How Tim broke the cycle of sleep anxiety and insomnia by relinquishing control, embracing self-kindness, and building skill in acceptance (#68)

Tim’s insomnia began during a stressful time in his life. At first, it was just a few bad nights but the more he worried about it, the worse it got. The harder he tried to fix his sleep, the more he struggled.

Things started to change when Tim learned a new way to deal with insomnia. He realized that trying to control sleep was actually keeping him stuck. So, instead of resisting wakefulness, he began to give it permission to exist.

As he stopped following strict sleep rules and gave himself more freedom, Tim learned that being awake at night wasn’t the real problem — it was his response to the fear of not sleeping that made things harder.

Over time, as Tim let go of the struggle, sleep showed up all by itself, without him needing to go to war with insomnia night after night. And, when he stopped chasing after sleep and focused on living his life independently of sleep, insomnia lost the stranglehold it once had over his life.

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, Tim, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.

Tim: You’re very welcome. Glad I could be here.

Martin: Great to have you on. Let’s start right at the beginning. When did your sleep problems first begin and what do you think caused your initial issues with sleep?

Tim: As you’ve talked about before, there seems to always be that precipitating event. I think I’ve set myself up through a lifetime of Sleep the way I valued it and thought about it and so forth. But it was January 23rd, 24th, the night of 2023. I was on a business trip and I had a bunch of things going on in my personal life.

Tim: It was a big meeting the next day in Madison, Wisconsin, where I live in Wisconsin. And I think I woke up probably about midnight, one o’clock. And I never got back to sleep the rest of the night. And I just attributed it to what was going on in my life. The. meetings that were going on the next day.

Tim: I had just gotten a new dog too, and we were getting ready to have her spayed. She was older and then she went into heat and so we had to cancel. And that was, that had me a little anxious and so forth. But so like I did the next day, I was really tired and. But ground through it, had good meetings and got home that night.

Tim: And as was often the case, if I had one night of bad sleep, I would take it was an allergy medication to help me sleep on that night. But, leading up to this too, I think this was the culmination of a lot of angst, but it was something as simple of our workday started a half hour earlier.

Tim: So we were going to, instead of starting work at eight o’clock, we were starting work at seven 30. And I had already, I was driving roughly 45 minutes each day. I also work out in the morning. Before I go to work. So I was already getting up at about four 50. So I realized I was going to have to start getting up at about four 20 and four, four 15, four 20 right in there.

Tim: And I was just thinking, dang, I’m going to have to get to bed even earlier now. Otherwise, it’s going to be a potentially a miserable day. And, I had always been rigid and really guarded my sleep. It’s not like I needed a full eight hours. It seems for me like seven hours was always that ideal.

Tim: And I could do six and there’s times I could do five and four, but I would always get back into that pattern. But for whatever reason, this kind of just got into my head. That, yeah, this is, I’m gonna have to be getting up like almost a half hour earlier and all the kids were still at home they were young adults and I liked to be able to listen to them because it seems like just about the time I was going to be going to bed, they all like to start coming out and start talking, they’re like vampires where they come alive at night wouldn’t see him throughout the day.

Tim: I it just got into my head. And then that night. Like I said, down in Madison laying in bed, it was, and I didn’t even give it much thought. But I had probably, I don’t remember exactly, maybe it was a couple nights later, I had another rough night’s sleep. And then these just started compounding, and it was so interesting because just Before this kind of hit, I was listening, just happened to be listening to another podcast, and maybe even was a YouTube short or something.

Tim: But they had a sleep expert on there that was talking about the exact number of people that can survive on six hours or less of sleep at night. The sum total is absolutely zero. And I remember my daughter who’s just started her work as a mental health therapist. She goes, did you happen? And I told her I saw the exact same thing.

Tim: So that made an impression on me. So you’re getting fed all this information that, you’re more likely to potentially contract Alzheimer’s. There’s a lot of, you’re more susceptible to illnesses. Your immune system can take a hit. Just nothing good happens when you’re not sleeping on a regular basis.

Tim: So you’ve got that information coming at you, and at the same time, like I said, and it just continued to compound over a couple of weeks, and I just remember walking down the hallway at work one morning, it might have been morning, afternoon, just thinking, I’m trashed. I don’t know how long I can keep this up, and All of a sudden it started getting to the point where I felt this anxiety growing in my stomach.

Tim: And that’s where I carry anxiety. It’s a tightness, it’s a soreness, and it’s just heavy. And it became this all consuming obsession about. What am I going to do? How, what’s going on? Why am I so broken all of a sudden? And again, like I said, I had so much going on in my personal life with my marital relationship and things like that.

Tim: So I think that probably, but I had something to do it as well. Getting my nervous system so wound up. But I remember one night I probably was only asleep for a couple hours and I woke up with a And I stood up and you know sat up in bed and was like my heart’s pounding. I’m looking around. I’m sweating and it was just it was really scary And I think I ended up getting back to bed, but I started taking more cold medication.

Tim: And in the middle of the night when I’d wake up, I would take more medication. Then I remember my wife had some prescription sleeping pills, and I would try taking those. And I remember waking up or just be laying there. It’s still 2. 30, 3 a. m. in the morning. And I would take some more medication knowing I’m going to be potentially shot the next day, but just trying to just chasing that sleep, just trying to eke out a little more sleep, which wasn’t coming.

Tim: And it was just making things worse. So it’s that vicious cycle, that we all, we always talk about it’s the less I slept, the more the anxiety came, the more the anxiety came, the less I slept. And I finally got to this point where I went to my, Oh, no, even before that, I almost forgot. It was early in the morning, probably about 4 a. m. And I was, I had been keeping a friend apprised of this. And he talked about going the same through the same thing. Before I did, but he talked about taking that cold medication. It goes just a half one every night and And usually that’ll get you through it and that’s all you need to do is just break this pattern.

Tim: But I woke up particularly anxious that morning. I think I got to the point too where I was so Hyper vigilant. I was checking my heart rate all the time. So just throughout the day, I’m feeling, I’m going, geez, why, cause typically I got a super low heart rate. It’s 55, 58. I get up and work out every day and I’d be pounding away and in the 70s, upper 70s sometimes.

Tim: And I’m thinking that’s not good, which of course doesn’t calm you down. It’s like when somebody tells you when you’re a little roused and somebody tells you to calm down, it has the converse effect a lot of times. Thanks. So I was just doing all these things that in retrospect was making things worse.

Tim: I really started trying to conserve energy, I think, to a certain extent and start cutting things out. And I was also going to recovery meetings at that time. So I’ve been in recovery from substance abuse. It’s 22 years now, but. I stopped going to those meetings during this time as well.

Tim: Cause I’m thinking I got to get to sleep earlier. If I, even if I’m just laying in bed and I just need to do something. So back to that morning. When I woke up and I called up my friend and it seems like when you’re in the middle of the night, there’s those voices that start whispering to you when you’re in such distress, this is not good.

Tim: I don’t think you’re going to make it through this. You’re going to end up losing your job, potentially. Oh man, you could end up losing your family. Oh, this is not going to be good, Tim. And your brain, which, as you’ve mentioned, does such a great job of protecting yourself, goes into overdrive and starts telling you lies, which I never had any reason to believe it would lie to me like that.

Tim: But it was interesting because we had some training once where The trainer knows, I think it was just about media, about Facebook and so forth, posting, but he talked about our brains. He says, our brains, we’ve survived through the years as a result of our brains being really good at telling us when danger is lurking, whether that danger is real or not.

Tim: And I remember this this trainer, once she was talking about this guy who talked about. How there were all these snakes in the garage and he was scared to death and he turned on the lights and it was just rope, bunch of rope laying on the garage floor. And she said, a lot of times the snakes in our lives are just hunks of rope playing on the garage floor, which didn’t even mean anything to me as much as it did after going through this experience.

Tim: So I called up Mark that morning and. I ended up going into the ER. I was having a panic attack. I’m shaking. I couldn’t breathe. Um, and I ended up going in there and the experience I had in there with the doc was really troubling. I work in mental health. I work in a human services department.

Tim: He just kept on asking me. So what do you want me to do? So have you been drinking? So no, I haven’t drank for 20 years. Are you doing drugs? No, I don’t. I don’t do drugs. What’s going on? And I told him that I had to start getting up a half hour earlier for work. And I just fell apart. And he’s just looking at me with this jaunted view, which I know you get a lot of medication seekers coming into the ER.

Tim: Yeah. And finally, my friend Mark spoke up and started telling him, Hey, listen, blah, blah, blah. And he looks at him and he goes, Are you a doctor? And he goes, As a matter of fact, I am. Then all of a sudden I had legitimacy. With this physician in the ER. What do you want me to do? Do you want to sleep?

Tim: Or do you want to, do you want to not have anxiety? I’m going, I don’t know, is it a choice? Can I have both? I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation before. I’m coming to you for help. I’m scared to death. I feel like I could die at any time. So he gave me a Benzo and he gave me, I think it was a hydroxazine or something like that.

Tim: So I was able to go back home. I think I slept for two hours, three hours, but I woke up just feeling all right. And I, that was the Benzo probably at work. And I had a couple. meetings zoom meetings that day where I was able to work from home, but it was just, that was the only relief I had, I think for those couple hours for a while after that.

Tim: But I ended up going to my regular doc two to three days later, I think I had that follow up visit. So what do docs do when you come in with anxiety? They do what they know and they’re doing the best they can, but it involves medication. So I got put on two anti anxieties I, he knew of my addiction history, and I really was never into benzos, so we stayed away from those, and we went into a SSRI, and BUPA can’t remember what the other one, neither one was a PRN, but there was two, one was an adjunct for the SSRI but to me it was something.

Tim: And I just remember I just felt like I was doing something and just getting a little bit of relief and feeling that not lift and he’s telling and he told me he goes, I’ve been through the same thing. You wouldn’t be surprised how many people go through this. So are you adverse to medication?

Tim: I’m at the point where I’m like, I know. I just want something to make me feel better. Can you give me sleeping pills? Yeah yeah. We’ll give you sleeping pills, but I wanted you to take them for more than 10 days. So I was good to go with that. And I didn’t want to get on those just because I know the dangers.

Tim: I did a lot of during my research, which I had done more that week since I was in grad school. 35, 40 years ago, whatever that was on sleep. That, that was a reoccurring theme. You got to be real careful of these prescription sleep medications because they can cause long term issues. And I didn’t want to have the hangover.

Tim: I had to be sharp at work and so forth. I think that was on a Wednesday, and then we were leaving, my wife, we were going on a trip to Puerto Rico. And I was ready to, I was ready to can it at that point, but we decided to go through with it. And interestingly enough as I hear, on the boards when we were chatting back and forth, you hear people when they go on trips where all of a sudden things subside and they get better.

Tim: So I was on this trip down in Puerto Rico. I slept really good the first night. I was taking the antidepressants and I think I was also doing melatonin.

Tim: You, that the I thought it was going to be working. And that’s what we know, is that if you think something’s going to work, it’s going to probably work for a while. I slept pretty good that week, and I remember just being elated every morning when I would wake up and I would have slept pretty well.

Tim: It was just like I had just won one of the biggest fights in the world. And I’m a world champ. I slept the whole night I’d get up. I always got up. I was one of those individuals who get up two, three, four times a night, but I could always fall back asleep. But I remember the last night in Puerto Rico, I slept absolutely zero. So I slept all the way home, basically on the plane. But it was probably Sunday night where I woke up with one of those starts again.

Tim: And my heart’s pounding and everything. And I remember calling up the doc and he just said I think, as an adjunct to your medication, you need to get involved in therapy as well. So I got, I called up and just doing those things also seemed to give me some, really, I was doing something and it feels like you’re moving forward and that things are going to be okay.

Tim: And things weren’t really okay. They seemed to get a little better at times, but that knot in the stomach and just that preoccupation with sleep. So then I, after I got done with this sleeping medication, I was doing research and I found another one. And I remember going to the pharmacy that day.

Tim: And it was like, there’s probably 50 people in line and I’m thinking, I got to wait here. I can’t go home without this medication. I need this medication or I’m not going to sleep well. And I remember the pharmacist looking at me and going, you’re going to sleep for about 16 hours when you take this.

Tim: And I’m just like, thank you. That’s all I needed to hear. Of course me, I not do research. So as I started really researching this, what this was good for was helping you fall asleep. And that was never my issue. I could always fall asleep. The issue was staying asleep, waking and getting back to sleep once I woke up.

Tim: So once I saw that was that was very disappointing to me. And of course my brain went, this isn’t going to work. I don’t even know why you’re taking it, but I knew it was short acting as well. And I think that was one of those things one morning. It was about 3 a. m. I had been up for quite a while and I thought I might as well take one of those because it’s going to only last for a couple hours.

Tim: And I had a meeting that morning and sitting in that meeting, trying to fight through that sleeping pill and my brain’s just scrambled. I remember just thinking, I can’t do this. This is no way to be living. And then somebody came along with something. It was. It was magnesium that it’s great at for fighting anxiety.

Tim: So I, of course I bought a big bottle of magnesium, the kind that you’re supposed to use for that. I started taking that I had rituals. I remember at one point I was eating a banana with peanut butter on it for a snack before I went to bed. And I slept two nights in a row and I went, that’s the magic bullet.

Tim: It’s peanut butter and banana. There’s something in that combination that’s allowing me to sleep. So I ate peanut butter and banana for a week and a half until it didn’t work. And then it was like, Oh no. That wasn’t the magic bullet. And I think I, and I had just other things I was doing other just rituals and of course there was all the sleep hygiene, making sure the rooms cooled.

Tim: I was cutting off. I always liked a cup of coffee in the afternoon, not a whole lot, but just usually something that give me a little bum and I liked five hour energies as well, just gives me a little bump. It was nothing where I felt like I was did an amphetamine or something, but it just made my brain clearer and sharper.

Tim: So I did away with all that. I remember doing away with I was listening to meditative type. videos just before bed, but I’d always make sure that my phone was upside down. So I wasn’t having any blue light coming on me cause that stuff is death to sleep. And even though in the past I knew I had watched videos and fallen asleep, watching videos as I was watching them.

Tim: It’s like that had nothing to do with it. And somewhere during my incessant Research and scrolling, I come across the Insomnia Coach and watched one of the first, I think it was a couple of videos, and there was one that you have on there about sleep education, about how your body always gives you the amount it needs to stay alive.

Tim: And I just remember hearing those words and it was like, man, I almost get emotional now because it was just, it was life giving, it was hope.

Tim: I just started watching more. Cause I’m a skeptic at heart and I remember thinking when I got into narcotics anonymous 22 years ago I know it worked all for them, but I’m different and I’m unique. And I even remember a sponsor telling me, so you think you’re pretty unique, huh?

Tim: He goes, you’re not. Quit, stop it. You haven’t had a, you haven’t had a unique thought in your head that somebody else hasn’t had because you hear other people saying things that you only thought you thought in the darkest of times and you go, Oh, dang, geez maybe I’m not that broken. But as I started listening to things and researching it, it just started really making sense.

Tim: And, and that brings me up to how I found you.

Martin: That was a big journey that you were on. Now you’re able to reflect on it. It’s clear that you’ve learned a lot from it and that you’ve experienced a lot of personal growth from it. But when we going through that experience, it’s so difficult.

Martin: Where we can get pulled into this trap, this vicious cycle is when we completely understandably try to fix things, we might start to go to bed earlier or stay in bed later. We might do less during the day. We start to put more pressure on ourselves to sleep where sleep was always effortless perhaps but now it becomes this thing that we have to put pressure on ourselves to perform, we have to put effort into it, we have to try harder to make it happen and Then we get in this loop, right?

Tim: Absolutely. Spot on. Because the more effort I put into it, just the worse it became. And the more frustrated I became. I remember the one day my oldest daughter was visiting and we had a really good day the first day and she was living out of town. But I remember Sunday, Saturday night, I had a bad night and I woke up and all I could think about was the bad night. I couldn’t think about the fact that my daughter was here visiting.

Tim: It was her last day. There was a snow storm going on, which I typically just, I love a good snow storm. Just being able to snuggle into the house, but all I could think about and all I was consumed by was the fact that I had a really bad night. And was I going to have a bad night tonight and was tomorrow going to just be horrible at work?

Tim: Cause I had a lot to do. And if I don’t get sleep, it’s not going to be good.

Martin: And like you touched upon, It’s completely normal for us to have those kind of thoughts because it’s our brain doing its job of looking out for us and it’s always going to look at where we’re struggling most, what the big obstacles are, what the worst possible outcome or the worst possible scenario is.

Martin: So to use your example of there might be snakes in the garage, turn the light on, oh it’s just ropes. But What if it was snakes? That thought has probably just saved your life. The brain doesn’t care that it messed up and it was actually ropes.

Martin: It’s always going to be focusing on what is the worst possible outcome. And That’s another potential source of struggle, right? Because we can identify that as another obstacle to sleep. We can identify it as something that doesn’t feel good. We’d rather not have those thoughts and feelings. So then we start to try and fight them or avoid them.

Martin: And we start to struggle even more with them. It’s like we’re engaged in this big tug of war battle with our mind. And our mind is always going to win because it’s hardwired to generate all of these thoughts and feelings.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, no doubt about it. I kept on exploring your videos on YouTube and looking at things. And I think I finally got to the point where I took the free course and I just thought I, I was feeling a lot of relief just with the education. And understanding a little bit about what was going on.

Tim: It gave me a ton of relief, actually. And I finally started doing the free course got through it and things just kept on improving and improving. And I started thinking, and I was doing, I was on Trazodone. I was doing like, I think a half a one or maybe even a full tablet for every night before bed.

Tim: So I think that’s one of the first things I started doing was weaning off of that. So I went down from the full to a half to a quarter. And then I talked to my doc about weaning off the antidepressants. I said, I don’t think generalized anxiety is really my issue. I said, my anxiety came from not sleeping.

Tim: So I started going off of one and then I slowly titrated it off the other. And things just kept getting remarkably better. But I remember, and even once in a while now it hits, I’ll wake up at night and it’s am I going to get to sleep? Am I going to get back to sleep? And it’s so funny how that Just that, and it really wasn’t a long time that I had it, but it was just so indelibly imprinted into my mind about how horrible it was that it’s just it’s almost like a trauma response, that you have from that.

Tim: You can have really good days, and you can do some really good things when you haven’t slept. And I think I put together a string of those, and I remember one day in particular, I hadn’t slept.

Tim: I think I kept a journal and I think I said, I’ve slept seven hours in the last three days and I had one of the best days ever today. And I was talking to an individual, I was in a jewelry store getting my daughter’s, I think a necklace fixed. And he started telling me about, he goes, I don’t know if you know this about me, I, 25 years I’ve been drinking hard.

Tim: I’ve heard you talk about recovery and I’m just at the point now. And we had this really good discussion about him. wanting to quit drinking, get into recovery. And it was just, it was just, it just made my day. And I remember going home and this is after having, like I said, like seven hours of sleep in three days.

Tim: It was an awesome day and realizing that you can do it. But I think all that about knowing you can get through the day, you might not feel uber awesome. And the other thing I remember doing, if I forgot my wallet, if I forgot my lunch, it was because I didn’t sleep, it’s not just because I can be an airhead sometimes and just forget stuff or just like we all do.

Tim: We forget stuff. Everything that happened. I was attributing it to there you go, you look at this mistake, you would have never made this mistake if you would have gotten, if you’d been getting seven hours of sleep where it’s no you make mistakes like that.

Martin: That could be true, right? But maybe not all the time. And that’s what our brain tries to tell us, right? It’s like all of the time, every mistake we make or every difficult or uncomfortable feeling is because of not getting a certain amount or a certain type of sleep.

Tim: Yeah, absolutely. So everything started really getting on track. And I think it was probably April. I remember it was April ish going through just about halfway, three quarters of the way through the your the free sleep course. And I was down in Madison and I just remember just feeling so positive.

Tim: I took a walk that night and it was spring and feeling really good. And that’s when it just seems like everything was really starting to gel. And when I was back on my game. And it was probably two months later, mid May. When my wife and I separated and even through all that, I remember the first night I was thinking, jeepers, I wonder if I’m going to sleep tonight and I remember getting up for maybe an hour and thinking, you know what, this is normal.

Tim: My gosh, look at what you’re going through. Maybe two hours, did a little deep research on divorces and this and that, but fell back asleep and maintained my sleep. whole time and it just it just gave me I think strength or confidence, that, that. That that I was back on track.

Tim: Spring ahead to November 26th. And I remember that night I was in the process of selling our house. That’s the one where we had lived for 25 years and winter was coming and I was nervous. So I had moved out of it. I had moved into town and that house was sitting there vacant. And I was so worried about the furnace shutting off or pipes freezing or something like that.

Tim: And I remember just that then I think it was Thanksgiving weekend. where my daughter’s boyfriend was home and he goes, Yeah, I always remember my parents with their rentals is you always got to turn the water off downstairs in case the furnace quits. Otherwise you’re gonna have broken pipes. And it was like I woke up at 3 a. m. I think it was, with that thought stabbing me right between the eyes like an ice pack. Holy cow, you got to get out there and turn that water off. You could have an issue. And that was the beginning of everything all over again. It’s just, I started getting these late night kind of intrusive thoughts, and I didn’t have the anxiety right away.

Tim: It just, it built. And I was at that time, I was going through therapy as well. And I remember talking with my therapist about it, and she’s just it’s, that happens, and you’re going through a lot right now, and I don’t think a lot of people really get it. And even this one person I was talking to, she was, she’s getting her Ph. D. In public health, and she goes, Oh, I’m doing a paper right now on sleep. And, sleep hygiene is so important. And I remember just saying, Oh no, why is it you’re missing the boat and tried to have a five minute conversation with her about it. But that’s where people go right away.

Tim: They just, nobody seems to have that knowledge about how this, what causes that, you’re tired, but wired. That tired but wired feeling is horrible. And I try not to put even those types of adjectives attached to it anymore because it’s just you no, it’s not.

Tim: It’s not that horrible. You’re tired. Okay. Big deal. You’re going to get through it and you’re going to sleep eventually. But I remember just for probably, so that was November 26 for probably like the next two months, just having issues. And I actually had some benzos that were given to me for a something else.

Tim: There was only like 10 of them. When I remember thinking. I know they can help you sleep. So on nights where I really needed to sleep, or if I woke up like at 2am and I didn’t think I was going to get back to sleep, I’d cut one in half or even just do a quarter and it was enough to fall asleep. But I was back to chasing the sleep, putting a lot of pressure on.

Tim: And I remember I was officiating a good friends of mine’s wedding. And I remember people telling me, you just got to be kind to yourself. And we talk and talk about that a lot. And that’s one thing I was never really good at, as an athlete, I was a high performing athlete. You can’t be real kind to yourself.

Tim: You got to be a little tough on yourself and grind through things sometimes. You can’t grind through this. It doesn’t work that way. But I remember doing the same thing. I was up at one, two in the morning, but then that night I ended up going down to lacrosse where he was getting married and I’m in a motel, so just a little different environment and I slept like a baby that night, no anxiety or anything.

Tim: And it was great. In fact, he got married on new year’s Eve. So it was a cool night. But going back, I re I remember talking about chasing sleep too. And I would bedroom jump, I’d go from my bed when my bed would get too uncomfortable. I’d jump up to My daughter’s in the other room in the other part of the house, and it was always a little colder there and a little more comfortable, or I’d jump back to my bed just trying to find, like the three bears.

Tim: This bed was, too big. This one was too small. This one was just right. And you’re always looking for the one that’s just right which is evidenced by. Where you pass out that night. Oh, boy. Last night I slept there. I would have probably slept eventually in my own bed as well, but things just kept escalating. And I remember, I’m an outdoorsman, I love to fish, I love to hunt, and I remember being out duck hunting and just, and it seems like when, if I would take some medication, I would sleep really well that night, I was almost like a guilty feeling, I’m like, that was not a good night’s sleep because I had taken that medication that’s false, that’s not a good night’s sleep that’s a chemically induced sleep, and it would almost cause, even though I was, rested, I would have more anxiety over that thinking what’s going to happen tonight.

Tim: Yeah, last night you did, but you took that and you don’t want to take it two nights in a row. So what’s going to happen tonight and just those mind games. And I’m sitting in this beautiful marsh, with a friend and in the back of my mind, I’m playing that movie. Are you going to sleep tonight or you’re not going to sleep tonight?

Tim: Oh man, this is really getting weird. You thought you were over this, but it’s back again. And it seems even worse. And I remember eventually it was it was the latter part of January. I got it written down in my January, like about January 28th, 29th. And I woke up with one of those. Again, it just went, all right, I’m done.

Tim: And so I I enrolled in, in the full course and that morning as I’m sitting there, cause I was still getting up at four 30, but I think I was signed up by four 45 and by five o’clock I was working on the first lesson. And just going, Oh my gosh, just the first couple of things, the first couple of lessons were just were it gave so much hope.

Tim: And again, it just feels like you’re doing something too.

Martin: It is so easy to get pulled back into the struggle. So the fact that you went through this period where things felt like they were going pretty well Oh, I’m back on track. You had that hope. You felt like you’re making good progress. And then Something happened, or a difficult night showed up again, and then you find yourself almost automatically just getting pulled back into the struggle.

Martin: There’s nothing unique or unusual about that. All it means is we’ve got that opportunity again to be aware of the fact that we’re getting pulled into that struggle. And choose to respond in a different way. And that’s not easy. It’s really easy for us to sit here and say it using words. It’s the action that matters.

Tim: It was so disappointing. And so defeating when it started rearing its head again, it was just like, I cannot believe this. And my friend, Mark, the guy who took me to the ER, I remember him telling me, he goes, wow, you’ve sure had a lot of great opportunities for growth lately. This is fantastic. And I’m like, I just almost want to smack you right now, Mark!

Tim: It’s a great reframe and then when it started hitting me too, and I remember thinking, I where’s, maybe I need to get back on some anti anxieties. You know what I need Trazodone. That’s the one thing that worked. I know Trazodone will work. So I went, ’cause I’d thrown everything away.

Tim: I remember calling up my primary and just saying, Hey, do you think I could get that trazodone again? And I started taking a half at a time until it didn’t work.

Tim: And I remember really struggling after I purchased the course too. And I’ve listened to people and you don’t say whether or not to do it or not to do it. And it was my own personal conviction that I thought, you know what, if I’m going to do this, I think I’m going to do it right, because I see people that don’t use medication and they get through this just fine.

Tim: And I never needed it for, I’m 62 years old. So for 60 some years, I really didn’t need medication to sleep. And so that’s when I made the decision. I’m going to do an experiment. I’m going to try, I’m going to wean myself off of it. I’m going to see how this works for two weeks. If I see no improvement whatsoever, and it’s absolutely horrible, then I’ll go back on it. It wasn’t absolutely horrible. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it just, it takes the pressure off when you reframe things as this is all just an experiment.

Tim: I don’t know if it’s going to work or if it’s not, but let’s just give it a shot. And if it doesn’t, I can stop. Or I can always start in again. Plenty of people take medication for sleep their whole life and it works just fine. And you, you talk yourself into it, but let’s go this route.

Martin: I love framing changes as experiments because that’s what they are. And they’re learning experiences. There’s no such thing as failure. As far as I’m concerned, as long as we learn, as long as we take something from. what we’ve experimented with then how could that be a failure?

Martin: I’m curious to know, as you were working through the course, what changes you made, either to your approach to sleep or your response to insomnia or anxiety, any of the other difficult stuff that comes with it, what changes you made that you feel were most beneficial or most helpful?

Tim: I think the way the course is laid out initially, it was that physical thing about. And it’s called sleep restriction, but I just call it a sleep window. Sleep restriction seems so barbaric and people here, and it seems really hard, but it’s really just my sleep window. So I ended up going reducing that.

Tim: I’m, I thought I’m still getting up at 4 30, but six hours seems workable and I’m going to do whatever. And it’s funny how creative you can get to keep yourself. Up and not passed out on the couch watching TV. So I would just do other things. I’d look at old pictures of the kids, old albums. I reading for me is I puts me to sleep.

Tim: So I would just do things that kept me up until 10 30. I started playing the car guitar again, after 25 years, I picked that up and worked on that. So that was fun. Just that initially too, I think, helped, seemed to help because if I was even just sleeping maybe out of that six hours I was in bed was five hours, maybe some nights four and a half, but it just seemed like better sleep I was more relaxed.

Tim: I didn’t have that knot in my stomach And then starting to work on that cognitive stuff about how you deal with the struggles, the exercises, and just continuing to work on that cognitive piece, which is the real. What we know about the brain, we often said before is that once you learn something, you can’t really change it.

Tim: But what we do know is neuroplasticity is a thing is that your brain will, those old connections about this is going to be horrible, this is bad, or I want to use, I want to drink, or I want to use drugs, those connections die off in new ones are formed when you replace it with something else. And so it’s just a, it’s a matter of, so that’s really nice to have that cognitive piece about how you deal with these things.

Tim: I’d watched these podcasts and it was so interesting. And when I’d be hearing people tell their story in the beginning.

Tim: And it would just cause me so much anxiety. Cause I could feel that when they’re talking about, they’re not sleeping in that, and it was just like, Oh, geez, where are we going? Let’s get to the good stuff here. Eventually I’m going to have to turn this off. And then by the end, it’s like people turn things around.

Tim: And I think what gave me hope was hearing people say, this, it’s not perfect yet, but and this is not a linear process, so it’s going to be, you’re going to have good days. You’re going to have bad days. And I think what I like what you say too, is if you have a bad day, do you start researching about bad days and how not to have a bad day just because you had one bad day?

Tim: We do it with sleep though, we do it with the nights, and that’s just, that’s the insanity of it, it seems because we’re so hardwired. And what I also liked is I was not one who liked to get out of bed if I hadn’t slept and having permission just to lay in bed and rest when I was comfortable, that, that was really good for me.

Martin: So let’s say you go to bed, you fall asleep, you wake up and then you’ve got all these thoughts coming through your head, right? Oh, this is, it’s going to be one of these nights again. And it, when you were. Really caught up in the struggle that would be like the starting gun going off ready to battle, right?

Martin: What changed now? What was the new approach that you took in response to waking and in response to all the difficult thoughts and feelings that might have been showing up at that time?

Tim: I think acknowledging those thoughts. And for me, sometimes just. The simple thing when you say, there’s still a body there, your thoughts don’t control you, there’s still a body there, move your arms, move your legs, tense your hands, and it’s like you almost forget about it, no I’m still in control of this thing, my, my thoughts aren’t controlling me, my thoughts aren’t gonna kill me, um, really coming to believe that was true, and it’s, and it just doesn’t happen overnight. It’s just like anything it’s you got to work it.

Tim: And the more you can work it, and I think that’s really, That can be hard for people, keeping the end goal in mind and sticking with something, because if it wasn’t, we’d all be in this super awesome shape, everybody would work out and everything would be awesome. But that’s not the human condition. So I think that it’s just sticking with it, knowing what the end game is. And it’s, it can seem pointless. And it’s like, when you’re at the gym, you’re doing a curl, you look at yourself and you’re going, geez, I’m still a 90 pound weakling. What in the world?

Tim: But look a year from now, six months from now, a year from now, a year and a half from now, two years from now. It’s that it’s putting off now for success later. And I think it was almost a challenge.

Tim: Anything. Worth anything in life is difficult and that is so true, the easiest things in life It’s like I listen to this. He’s an outdoor host, but he talks about he goes, you know There’s the fun you get when you’re you go to amusement park and you’re riding a ride and that’s real awesome And in the moment, it’s really fun.

Tim: And then there’s the kind of fun when you’re on these really challenging Expeditions or hunts when you’re almost miserable in the moment But when you look back on it, you go dang that was pretty awesome and that’s almost like what this journey has been. And it’s made me realize I’m stronger in regards to this than I ever thought I could be that I can get by on far less sleep because everything.

Tim: And I’ve written that to you a couple of times, this blew up everything. I thought I knew about sleep. It was just all, it was all wrong.

Martin: We rarely get instant results especially when it comes to skills or big picture goals that we have. So you use the example of weightlifting. If someone wants to get really big biceps, you’re not going to get that from going to the gym one day, no matter how hard you work in the gym that day, what matters is just repeatedly turning up.

Martin: It’s that ongoing committed, meaningful action, just repeating something that’s important to you over and over again, that gets you where you want to be.

Tim: Yeah. If you’re afraid of being awake, your body tries to keep you awake because you’re afraid of being awake. So let’s stay awake. And here we go. It’s just it’s just crazy.

Tim: Before I learned what I learned, you’re thinking you’re broken. You’re thinking something’s going on where you might not ever sleep again. And that’s, I think, the value of this whole course. The message boards and the value of hearing other people’s stories the support you get, and just a really practical down to earth stuff.

Tim: And like we say in NA, it works if you work it, sucks if you don’t. You’ve always got the opportunity to work it. Or not, and then you get what you get and you got what you got. Like I said, for me, it’s just putting all those things together. And I almost I don’t like it sometimes if I can go for now for a string where I’m not having any difficulties.

Tim: Like last night, it’s almost good for me to have those now and then. I think I had one maybe a couple weeks ago. But just to experience it again and go, okay, here it is. How are you gonna handle it? Let’s be and last night even just laying there I was so comfortable and I just loved that and I remember just thinking a couple months ago You’d have been just all geeked out and anxious and here I am.

Tim: It’s just it’s cold in my room I’m nice and warm and comfortable under these blankets and if nothing else God darn it. This just feels good. Because in the past I would wake up too and I think it was that, that, that hyper arousal. You’d have the sweats going on. Your heart’s beating. I’d be overheated. And it was just no bueno. No good.

Martin: Earlier on you were talking about something else that often likes to come with insomnia that maybe is less spoken about and it’s just how it influences our days, especially with the distracting thoughts related to sleep how did you deal with the arrival of those difficult and distracting thoughts or those difficult feelings in a different way as you were working through the course?

Tim: It’s an acceptance of those thoughts. Recentering. Just, they’re there, okay, but here I am, and I think some of it is that cognitive behavioral approach to, smelling the smells, looking around the room and seeing where I’m at, okay, I’m here in the moment, this is this and just trying to bring yourself back into that moment, acknowledging those thoughts, and again, they’re just thoughts that can’t hurt you, that’s why I even started, like, when I’d have a night, it’s like I went, I’d go into work and say, Oh, I had a horrible night.

Tim: I tell this person I work with, and then I just got to the point. They said did you have a horrible night? I said, no, I just had a night. I just didn’t sleep as much as I wanted to. It’s just about reframing things. Cause we can just, our words can put so much emphasis and thoughts or emotion into things.

Tim: Oh, this was so horrible. Maybe it wasn’t that horrible. It wasn’t what we wanted, but we don’t always get what we want. Every single day and every single night

Tim: I remember when it was at its worst, where like my superpower was, I could stare you right in the eyes and not hear a word you said as you were talking to me, because it’s you’re just so wrapped up in your own thoughts and somebody would be pouring. Yeah. Jeepers.

Tim: Those days were something.

Martin: How long would you say that it took for your commitment to this new approach of building skill in acknowledgement, kindness, less struggle in response, less battling with sleep and all the difficult stuff that comes with it, when you are no longer engaged in that, when Insomnia, the anxiety, the fatigue, all of that stuff was losing its power and influence over your life. How long would you say that process took for you to get to that kind of point?

Tim: You know, I almost, it was almost like immediately with the sleep restriction I started feeling better but it was just a slow process, Martin. It’s, it was hard to put any really timeline on it. I think, and I took, I really took my time with the course and tried to go through it. I didn’t want to race through it. It was months, and there’s still every once in a while, like just having, it’s interesting just having, even though I didn’t feel bad last night, the thought would pop into my head once in a while.

Tim: Hey, I wonder if you’re going to sleep tonight. Huh. And it’s I don’t know. Chances are, yeah, because typically I always have a really good night and if I don’t then maybe tomorrow night. And I think it’s, instead of really thinking sleep is the be all end all to a good day. And I, this is a line somebody else wrote on one of the message boards was about, just giving sleep a sideways glance.

Tim: Where, yeah, it’s important, but not just staring it right in the eyes, where it’s the most critical, important thing to having a good day.

Martin: Why do you feel that this approach of not trying to make a certain amount or a certain type of sleep happen, this approach of making space for difficult and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings to be present, working on being more present yourself when your mind tries to time travel, why do you feel that that approach has led to where you are today experiencing better nights, experiencing better days, being less tangled up in a struggle.

Tim: Because I think it takes the pressure off, you know It you would think it maybe doesn’t that you’ve got more stuff you’re feeling more things but for me, it just Took more of the pressure off about being accepting of these things and not having to fight them. It’s not like you’re in a wrestling match because that’s exhausting.

Tim: It’s more of an Aikido type thing where you’re moving the movements, to your advantage instead of fighting against it. And I think for me that, that was a lot of it was.

Tim: When I’d be feeling, I shouldn’t be feeling this. Why am I feeling this? This is just, ah, why, and then just going, you know what? It’s okay. You’re a human being. It’s okay to feel this stuff. And it’s just, like I said, giving yourself that permission. Being kind, and I’ve got a really good friend that talks about that all the time, too, and he had suffered from chronic back pain, but he always used to say that, Man, you gotta be kind to yourself.

Tim: You’re really tough on yourself. It’s okay to lighten up now and then. And like I said, I think that’s the biggest thing is just taking the pressure off.

Martin: Yeah, and that, that fight, the fighting, the battling just requires so much more energy, effort, attention. And like you said, we can then put so much more pressure on ourselves because we want the rewards from all that fighting, from all that battling. So we fight and battle even harder. We put more pressure on ourselves and we associate all these efforts and these trying As we can attach it, we can always attach it to our self worth almost.

Martin: It’s if I’m engaging in all this effort, all this fighting, and I’m still not getting X amount of sleep, then what does that say about me? Whereas really all it’s saying is perhaps we can’t make a certain amount or type of sleep happen through effort. But it’s so easy for that insight to be clouded by all this self talk and all this stuff that we can attach to the difficulty that we face and the challenges that we’re experiencing.

Tim: Yeah, absolutely. You summed it up real well.

Martin: I’ve got one last question for you, Tim. I know I’ve taken a lot of your time and I really appreciate you coming on to share your experience. If someone with chronic insomnia is listening, they feel as though they’ve tried everything that they are beyond help, that they’ll never be able to stop struggling with insomnia, what would you say to them?

Tim: You are not unique. You are not broken. There’s a, there’s an approach that works. Give it time, be kind, be patient to yourself. There’s this guy, there’s this guy I follow too in yoga and he talks about, and I forget the approach, where the research shows The harder you are on yourself after a failure, the more likely you are going to fail. It’s it, and it’s, I think probably it’s just that negative self talk, start telling yourself that you are worth it. You can do this and it’s going to work for you. I found it to be super helpful. I see other people that have been through the program and it’s just, it’s a godsend.

Tim: I tell you what this whole thing is just a true blessing. And I feel that it’s Providence that brought me to, to, to you.

Martin: I think that’s a, I appreciate that. And I think that’s a great note to end on. So thank you again, Tim, for taking the time out of your day to come on and share your journey.

Tim: You’re very welcome. Thank you.

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.

I want you to be the next insomnia success story I share! If you're ready to stop struggling with sleep and get your life back from insomnia, you can start my insomnia coaching course at insomniacoach.com.

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