in bed at a certain time and have everyone be quiet. I can’t have my noise in my room. I need to be really relaxed, so I’ve got to force myself to be relaxed. Amber: Try some of the sleep herbal teas. I don’t love medication, so I was trying not to go there in the beginning. Eventually I did go and try some medication. I have plenty of nurse practitioner friends that could write me a prescription for something. And so I tried various things, but only briefly I will say I, because I quickly realized that there was no medication that was helping. Amber: It might help initially. And then very quickly I discovered that my alarm system was stronger than the medication. And I think I tried maybe two or three different things and I just thought, I’m not gonna do this anymore. ’cause I don’t really wanna be on it anyways and it’s not helping. So yeah, I tried all those things. Amber: It was a difficult time. Amber: There was one night where I tried Ambien. I had tried hydroxyzine, I had tried Trazodone. Those two didn’t help at all. Amber: And one night I tried Ambien and I knew as a professional that’s not a medication that you want to take for very long ’cause it can really be disrupted to sleep. But by that point I was so desperate that I thought maybe if I took it a couple nights, it would help reset me. And that was even the term that the provider I talked to and I had was that maybe I needed a couple nights of reset. Amber: And I, so the first night I tried it and I was really relieved knowing that I had it that night. So I think my anxiety went down quite a bit right there. ’cause I knew I had something that was going to help and I just slept like a log that night. And so I thought, great this is it. I’m gonna do this a couple nights, I’m gonna get rid of it and I’m gonna move on and be normal again. Amber: And the very next night I took it and I slept really hard for maybe two hours and then I was up the rest of the night and I was pretty blown away that I had overpowered that medication that I knew to be pretty strong. And so from, I just threw it out at that point because I thought this isn’t working and it’s not gonna, it’s gonna, give me side effects anyway, so I don’t want it. Amber: So yeah I was really to the end of my rope at that point. I didn’t know what else to do. Martin: I think a lot of people will identify with at least some kind of aspect of your experience with the medication there. You’ve got that thing and it can feel like a sense of relief. Martin: It’s almost like you’re delegating all of the effort that you might felt you had to put into sleep t

    56 min

  3. 12/24/2025

    How Abbie went from being ruled by insomnia to getting her life back by stepping out of the struggle (#76)

    Before insomnia entered Abbie’s life, sleep was effortless. She’d never had to think about it. She fell asleep quickly, stayed asleep, and moved through her days without giving sleep much attention at all. It was simply there — reliable and unremarkable. That changed in the fall of 2021 after a short illness. One sleepless night turned into another, and before long, sleep became the center of everything. What started as confusion quickly grew into anxiety and pressure. Each night felt like a test. Each morning felt heavier. As the nights passed, fear took over — fear of being awake, fear of not functioning, fear that something was permanently wrong. Like many people facing insomnia, Abbie did what made sense. She tried to fix it. She went to bed earlier and earlier. She canceled plans. She followed strict routines. She tried supplements. She searched for answers. And each attempt came with hope — followed by disappointment when sleep didn’t show up. Over time, life began to shrink around sleep, and the struggle only intensified. Days became just as difficult as nights. Her mind stayed locked on one question: Am I going to sleep tonight? Anxiety filled the hours. Dread set in as evening approached. Even when she was exhausted, her heart raced and her thoughts refused to slow down. What began to shift things wasn’t a new fix — it was a change in how she responded. Abbie started noticing that withdrawing from life wasn’t helping. Staying in bed wasn’t restoring her energy. And fighting her thoughts wasn’t bringing relief. Slowly, she began doing something different: showing up to her life even when sleep felt uncertain. She experimented with staying up later instead of trying to force sleep. She returned to the gym. She made plans. She studied. She lived — without waiting for sleep to cooperate. And over time, something important changed. Sleep became less of a battleground. Her thoughts lost their grip. And trust — in herself and in her body — started to rebuild. In this conversation, Abbie shares what it was like to move through insomnia, how her relationship with sleep changed, and why easing the struggle — not fixing sleep — made all the difference. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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. Abbie, thank you so much for taking the time out for your day to come onto the podcast. Abbie: Yeah, thanks for having me. Great to be here. Martin: Let’s start right at the very beginning. When did your issues with sleep first begin and what do you feel caused those issues with sleep? Abbie: Yeah. It was fall 2021, so like almost four years ago, which is crazy because it feels so vivid in my memories. Abbie: But I had gotten sick, I think it was like the cold or a flu or something, just like a normal sick, and I wasn’t able to sleep which was really jarring for me at the time because prior to this sort of period of insomnia, I had been a really great sleeper. Like I, had my whole life I had basically like. Abbie: I never really thought much about sleep. I fell asleep immediately. I stayed asleep. Yeah I had gotten sick, I wasn’t able to sleep. And then I remember the next night I was like, okay, tonight’s the night like, I have to sleep. So I was already, like putting that pressure on sleep it has to be tonight. Abbie: And so that kind of started, I would say like the feedback loop of okay, I am stressed about sleep. The more I stress about sleep, the less I’m gonna sleep. Yeah, I think I was also dealing with just like a period of more heightened anxiety in my life at the time too. I was applying to graduate school and taking, the admissions tests for that and so maybe it was just like, kinda like the perfect storm. Abbie: I was like, okay, if I’m gonna get better, I need to sleep. I think it was also like, this was the first time in my life I had experienced a sleepless night. And so it was just like, that was really uncomfortable, like laying there awake all night. The longer you’re awake, the more stressed you’re getting, your heart’s kind of beating fast. Abbie: Like the whole thing was just uncomfortable and new for me. So I was like I don’t want that to happen again. I better sleep tonight. Abbie: I feel like each night I wasn’t sleeping, I was just getting more and more anxious about sleeping. I think I was like a week in at that point and I had probably slept two hours each night and I was like, what is going on? Abbie: Am I ever gonna sleep again? And yeah, I mean it was, I would fall asleep around four or 5:00 AM and then be back up again at 6:00 AM for work. And yeah it was just super uncomfortable and yeah, anyone who’s. Insomnia knows how stressful it is. Abbie: It was like, every hour that passes, I’m like, okay, I gotta get up in what, in three hours, two hours, one hour. And then, just this intense desire to stay in bed in the mornings. I think to see if you’re tired and you haven’t slept, and you’re like, all I wanna do is stay in bed. Abbie: I do think, like looking back, I think having my work routine and schedule was like really hard at the time, but really beneficial in some ways because I couldn’t just sit in bed and all day and try to go back to bed and I had to get up and get out and go to work. And that was also ended up being, I think, a good distraction. Abbie: At least for like the eight hours a day I was working. I wasn’t thinking about sleep. I think that was positive. Martin: What about that day, those days when you didn’t have any work obligations? Were things different then? Abbie: Yeah, I would definitely I think early on I would definitely, stay in bed all morning, like trying to quote unquote rest or see if maybe I could eventually fall asleep. Abbie: And just like really dreading the day because I had slept it all and I was like, Ugh, another day I’m gonna be really tired all day. It’s gonna be so bad. Like kind of those typical anxious, catastrophic thoughts of I just, I don’t wanna do the day. Like I didn’t get any sleep. So if there was, if I didn’t have work and nothing was like forcing me outta bed, I think it was, it would’ve been hard. Martin: So at this point. Things are really difficult as you’ve just described. And when we face difficulties in life or problems in life, we look to solve them. Martin: So what was your next step? What other things were you trying to do to get your sleep back on track and get yourself back to where you used to be? Abbie: Yeah, I think I was trying everything. One of the things I started doing early on was like, canceling all my plans and I would get off work and, as soon as I was done with work like the dread and the anxiety about sleeping that night would kick in. Abbie: And so I would be like, okay, I gotta go home. I gotta make dinner and I gotta get in bed. So I was like, my bedtime was becoming earlier and earlier even though I just, I wasn’t tired. And I think I was also pretty much trying every sleep supplement out there that there is like about a month in, I think I’d seen my doctor and she had prescribed me I think it was like Ambien or something, and I never ended up taking it, but I did try every over the counter supplement, magnesium, melatonin, all the things. Abbie: And I would get like really excited like, okay, this is gonna be the thing, like this is gonna work for me. And then every time it didn’t, it was like a letdown of okay, it was like more evidence in my mind that, my sleep is broken and there’s nothing out there that’s gonna fix it. Martin: I think a lot of people are gonna identify with that. Martin: And all the things you shared are completely logical to try, right? If we want more sleep to happen it’s almost ground into us that we go to bed earlier, that it’s important to go to bed early get more sleep, give sleep that opportunity to show up. And there can be, it can be, it’s almost like we can become really enthusiastic or we can just try so hard that it backfires on us to the point where we do less with our lives and sleep then grows in importance. Martin: It becomes more of a focus. So it’s almost like we’re up in the stakes. It becomes even more important for us to perform sleep and then when it doesn’t happen as we want it to. You did a great job of just describing what that’s like yourself. We can just, it feels, it can feel like a personal failure and it can reinforce perhaps this belief that there is something uniquely wrong, that maybe our sleep system is somehow broken. Martin: But the truth of the matter is, it’s. Perhaps it’s all the ongoing efforts and the trying, which now exists when it never existed before, when we slept fine, that might be the true source of the problem. Abbie: Yeah, definitely. And I think yeah, along the lines of just like trying everything to control sleep, I was like doing all the sleep hygiene, things like that were recommended. Abbie: Like I was no screens before

    51 min

  4. 11/24/2025

    How Natasha went from structuring her days around insomnia to letting sleep come naturally again by putting life before sleep (#75)

    Natasha’s insomnia journey began during the long grind of the pandemic. Life was full, intense, and stretched thin. She and her husband were working and their young son needed to take school classes online. When their nanny suddenly stopped coming, Natasha brushed it off at first. But that first sleepless night turned into another… and then another. Before she knew it, she was caught in a spiral she couldn’t make sense of. Like many people who’ve always slept well, she didn’t expect sleep to suddenly feel impossible. She tried going to bed earlier. She tried teas, essential oils, supplements, white noise, antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication — anything she could find and all the things the internet tells you “should” help. Each attempt only made her more aware of how badly she wanted sleep and how far away it felt. Her nights became long stretches of alertness mixed with exhaustion — awake while everyone else slept — and her days were filled with worry about the next night. Over time, insomnia started to shape her choices. She avoided travel. She canceled early meetings. She relied on her husband sharing a bed with her for sleep to have any chance of happening. Insomnia slowly became the center of her days. The turning point didn’t come from a pill or a hack. It came when every one of her “solutions” stopped working — and she realized she couldn’t keep building her life around avoiding insomnia. That moment of exhaustion and honesty pushed her to look for a different approach. When we started working together, Natasha began noticing something important: even after a bad night, the next day could go better than she expected. And sometimes, after a good night, the day didn’t feel great at all. That simple observation helped loosen the grip insomnia had on her. She also began changing her actions in small, meaningful ways — not to fix sleep, but to take her life back. She scheduled breakfast meetings again. She made evening plans without checking the clock. She traveled. She stopped organizing her days around sleep anxiety. And she created a calmer routine at night by watching shows she enjoyed instead of lying in bed trying to force sleep. Today, Natasha has her life back. Sleep isn’t a project. Nights aren’t battles. Insomnia no longer runs her life. Natasha runs her own life and sleep takes care of itself. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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. Natasha, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Natasha: You are welcome, Martin. Thanks for having me. Martin: It’s great to have you on. Let’s start right at the very beginning. When did your sleep problems first begin and what do you feel caused those initial issues with sleep? Natasha: I think it was 2022 and we were still very much within the pandemic. And so there was of course like bad news all around, but I wasn’t necessarily stressed by that. All our children were outta school in the sense that all the schools were shut down. Natasha: At that point, my like 5-year-old or 6-year-old son, he was having to do his online classes and the day was just relentless, right? Because me, my husband, we were both working, we didn’t have any help at home. And then he had these online classes. So I had found this sort of nanny person who could help out during the day so that we could get our work done. Natasha: And I think she basically just called in sick. And I think like now, and this is all in hindsight, but I think it was some sort of like anxiety from that. And she wasn’t being very specific about whether she was, she had COVID or whether she was just, she said, I’ve hurt my foot. And, I think it was basically the fact that there was a lot of uncertainty about when she would be back and whether she would be back. Natasha: And I couldn’t sleep that night when she said, I’m not coming tomorrow. And, I think that was fine because the next day rolled around, but then the day after that, again, I sort of couldn’t fall back to sleep. And you know what happens when you haven’t slept one night and you feel like you have this huge day to get through the next day you try to overcompensate. Natasha: So I think I probably try to get into bed really early and I couldn’t fall asleep. And then I think I probably still just got out and read a book and got on with it. Natasha: So the days had been quite difficult to get through with a small child and work. I think by the third day I started noticing, I suddenly noticed the fact that I hadn’t slept very well and that I wasn’t being able to fall asleep. Natasha: And so the third night, I just really couldn’t sleep at all because I’d become very attentive to the fact that I was having this difficulty and that I had to. And so I think that’s what set it off. I don’t think there was anything more than that. Once it got started it just became this kind of vicious spiral of crashing pretty much after two or three days of sleeping very badly. Natasha: And then feeling slightly recovered the next day only to not be able to go back to sleep that night. And yeah, I think I started paying so much attention to the fact that I was having difficulty sleeping, that it was just getting harder and I think it, it turned into a huge full-blown problem. Martin: I’m gonna guess that there’s been other times in your life where you might have got a little bit less sleep or a lot less sleep than normal. And then things figured themselves out and sleep got back on track. What do you think was different this time around? Natasha: So I think a few things might have been different. Natasha: One was of course, that I think the pressure in the pandemic was very high on productivity and just somehow getting through the day. So not just, you had a lot of things to do at work. You had very little help and I had a child and I think also because there was this idea that there was some degree of latitude with your partners. Natasha: If for some reason you are sick, then he can pick up the slack more than what he’s normally doing. But I think he was completely slammed as well. As a family I think we’d become very aware of just how we were stretched beyond like capability. Natasha: So I think maybe that was one like predisposing condition that it, it made the need for rest so much higher. And therefore I think there was some kind of a, psychological reaction to the fact that when you thought that you really needed to rest, you weren’t being able to. I also do think, I do think it maybe had something to do with COVID because I did get COVID early 2022. Natasha: And I think I got, ever since then I’ve had COVID twice. And every time I’ve had COVID I’ve had a little bit of difficulty with sleep and a little bit of hyper arousal. So I, I think maybe it was a combination of these two things. But normally now if that happens, it just resolves itself because I don’t sit and, I don’t get too upset about it. Natasha: But at that time, perhaps, maybe some sort of like the physiological part was there, and then there was this huge psychological reality. Martin: Would you say that because it was such a stressful period it felt like maybe the stakes were higher than they were in the past. So as a result, you put more pressure on yourself to get sleep back on track. Martin: There was more trying, more effort, more pressure. Natasha: Yeah. I think there’s also one of the things I have realized and listening to your podcast, it’s something that I’ve observed. There are a lot of people who say that they develop insomnia. Many of them say that they were excellent sleepers. Natasha: They were brilliant sleepers before and they could sleep anywhere, anytime. And that was me as well. I could sleep anywhere, anytime. But the other thing is also that I think there are people who say that, I can’t function without sleep. I need my sleep. I love my sleep. Natasha: And there are others who are like, yeah, I can get on with it. It’s fine. I think you and I feel like if you’re the type who has told themselves for years that, oh, I can’t function without sleep, which is what I used to tell myself, and that’s why I used to sleep very adequately because I’d be like, oh, I need my nine hours and I need like my naps in between. Natasha: I feel like if you’ve spent years telling yourself that you can’t function without sleep and then a stressful situation comes that requires you to compromise with sleep or where your sleep gets affected, perhaps you are more susceptible to then developing anxiety around it, right? Because you’ve told yourself that you don’t know how to kind of function without it. Natasha: So maybe it’s also personality or like prior mindsets. Martin: It’s like the more important we deem something in our lives, quite naturally, the more we’re gonna focus on it. And if it deviates from whatever we want it to be do

    56 min

  5. 10/30/2025

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

    Dan had never struggled with sleep — until a stressful period in late 2023 turned his nights upside down. After a panic attack and a couple of sleepless nights, he found himself pacing the house at 2:00 AM, clock-watching, and convinced he was broken. Even after medication gave him one long night of sleep, the struggle came roaring back the very next evening. As a highly-skilled problem solver, Dan threw himself into fixing insomnia. He followed strict routines, taped over every bit of light in his room, tried teas and supplements, and skipped work after difficult nights. Yet the harder he tried, the worse things got. Every attempt to control sleep just added more fear, more pressure, and more exhaustion. Things began to shift when Dan stopped trying to control sleep and fight every thought. He started making small, practical changes: limiting nighttime clock-checks, going to bed later at night when he felt sleepy rather than tired, and committing to one meaningful activity each day — even after rough nights. Those actions reminded him that life didn’t have to stop because of insomnia. Over time, Dan learned to respond differently to the thoughts and feelings that used to overwhelm him. He discovered he could notice them without needing to believe them, and he didn’t have to beat himself up when sleep didn’t go the way he wanted. With patience and practice, nights became less of a battle, and his confidence in his body’s natural ability to sleep began to return. Today, Dan isn’t just sleeping better — he feels stronger than before insomnia began. He knows he isn’t broken, he has skills he can always rely on, and he’s living more fully, no matter what his nights bring. His story is a powerful reminder that with time, self-kindness, and small daily steps, it’s possible to stop struggling and regain trust in your natural ability to sleep. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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 w

    52 min

  6. 09/24/2025

    How Kelly reclaimed her life from insomnia by stopping the fight with sleep and dropping the struggle with her thoughts (#73)

    Kelly’s struggle with insomnia began after the birth of her first child. What started as one sleepless night quickly grew into panic-filled evenings and anxious days. The harder she tried to make sleep happen — through medication, supplements, holistic remedies, and strict routines — the more elusive it became. Sleep turned into an obsession, and every decision seemed controlled by fear of another difficult night. Things began to shift when Kelly discovered that her body wasn’t broken — it was the exhausting fight with insomnia that was fueling her struggle. She started to let go of rituals, loosen her grip, and give herself permission to live more freely. At first she worried that these changes might just be more sleep efforts in disguise. But with reflection, she realized the difference was in her intention: instead of chasing sleep, her actions were now serving her life. Kelly also transformed her relationship with thoughts. Rather than identifying with them or trying to push them away, she learned to notice them as experiences she couldn’t control — stories and sensations that didn’t have to dictate her choices. With less resistance, they lost their power. When she became pregnant again, insomnia returned. But this time, Kelly approached it differently. Instead of getting pulled back into an endless and exhausting battle, she leaned into acceptance. She reminded herself there was nothing she could do to force sleep, and gave herself permission to rest, watch a show, or simply allow the night to unfold. Slowly, the fear eased, her days opened up again, and sleep returned on its own terms. Today, Kelly no longer measures progress by hours of sleep, but by how little influence sleep has over her life. She’s free to live her life — and sleep takes care of itself. Sleep is, once again, effortless. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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 Kelly, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Kelly: It’s a pleasure to be here. Honestly. Martin: When did your sleep problems first begin and what do you feel caused those initial issues with sleep? Kelly: November 18th, 2023 to be exact was the first night that I just woke up and I just couldn’t go back to sleep. Kelly: And my son would’ve been, he was a couple days away from turning three months. So I had just had a baby. I had a really traumatic pregnancy. Like I lived in the hospital for a month with him. He was early. I was a first time mom. There was just a lot of factors that I just had. I had a really difficult, like postpartum, first three months. Kelly: And so yeah, one night, like I said, my husband had been, he we had been taking turns with the baby so that I could get some sleep, which we’ll get into later. But it was very important to me to get some sleep, like too important. And so it was my turn to get some sleep and after a couple hours I woke up and I just couldn’t get back to sleep. Kelly: And I just spent the rest of the night like viciously trying to get myself back to sleep, which like, everything I know now, it’s so clear now how much that does not work. But at the time it was like, yeah, it was, I think it was midnight when I woke up, and then I just spent the rest of the night panicking. Kelly: I remember it like as clear as day. It was awful. And yeah, the next night was the same. I spent the whole day panicking about sleep. Obviously very tired and. I right then and there, all of the sleep efforts started so hardcore. I did a million things that day leading up to like, when I was gonna go to bed that was gonna help me sleep. Kelly: And I didn’t sleep at all that night. Not a wink. And yeah, that’s where my story begins. Martin: So were you at home at this time? Is this after you were back home from the hospital? Kelly: Yeah, we had just started getting into a pretty good routine. Like we would take turns, one of us would have the baby for a, a few hours and then we’d switch. Kelly: And so I was home. He had the baby in our bedroom and I was in the nursery, like we just flip flopped. I was on like a little bed we had made up on the floor. And yeah, I was at home and it was a place that, you know, up until that point I really looked forward to going to bed, I couldn’t wait to get in there and get my like three, four hours of sleep. Kelly: And oh yeah, I still remember it. So well, just like the feeling of waking up and seeing the clock and just, I’d never experienced something like that. Like May, and maybe I had, like maybe I had sleep issues in the past like that, but never like with the weight of having this like newborn to take care of when the sun comes up, so it was like, actually it was like I had a couple more hours left and then it was my turn. So it was like I had all this pressure on myself like, you gotta sleep, you gotta sleep. If you don’t get some sleep, like how are you gonna take care of your baby? Martin: The stakes felt higher. There was more importance attached to sleep happening. Kelly: Oh yeah. I was putting so much pressure on myself to sleep. Like people say. I think it’s the worst advice that you can give a new mom is to sleep when the baby sleeps. At least for me, it was the worst because I put so much pressure on myself too, and come to think of it that day before I had taken a nap like a probably an hour, two hour long nap, which was really not like me. I was never a napper. But then I had the baby and it’s like sleep when the baby sleeps. Sleep when the baby sleeps. So I remember my sister-in-law came over to watch my son and the first time I laid down for a nap, I couldn’t sleep. Kelly: And I was like, what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me? Maybe I’ll, I’ll nurse him again and, that’ll help my anxiety. I won’t worry about him. And then I’ll try again. I kept trying and trying, and finally I did. I took an hour, two hour long nap and, looking back at that, it’s no wonder I woke up and couldn’t sleep. My body had, I had slept for a couple more hours and then my body was like, we’re good to go. But at the time it didn’t make sense to me. I was like, I’m exhausted. I should be sleeping until, the alarm wakes me up. Kelly: And I think that’s another thing, a contributing factor is I had a cesarean with him, and so my body was healing. And so I was sleeping, like lights out, and then I think after I had healed it was like a little different. Like maybe that’s just my theory, but it was something that I thought about a lot at the time was like, now that I’m healed, like my, my anxiety’s taking over. Kelly: Like before it was like. And my body needed the rest and needed sleep. But now it was like the postpartum anxiety. It was maybe like overriding, I don’t know. I had all kinds of theories that went on for months and months as I got deeper and deeper into the pit of insomnia that I was in. Martin: Sleep became really difficult. And no matter how hard you tried to make it happen, it didn’t happen as you wanted it to. So that was more trying, more effort. And then when your sleep didn’t respond the way you wanted it to, that’s when all the other stuff can show up, right? Martin: Like the, all the anxiety the confusion, the difficult thoughts, the feelings, and then that just piles on top. So it’s not even only about the sleep anymore or the insomnia anymore, it’s all the stuff that comes with it. Oh yeah. And in turn. Yeah, because we quite rightly identify this as a problem that we want to fix. Martin: It also seems to take control over so many of our actions too, right? Our actions start to become quite often less about things that really matter to us doing stuff that we care about that we enjoy this meaningful, and it becomes more about preparing for sleep protecting sleep trying to avoid anxiety or thoughts about sleep, trying to change what we are thinking. Martin: And it just, anyone, even people that aren’t familiar with this process, just listening to that can get this sense of how it can just take over and it just becomes the number one thing, which makes it all so much more difficult. Kelly: Absolutely. Any one of my, like friends and family can think back to that time in my life and would agree that I had. Kelly: Quickly become obsessed with sleep. Yeah, it was it was extremely difficult. It was all I thought about, and I, and here I was and I had this new baby and to love on, but I, day in and day out was just, I, yeah, I was like riddled with fear about going to bed, getting sleep, how much sleep I would get, and it just evolved. Kelly: It started like that and then it just evolved in so many different ways of seeking solutions and, but yeah, the obsession never let up until I found you. It didn’t. Martin: It makes complete sense why we would obsess, for example, about this or why we would really go to a lot of effort to fix it, right? Martin: Because we quite righ

    1h 1m

  7. 07/31/2025

    How Stephanie got her life back from insomnia by letting go of the fight she thought she had to win (#72)

    During a trip to Switzerland, Stephanie had a night of no sleep and spent the next day battling panic attacks. Her sleep soon recovered, but that experience planted a seed of fear — a fear of going through another day like that if sleep didn’t show up. Months later, when a medical diagnosis and abrupt medication changes disrupted her sleep, that old fear returned — stronger, louder, and harder to ignore. She threw everything at the problem: strict sleep hygiene, medications, rigid rules, new routines. But the harder she fought for sleep, the more relentless the struggle became. Some nights she found herself outside at 3am, wrapped in a blanket, scrolling for answers — exhausted, anxious, and desperate for relief. The turning point didn’t come from a new trick or another pill. It came when she stopped fighting. When she stopped treating wakefulness as a threat and gave herself permission to feel what was already there — the fear, the frustration, the anxiety — without trying to push it away. In this episode, Stephanie shares how letting go of the fight helped her start showing up for her life again. She talks about responding to difficult nights with more presence, more compassion, and more trust in her ability to cope — and how she rebuilt her life one night, one breath, one value-based action at a time. Stephanie’s story is a powerful reminder that recovering from insomnia isn’t about winning the fight. It’s about realizing there was never a fight to win in the first place. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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, Stephanie, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Stephanie: Absolutely. I can’t believe I’m here. Martin: It is like a journey that goes full circle. You start off by listening to the podcast and one day you get to be in it. Stephanie: Yep. Martin: I’m excited to get started. Can you tell us when your issues with sleep first began and what you feel may have caused those initial issues with sleep? Stephanie: So my husband and I really like to travel and we had gone to Europe for the second time and we were in Switzerland and the second night we were there, neither of us slept, like at all. Stephanie: Like we had our first experience with jet lag and I freaked out about it and absolutely panicked. And we had a huge travel day the following day. So we couldn’t just lay around. We had to like. Travel from one part of the country to another. And I like had panic attacks all day. Stephanie: ’cause I have had anxiety my whole life. So like panic attacks were not new. But like I, I just had a really rough day. And that night I slept the rest of the trip. I slept for almost a year after that. I slept. It was just, that day always was in my mind when I had to do something scary, when I had to do something hard, when I had to do something that was like, oh man, I don’t wanna do that. Stephanie: I’m like, do you remember that really bad day where you didn’t sleep and you got through it? But I think in my mind I was always thinking of the, you didn’t sleep and it was horrible. Even though I didn’t really have any problems with sleeping at the time. In my mind it was always playing back to me of not sleeping as bad. Stephanie: You had a really bad time. That was in July of 2023. And then, end of September of 2023, I was diagnosed with something called idiopathic intercranial hypertension, which is just means that there’s too much pressure in your skull, around your brain. Stephanie: It’s similar to like high blood pressure, but it’s in your head, not in your body. And I got on a treatment for that, but it caused like the exact opposite of insomnia where I slept 18 hours a day. And because of the diagnosis and the medication I was on, I actually stopped working in December of 2023. Stephanie: I stayed on that medication until March, end of March of last year. And unfortunately it gave me a kidney stone, so I had to get off of it. And it was a very abrupt getting off of it. It was there was no tapering. It was just, I’m off of it. And I think that’s where the initial sleep disruption started because I went from, this medication makes me sleep 14 to 16 hours a day to now I’m not sleeping like at all. Stephanie: And also around the same time that I got off the medication, I actually had like a test done for that condition to see if I needed brain surgery. And the initial thought was, yes, we’re gonna do surgery and they’re gonna put a stent kinda like a heart stent, but in my brain, but then two weeks later, I got another opinion and they were like, no, you don’t need to do that. Stephanie: And it was a total, like 180. And this all goes with the sleep because my, because of my anxiety and all those underlying things, like my whole, I was just thrown like completely out of like my norm of what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to have brain surgery? Am I not supposed to have this? Stephanie: And any normal person would have trouble sleeping in, in a situation like that. But because of my anxiety one and two, the way that I reacted and still thought about that one sleepless night I had in Switzerland, I freaked out. There’s no other way of saying it. I freaked out that I wasn’t sleeping and we started with sleep hygiene stuff. Stephanie: So we turned off every single light we could possibly turn off. I stopped watching TV before I went to bed. I, all the things we everything I could think of. And obviously that didn’t do much. ‘Cause I slept with lights on before and I don’t think that was the problem. And eventually, I ended up going to the doctor. Stephanie: ‘Cause of course, what else are you gonna do? My doctor, surprisingly, I know a lot of people don’t have this experience, but he started with heavier sleep medications. So we went right to Ambien and, which I, oh, I like, Ambien scared me so much. I stood in our kitchen and just cried over that bottle. Stephanie: I don’t wanna take this. I don’t know what it’s gonna do to me. I don’t wanna feel this. And. I eventually did end up taking it. And obviously when I’m that worked up, when you’re that hyper aroused when you’re that, afraid of it, it’s gonna work for an hour and then you’re gonna wake up in a panic attack, which is exactly what I did. Stephanie: So yeah, that did not, I did not stay on that. And then I think it was a couple of weeks. I tried to just stick with the sleep hygiene and go with that. And I spent a lot of nights out on our patio wrapped in a blanket at three in the morning, and my thought was, I’ll just go sit outside in the fresh air and kind of reset, of not being in the house trying to sleep. Stephanie: But I pretty much just ended up doom scrolling, how do I fix this? How do I fix this? What do I do? I ended up seeing a psychiatrist at a walk-in mental health place that we have here. And they prescribed me Seroquel, which worked for a week. And I kept having to increase an increase in increase. Stephanie: And then after, I don’t know, maybe two weeks of being on the Seroquel, they were like let’s add Mirtazepine to that. So we added another thing and occasionally I would take have a lorazepam prescription for anxiety. So I would occasionally take one of those two. And so I’d have all three of those in my system, and I’d still be sitting out on our patio at three in the morning and I’m like, what if, what even is this doesn’t make any sense. Stephanie: How can I be taking all this medication? And not be asleep, passed out to the world. Which just ramped up the anxiety and ramped up the fear and ramped up the, there’s something worse wrong with me. So that I stayed on that medication for a month even though it didn’t really work just ’cause I felt like I had to do something, you can’t just go to nothing. Stephanie: That felt like giving up basically. So like through May, it was rough of last year. And then in June it was like the up and down where I’d sleep for a night and then I wouldn’t, and then I’d sleep for a night and then I wouldn’t, and about midway through June, I decided to go back to work because I have a lot of experience with anxiety treatment and that kind of thing. Stephanie: And I knew like getting out of the, out of my house and having something to go do every day would be good for me and it maybe would help me sleep. So I went and got a job. And I got very lucky and I had a wonderful boss, but the very first week was terrible. I, my, all the sleep problems came back, tenfold. Stephanie: I, went to my first day on two hours of sleep and my like then the rest of the week was pretty bad and. One night, this would be about mid July, I had not slept at all, like zero. And I called in and I told I didn’t actually call in, I emailed in, but I told my boss like, what was happening? Stephanie: And I was like, listen, I know I just started and if this is too much, an

    57 min

  8. 06/30/2025

    How Laura found freedom from insomnia by accepting her thoughts — not just her sleepless nights (#71)

    Laura never expected insomnia to arrive during one of the happiest times in her life. She had just gotten engaged. She was heading out on vacation. But one sleepless night quietly snowballed into many — and nights quickly became something she feared. She tried everything: supplements, routines, medication, strict sleep hygiene. But nothing seemed to work. The harder she tried to fix sleep, the more distant it became. And eventually, she realized the struggle wasn’t just with sleep — it was with her thoughts and feelings about sleep. She found herself caught in a loop: trying to control, reason with, avoid, or edit every uncomfortable thought. Every wave of fear or frustration. And it was exhausting. The real shift came when she began to relate to insomnia differently — not as a problem to defeat, but as an experience to meet with less resistance. She practiced making space for the thoughts and feelings that showed up, and bringing her attention back to actions that helped her live the life she wanted to live. It wasn’t a straight path. There were setbacks. Relapses. Hard nights that tested her resolve. But each time, there was something to learn. Because while change is hard — not changing can be even harder. And Laura kept going. With persistence. With compassion. With honesty. With courage. Today, she still has the occasional tough night — like all of us do. But those nights have lost all the power and influence they once had over her. She knows how to move forward, independently of sleep, and no matter what thoughts and feelings might be present. This is Laura’s story. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. 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. Laura, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Laura: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Martin: Great to have you on. Let’s start right at the very beginning, as always. Can you tell us when your issues with sleep first began and what you feel might of caused those initial issues, that initial sleep disruption? Laura: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that it started about two and a half years. It was like around August of 2022. So I’m going on three years of, since it initially started. And I would say there wasn’t a particularly like super stressful, like negative, stressful life event. But I remember that I was going on a trip abroad and right before I left for the trip, my husband proposed to me and I was very excited. Laura: Like I was happy and excited but I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep that night. Going into the next night we went and I think we stayed at, like his aunt and uncle lived near JFK airport. So we went and stayed with them and I think like we were up late. Laura: I wasn’t in my own environment. I struggled to sleep again the next night we had the flight. So it was a red eye and I can, I like, cannot sleep on airplanes. I can’t get comfortable. So I was up again and I remember that was kinda the moment where I like, and now I know like in retrospect that was the moment where I started to place this like level of importance on it, of this is bad. Laura: But I didn’t know that at the time. I just thought okay, this is bad. I need to sleep. Like I really need to sleep tonight. And I remember the first day on the trip we get there, like I had a pretty good day, but leading like the hours leading into bedtime, I started to just get really nervous and like putting a lot of pressure on needing to sleep because I just didn’t, at the time, I couldn’t perceive myself being able to enjoy a vacation if I wasn’t sleeping. Laura: So I went to bed that night and it was like full blown like panic. That like hyper arousal feeling like of Yeah, just anxiety and like shakiness having to get up to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes, like just so over the top anxious. And that kind of started it and I remember that was the first time and then that that led into nine nights on the trip. Laura: I like didn’t sleep like almost at all. I would get maybe like an hour of sleep a night on the rest of the trip and I remember just being so overwhelmed by it. So that’s how it started and then that just spiraled from there. Martin: As the stakes increased, the level of struggle increased, so it was like the more that getting a certain amount or a certain type of sleep felt important to you, the more pressure you were putting on yourself to make sleep happen, the more important it became, then it was attached to all these outcomes. I can’t enjoy this trip if I don’t get a certain amount or type of sleep. Martin: I can’t be the person I want to be. I can’t do the things I want to do. And it just mushrooms from there and just pulls you into even more difficulty and even more struggle. Martin: So you got back from vacation were you at that point there where you were thinking I’m gonna get back from vacation, things will settle down, I’ll get back into my life routine and sleep will get back on track. Laura: Yes. And it did actually. So I, towards the end of the vacation I finally fell asleep, which again, like I, I’ve, I know so much more about it now, so I understand like the process and that the sleep drive had just built up and I crashed for 10 hours on the last night. And that brought my anxiety down enough that I was able to be like, okay, like I’m going home tomorrow. Laura: It’s gonna be fine. I’m gonna be in my own environment. And for a couple of nights I was, but this was, I’m a teacher, so this was right before the start of the school year for me. And I came home. I had maybe a week before the school year started, and it was the night before the. First day back to school and I’m laying in bed and it just kinda kicked up again. Laura: I have to sleep because I’ve work tomorrow. And that like really spiraled from there. So that turned into a night of like barely sleeping. And then I was like, oh my goodness, I cannot function at work like this. I’m not gonna be able to function at work like this. And that really led into the worst of it. Laura: It was two months straight, I would say, of maybe one to two hours of sleep a night. Going to work, trying to push through and going to work every day. Laura: Sometimes I would call out. So I was really overwhelmed by it. And some nights I’d maybe get three or four hours maybe, but most nights it was one to two hours. Laura: I was really like going down the rabbit hole. It was like, this is terrible. I can’t live like this. And I would say days were just as bad as nights sometimes because my anxiety was so high about it. So I was even getting a lot of physical symptoms during the day. Laura: So I would be really shaky really. My heart would race feelings of like panic and dread. I lost a lot of weight. I couldn’t, felt like I couldn’t eat ’cause I was just so scared and didn’t understand what was wrong with me. Martin: I think a lot of people listening to this will identify that part of the journey where it just seems to almost take a life of its own, where it’s just becoming more and more powerful, more and more influential. And it’s like the more you try to fix it, the more you try to get rid of the insomnia. Martin: The, just the more it grows, the more difficult it becomes. Laura: It feels you start to lose so much trust in yourself and your body, and you lose trust that your body even knows what to do anymore. And you start, you really do start believing that you’ve lost the ability to sleep. So it’s it really feels like your body’s betraying you at that time, which I felt that heavily I would get mad sometimes. Martin: It can lead to us being pretty mean or hard on ourselves as well. Like, why is this happening to me? This must be my fault. There’s something wrong with me or what I’m doing. But everything you were doing at that time, you were doing in an attempt to fix a problem. Martin: So nothing you were experiencing was your fault. You were doing the best you could at the time that you were experiencing that. Laura: This has been such a journey and it has unfolded over the last two and a half years and it’s included a lot of setbacks. And I do think that framing setbacks as opportunities is, it’s hard in the moment because it doesn’t feel like an opportunity. But you come out of it and you’re like, oh wait, okay it was. Laura: The first time around where I was really like at rock bottom, I never had an all-nighter. But in my first setback I did, and then I actually had multiple all-nighters in a row and every single one I’ve uncovered like a new layer of like resistance that I hadn’t discovered before. I’ve learned so much about it and I’ve been able to like, take some of the meaning away from it. Laura: And I do think that people with insomnia tend to get maybe a little bit more sleep sometimes than they think they do. I think there is some like hyper sleep in there because there would be a couple time

    46 min
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About

Insomnia help and real success stories from people who got their lives back from insomnia

Information

  • Creator
    Martin Reed, MEd, NBC-HWC, CCSH, CHES®
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Insomnia Coach® Podcast

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