If you struggle with insomnia, you have probably already read a long list of things you are supposed to do to sleep better.
Stop looking at screens before bed.
Don’t drink caffeine after lunchtime.
Keep your bedroom cool and dark.
Go to bed at exactly the same time every night.
Don’t eat too late.
Exercise — but not too late.
Have a bedtime routine.
Don’t watch television in bed.
Don’t look at the clock.
None of these suggestions are necessarily bad advice. Good sleep habits can support our natural sleep-wake cycle.
But there is a problem.
When somebody is already anxious about sleep, sleep hygiene can become another set of rules to get right.
You start thinking:
I looked at my phone too late. Now I won’t sleep.
I should have gone to bed half an hour ago.
I’ve eaten too late.
I’ve got to get eight hours tonight.
Why aren’t I tired yet?
And suddenly, instead of preparing for sleep, you are monitoring sleep.
Sleep becomes something to achieve. Something to control. Something you can succeed or fail at.
Before long, insomnia can become an obsession.
And this is where understanding the nervous system and insomnia can completely change the way you think about sleep.
You Are Not Supposed to Make Yourself Sleep
Think about somebody you know who sleeps really well.
What do they do to make themselves sleep?
Probably very little.
They get into bed, get comfortable and assume that at some point they will fall asleep.
They don’t lie there analysing whether sleep is happening.
They don’t continually check how relaxed they feel.
They don’t calculate how many hours are left before morning.
They don’t desperately try to switch themselves off.
Most importantly, they trust sleep to happen.
That is because sleep is an automatic physiological process.
You don’t consciously make your heart beat, digest your dinner or repair your tissues — and you don’t consciously make yourself sleep.
The more we try to force an automatic process, the more attention we give it.
And attention can become vigilance.
For many people with chronic insomnia, therefore, the question needs to change from:
“How do I make myself sleep?”
to:
“What is stopping my mind and body from feeling safe enough to let sleep happen?”
Why Lack of Sleep Feels So Frightening
Sleep isn’t a luxury.
It is one of our most fundamental biological needs.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs places physiological needs at the foundation of human motivation. These include things such as food, water and sleep. The next level is safety and security.
That is an interesting way to think about insomnia.
Sleep and safety sit right at the foundations of human wellbeing.
And this helps explain why sleep problems can feel so disproportionately frightening.
When we haven’t slept, we don’t simply think, “That was inconvenient.”
We can feel vulnerable.
Our ability to concentrate, make decisions, regulate emotions and cope with change can be affected by sleep deprivation.
We may feel more emotional, irritable or anxious.
And because sleep is such a basic physiological requirement, the brain can quickly start treating the possibility of not getting enough of it as a threat.
What if I can’t sleep again tonight?
How will I function tomorrow?
What if there’s something wrong with me?
What if this never gets better?
The brain starts looking for danger.
And unfortunately, that is exactly the opposite state to the one that supports sleep.
Sleep Happens When We Feel Safe
Sleep requires something quite extraordinary from a survival perspective.
You have to close your eyes.
Stop monitoring your environment.
Relinquish conscious control.
Become largely unaware of what is happening around you.
In other words, your brain has to be sufficiently confident that it is safe to switch off its conscious watchfulness.
This is why I believe one of the most useful ways of approaching insomnia is through the autonomic nervous system.
Your autonomic nervous system is continually responding to information from your body, thoughts, emotions and environment.
When the brain perceives threat, sympathetic nervous system activity helps prepare the body for action.
When the threat has passed, the body can move towards states associated with rest, recovery and restoration.
Insomnia research increasingly recognises hyperarousal as an important part of the condition. This can include physiological arousal as well as cognitive and emotional arousal — particularly worry and sleep-related thinking.
So you can be absolutely exhausted…
and still feel strangely awake.
Tired and safe enough to sleep are not always the same thing.
The Insomnia Anxiety Cycle
Imagine that you wake at 3.15am.
Initially, nothing is wrong.
You are simply awake.
Then comes the thought:
Oh no. I’m awake again.
You look at the clock.
I’ve only got four hours until I have to get up.
Then:
What if I don’t get back to sleep?
Your brain has now identified a potential problem.
Attention increases.
You check whether you feel sleepy.
You notice your heart.
You notice every sound.
You start thinking about tomorrow.
You calculate how much sleep you’ve had.
Frustration rises.
The sympathetic nervous system becomes more activated.
And now you are further away from the physiological state in which sleep can naturally occur.
Research into insomnia describes exactly this type of conditioned arousal. Repeated experiences of lying awake feeling frustrated, fearful or anxious can eventually teach the brain to associate the bed itself with wakefulness and arousal rather than sleep.
So the original problem may have been stress, illness, pain, hormones, grief, work pressure or a period of disrupted sleep.
But eventually the problem becomes:
fear of not sleeping.
When Good Sleep Advice Becomes Part of the Problem
This is why we need to be careful with traditional sleep hygiene advice.
Sleep hygiene has value. Light exposure, caffeine, alcohol, activity, bedroom conditions and routines can all influence sleep.
But sleep hygiene alone is not considered an effective treatment for chronic insomnia.
If you have turned every piece of sleep advice into another rule, your sleep routine may actually be communicating:
“Sleep is difficult. Sleep is fragile. We have to work really hard to make it happen.”
Break one of the rules and anxiety appears.
That is not the message we want to repeatedly send to the nervous system.
Because sleep is an unconscious action, using techniques that work on a subconscious level are a valuable resource in resolving sleep issues.
Research into hypnosis for sleep is promising. A 2023 systematic review found positive or mixed findings in most of the sleep-focused studies it examined, while also highlighting the need for better-quality research.
Hypnosis can help you build a very different belief:
My body knows how to sleep. I don’t have to force it.
Regulating Your Nervous System Starts Long Before Bedtime
One of the biggest mistakes we make with insomnia is waiting until bedtime to relax.
Imagine spending the whole day rushing, worrying, checking emails, holding tension in your body, skipping breaks, overthinking, catastrophising and operating under pressure…
…then expecting your nervous system to become deeply calm at 10.30pm because you’ve made a cup of herbal tea.
Instead, think about your entire day as an opportunity to repeatedly show your nervous system:
There is no emergency here.
Small moments matter.
A slower exhale.
Unclenching your jaw.
Relaxing your shoulders.
Going outside.
Feeling your feet on the ground.
Eating without simultaneously answering emails.
Laughing.
Connecting with someone.
Moving your body.
Taking a genuine break.
Allowing yourself to do one thing at a time.
Noticing something pleasant.
These are not simply relaxation exercises.
They are opportunities to practise moving out of constant vigilance.
And the more familiar calm becomes during the daytime, the less work your nervous system has to do at night.
10 Strategies to Help Your Nervous System Feel Safe Enough to Sleep
1. Stop Making Sleep Tonight’s Goal
This sounds counterintuitive, but remove the performance pressure.
Your job tonight isn’t to sleep.
Your job is simply to rest.
You can lie comfortably, breathe, daydream or allow your thoughts to drift.
Sleep can take care of itself.
2. Change the Meaning of Being Awake
Being awake at night isn’t an emergency.
Instead of:
“Oh no, I’m awake.”
Try:
“I’m awake at the moment. That’s OK. My body can rest and sleep will return when it is ready.”
Acceptance reduces the battle.
3. Stop Checking Whether It Is Working
Try not to continually ask:
Am I sleepy yet?
Is my breathing working?
How long have I been awake?
Monitoring keeps attention focused on the “problem”.
Practise letting your attention wander instead.
4. Use Your Breath to Communicate Calm
Don’t breathe because you are desperately trying to make yourself sleep.
Breathe because slow, comfortable breathing can help your body settle.
Allow the exhale to become easy and unforced.
Think:
Nothing to solve. Nowhere to go. Nothing required of me right now.
5. Regulate During the Day
Don’t save nervous system regulation for bedtime.
Build small pauses into your day.
Thirty seconds here.
Two minutes there.
A slower breath while waiting for the kettle.
Relaxing your shoulders at your desk.
Standing outside and feeling the air against your face.
Teach your nervous system calmness when the stakes are low.
6. Stop Catastrophising Tomorrow – See it How You Want it To Be
After a difficult night, the brain predicts disaster:
“I’ll never cope tomorrow.”
Yet think about all the days you have coped after sleeping badly.
Perhaps you weren’t at your best.
But you got through them.
Replace catastrophe with an image of yourself coping and capable of what the next day demands of you.
“I would prefer to sleep well, but I can cope if tonight isn’t perfect.”
This does more than remove a threat, it starts creating a road map for your nervous system to follow.
7. Make Your Bed Feel Like a Safe Place Again
If your bed has become somewhere you worry, struggle, calculate and become frustrated, the brain can learn that association.
Start changing it by focusing on the comfort and safety it provides. Even the sound of your partner gently snoring can become a gentle reminder that you are loved, safe and secure!
Comfort.
Warmth.
Softness.
Quiet.
Pleasant imagery.
Safety.
Rest.
Clinical insomnia treatments use a principle called stimulus control specifically to help rebuild the association between bed and sleep rather than bed and wakeful anxiety.
8. Give Your Mind Somewhere Pleasant to Go
Trying to have no thoughts rarely works.
Instead, gently occupy your imagination.
Picture somewhere peaceful.
Walk along an imaginary beach.
Remember a favourite holiday.
Design your dream garden.
Imagine walking through a familiar countryside route.
Give the mind something neutral or pleasant enough that it doesn’t need to search for problems.
9. Stop Chasing the Perfect Night’s Sleep
Normal sleep isn’t perfect.
People wake.
People occasionally have poor nights.
People sometimes take longer to fall asleep.
The difference is that good sleepers generally don’t interpret every variation as evidence of a problem.
Practise becoming less impressed by wakefulness.
“Oh, I’m awake.”
Rather than:
“OH NO. I’M AWAKE.”
That difference matters.
10. Build Trust in Your Body Again
Your body hasn’t forgotten how to sleep.
Sleep is an ancient biological process.
Instead of repeatedly telling yourself:
“I can’t sleep.”
begin introducing a different message:
“My body knows how to sleep.”
“I am safe to let go.”
“I don’t need to make sleep happen.”
“When my body is ready, sleep can come naturally.”
The aim isn’t to turn these into another set of affirmations you must get right.
It is to gradually change your relationship with sleep from fear and control to trust and acceptance.
Where Hypnosis Can Help With Insomnia
This is one reason I find hypnosis particularly useful when working with sleep problems.
Insomnia is rarely just about bedtime.
Sometimes the nervous system has been on high alert because of stress, anxiety, illness, pain, loss, trauma, work pressures, relationship difficulties or simply months of worrying about sleep itself.
Hypnotherapy gives us an opportunity to work with relaxation, attention, imagery and suggestion while also exploring some of the stresses and learned associations that may be keeping the person on alert.
It can help reinforce ideas such as:
I am safe.
I can let go.
My body can settle.
I don’t need to monitor sleep.
Sleep is something my body already knows how to do.
Hypnosis shouldn’t be presented as a magic switch that makes somebody sleep.
In many ways, that would reinforce the very problem we’re trying to resolve.
Instead, I use hypnosis to help people stop trying so hard to sleep and begin creating the internal conditions in which sleep is much more likely to happen naturally.
Perhaps the Answer Isn’t Trying Harder
If you are struggling with insomnia, perhaps you don’t need another complicated bedtime routine.
Perhaps you don’t need another supplement, another sleep tracker or another list of rules.
Perhaps you need to stop treating wakefulness as a threat.
Because every time you think:
I have to sleep.
Something is wrong.
Tomorrow will be awful.
Why isn’t this working?
…your nervous system hears problem.
Instead, we want it to hear:
Safe.
Comfortable.
Nothing to do.
Nothing to solve.
It’s OK to be awake.
It’s OK to let go.
My body can take care of sleep.
Good sleepers don’t usually spend their evenings desperately trying to sleep.
They expect sleep to happen.
And perhaps that is the most important shift of all:
Stop trying to control sleep and start creating the safety that allows sleep to find you.
A note about persistent insomnia: If sleep problems are ongoing, severe, affecting daytime functioning, or accompanied by symptoms such as significant snoring or breathing pauses, restless legs, unusual night-time behaviours or marked daytime sleepiness, speak to your GP or another appropriate healthcare professional.
Further Help
The Healthful Mind Clinic offers support for insomnia and it’s causes through counselling, coaching, hypnotherapy and the CBT-i programme.
You can also start regulating your nervous system today through the use of the exercises in our 21 Day Nervous System Reset online course.
Please contact Alexa at the Healthful Mind Clinic to discuss your situation and the best help available to support you sleep easily and effortlessly.