Great q and a. The brain is so persistent in wanting to protect us, but the brain is trying to protect itself in my opinion disrupting our sleep in the process, reinforcing the saying the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Thank you Alina. 🛌💤🇨🇦
Just found you on YT. I am getting a lot of insights from your conversations and appreciate you. Thank you. I’ve got a suggestion so that YT places your useful videos higher on its algorithms how about asking people at the beginning of each video to Like and subscribe to your channel if they find the information helpful . ❤ don’t hesitate to promote or “market” yourself when you are offering such helpful ideas. Another idea is to generalize your ideas to a channel that deals with LIFE challenges covering many topics ppl feel they are struggling with. Insomnia is just a metaphor for human suffering of all kinds and your ideas can apply broadly to those issues too not only to insomnia
Hi Alina, I’ve watched so many of insomnia videos and I understand very well what to do and what not to do but I am so stuck and I am so sick of it, I just can’t get over insomnia and I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong anymore. I have let go of control, I am not forcing sleep, but night after night I go to bed and sleep won’t come even thought I am very sleepy and a minute ago was dozing off on the couch. I just see no end to it. I did have weeks where I decided I don’t care anymore and I’ll watch Tv if sleep doesn’t come and sleep actually came but then somehow I returned to struggle. I remind my brain that it’ll be ok tomorrow even if I’m tired, I’m just gonna relax and sleep will come at some point, I always reason with the fear and don’t force anything, but night after night same thing happens. I already know that tonight I will go to bed exhausted as always but still sleep won’t come, it’s just become a normal thing now. And it’s so frustrating. And every time I go away somewhere and sleep in a different bed it gets worse and feels it’ll just be like this my whole life. Can I really get out of this?? I used to sleep so well before insomnia, I just want to be normal again, it’s such a ridiculous problem. I wish I could erase it all from my mind and go back to when I was normal and slept great, I really want it to be over but feels like I am stuck not knowing what to do or not do anymore.... I am not doing anything to fix it, I don’t think about it during the day... but things don’t get better. please help
Hi Ange, I am really sorry that you are going through the rough patch now. The state of despair, frustration and fatigue is something I can relate to a lot and sometimes writing all our thoughts down or talking to someone can make us feel a bit better. Thank you for sharing this. As I read your message I had a few thoughts, so I hope they will make sense to you and offer some clarity on your path. You know, I noticed that acceptance and letting go of control are some sort of all-or-nothing things. This means that we can't be 50% accepting, or 90% accepting. We either truly 100% accept something, or don't. But when we keep trying to accept and be ok with any outcome of the night, but there is a tiny voice that keeps checking on us: "are we there yet? Does this work? When will i feel peaceful?" - this isn't full acceptance. In other words, when we approach this mechanically and strategically ("I am going to accept and this has to work!"), we only introduce more pressure. To me, the true acceptance feels different. And it can't be forced. If it comes naturally great! If it doesn't come easy - no need to push on it. So when try to accept but deep-deep inside we still feel resistance - then maybe we can accept the fact that currently we aren't in the mood for accepting and stop trying to accept. I.e. accepting that we can't accept. As I read your message, I couldn't help but notice a lot of pressure you are putting on yourself by trying to do everything "by the book". But sometimes by trying to do everything right, we can become more critical on ourselves which paradoxically becomes the only thing that keep the struggle going. So now the question is: how can we remove that pressure? Well one possibility is to be very sincere with yourself and giving yourself permission to do things that you want or not to do things that you don't want to do. E.g. if you feel you are too tired or frustrated to practice awareness or acceptance - can you allow yourself not to do it? Oftentimes, allowing ourselves to "break the rules" can actually bring relief ("thank god I don't have to do this!" or "great, at least I don't have to pretend!") can really help us move on. Hope this brought some clarity!
@@FearlessSleep thank you Alina, yes looks like I am trying to force acceptance... it’s difficult not to have expectations when I am just exhausted so frustrated. I don’t even know what I want or don’t want to do anymore. I just want sleep. But I definitely don’t like being in bed while anxious, I might start getting out of bed if I feel anxiety is not calming down. I don’t like leaving bed but it’ll be better than staying in bed while hyperarousal is on. I hope one day anxiety will stop. It seems that I don’t even know how to behave when falling asleep. I know “doing nothing” is the way, but I think I might even be forcing that - trying to stop thoughts, making sure my “doing nothing” is correct, I don’t even know how it act naturally when I want to sleep. In the past it was never a problem and o switched off within a few minutes of getting into bed, I had no idea how I did it.
@@angepetit413 Hi Ange, I’ve been in the same boat as you. This whole journey is a JOURNEY! Not sure where you are in your journey, but I’m pretty far in and still have more off nights than anything. I’ve been experiencing those same thoughts as you where I’m wondering WTF am I doing wrong?? I think the message is definitely to accept all parts of the ups and downs that come with healing. This is what I’m working toward everyday. The concept of acceptance is not an easy one and I really like Alina’s approach of saying to accept that you can’t accept right now 🤷🏾♀️ We’ll get there eventually but these are all new practices. It’s tough because we just want out but it’s learning to be okay with it. Honestly, I’m still not 100% accepting but that’s what I’m working toward. I’m even learning to accept those days that I cry and am pissed off because I didn’t sleep. It’s all apart of the healing process. None of us can bypass it. Just know you’re not alone in navigating through it but we’ll get there one day soon (:
Thanks a lot for this one Ali. Lots of wisdom, experience, reassuring thoughts. Makes everything easier to go through. As you said, this is a sort of trauma and will heal by the time, for anxious people it might take longer since they are prone to question everything, overthink even when all is good. Thanks for explaining the mechanisms, absolutely agree that education nad understanding of it takes a huge role in healing process. Odd thing, but I think it comes with someone's character, is that speed bumps create that bad feelings and thoughts " oh I am again at square one, this will never heal, what sort of life is this,.." - unfortunately such nature may take all this journey longer. Still, it will pass and as we understand the behind mechanisms it really helps. We heard a lot of stories of people suffering for 20 yrs from insomnia, from such stories of people who obviously did not learn of it as you or us learning did, so might be scary for everyone to have them as an example of probable outcome. Maybe you could discuss on it on some new video, people who suffer so long of insomnia should not be taken as for granted and not treated as some expected outcome. Many thanks again 🙏
Hi Kadir, glad my reply made sense to you! Thanks for video idea - yeah, you are so right! It doesn’t matter how long you had insomnia, 20+ or less years/months - the moment you begin to understand how it all works, this is a huge shift in the journey. And you know, interestingly enough I don’t find the anxious character playing a role in the speed of recovery. In fact, I talked to several people who said they didn’t suffer from anxiety before insomnia. But nonetheless this didn’t help them in recovering faster. Sometimes getting sleep anxiety when you never had anxiety is even more shocking, than for people who were anxious all their life.. I myself is a super anxious type, I can’t let go of something unless I am 100% sure I know and understand everything about the problem - but inspite of that trait of mine, I don’t struggle with sleep anymore. So I just wanted to share that personality type plays almost 0 role in recovery - because all our brains work similarly when we feel potential danger :)
Hello Alina, does the first subject also apply to hypnic jerks that occur for hours at night? I was fine for around 2 months, had the odd jerk here and there and had some rough nights but in those 2 months I did not care about the jerks. However, I saw a very triggering video and my fear about hypnic jerks is back and so are my jerks... What to do
So sorry to hear about your recent struggles - this must be very frustrating.. The fear of hypnic jerks can make them more prominent. I think 2 things are good to keep in mind - 1. Hypnic twitches can happen to any person, even those without insomnia. This might seem a strange but totally normal experience. My husband is actually having those from time to time - which ultimately doesn't prevent him from having a peaceful night anyway because there is no fearful response to them. 2. We can help the brain become more desensitized towards them and that includes being willing to experience them without trying to run away from them. Let's use the cold water analogy: when I enter into a cold water, the initial response is always a shock and discomfort. But the more I am willing to stay in it, slowly moving towards it, my body begins to get used to that temperature and the initial shock is no longer there. Similar with meeting the hypnic jerks, being willing to experience the initial "shock" when it comes, makes them less and less scary, until we feel so comfortable with them that the brain stops reacting on them allowing us to get to the "other side" - meaning the sleep state. Hope this makes sense!
Hi Alina, I have this feeling of shaking/tremor when about to sleep/nap. It's a little bit scary to be honest. Have you encountered someome who had this or what it's called?
Hi @jakebolton1438, hope you're doing well. I'm also in the phase of being anxious about anxiety/hyperarousal disrupting sleep. Have you been able to overcome this? If so, what insight made it work for you?
Hi Alina, I tried to let go my thoughts I try not to put any sort of effort while I go to bed thinking insomnia wont hurt me. But its like almost a year its not helping me. My eyes are totally tired and full of scars. I know you would call them battle car but I always try to lie down thinking i m safe but not working.
Somewhere at the back of my mind could be subconscious mind my brain is expecting sleep and trust me I cant do anything to stop it because thats what my brain is doing. Can you coach me one on one or guide me how to come out of it.
Hi Jack, thank you for sharing and sorry to hear about your struggles. Insomnia, being this crazy paradox, takes really a lot of work to get out of it and I can totally understand that sometimes we simply get stuck not knowing what to do next. But it all comes down to the intentions. Anything that we do, avoid or even think with the intention to force sleep - will turn into an effort. Even a thought "insomnia won't hurt me" - can eventually become an effort, once you outsource to it the power to make you asleep. At the beginning this thought probably helped you to let go of control, once you reminded yourself that no matter how much you sleep - this isn't dangerous. This thought gave you that peace not to fight anymore. But with time when we become too reliant on that thought, giving it "magical" power to make ourselves asleep, it becomes another sleep effort. I've been in this trap too. And the first helpful thing here is simply being aware of it becoming an effort! The truth has been all along that it wasn't the thought that helped you sleep, but that letting go of control and being ok with any outcome. Hope this made sense! And of course you can reach me out via email sleepcoach.a@gmail.com if you'd like a 1-1 coaching session and we can have a closer look at your current obstacle! Take care!
Thank you Ellie! And good question! Our brain is a survival machine, when it gets into a situation that looks to it as unknown, uncontrollable, potentially dangerous, it starts alarming. And until it fully understands that there is no danger, it will keep sending signals - thoughts, feelings, etc. The way it turns off that alarm is gradual. It slowly lets go of control and during that “learning curve” it will sneak its usual safety signals to our consciousness. But when we see that those signals are nothing but a product of automatic safety programs, we start seeing things differently, more clear, which translates into decrease of hyperarousal. I know this is a hard concept to explain, but was this a bit clear?
@@FearlessSleep thank you, it does make sense, so this could be any type of anxiety that develops after insomnia right? the thing I don't get is why after getting insomnia, my mind tries to look for anything else to be anxious about. even things unrelated to sleep. I think what it is, is my mind looks for anything that might produce more sleeplessness and focuses on that as the threat. so then, like you said in the video, you're trying to control all these different anxieties when they really come from one place which is the fear of losing more sleep. Another question I have is, why does it feel like you put your life on hold when you don't sleep well for even one night? for me, it feels like I fall into an instant depression when I don't sleep well for another night. is it another survival response?
I really like the Anxious truth podcast - I think the author of that podcast shares similar teaching as I do! I recently found books and videos of Michael Singer very helpful to address the emotional turbulence.
Great q and a. The brain is so persistent in wanting to protect us, but the brain is trying to protect itself in my opinion disrupting our sleep in the process, reinforcing the saying the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Thank you Alina. 🛌💤🇨🇦
Just found you on YT. I am getting a lot of insights from your conversations and appreciate you. Thank you. I’ve got a suggestion so that YT places your useful videos higher on its algorithms how about asking people at the beginning of each video to Like and subscribe to your channel if they find the information helpful . ❤ don’t hesitate to promote or “market” yourself when you are offering such helpful ideas. Another idea is to generalize your ideas to a channel that deals with LIFE challenges covering many topics ppl feel they are struggling with. Insomnia is just a metaphor for human suffering of all kinds and your ideas can apply broadly to those issues too not only to insomnia
@@hershlstern thank you so much for your support and ideas! really good suggestions 👍 I will make sure to include them in my next videos 🤗
Hi Alina, I’ve watched so many of insomnia videos and I understand very well what to do and what not to do but I am so stuck and I am so sick of it, I just can’t get over insomnia and I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong anymore. I have let go of control, I am not forcing sleep, but night after night I go to bed and sleep won’t come even thought I am very sleepy and a minute ago was dozing off on the couch. I just see no end to it. I did have weeks where I decided I don’t care anymore and I’ll watch Tv if sleep doesn’t come and sleep actually came but then somehow I returned to struggle. I remind my brain that it’ll be ok tomorrow even if I’m tired, I’m just gonna relax and sleep will come at some point, I always reason with the fear and don’t force anything, but night after night same thing happens. I already know that tonight I will go to bed exhausted as always but still sleep won’t come, it’s just become a normal thing now. And it’s so frustrating. And every time I go away somewhere and sleep in a different bed it gets worse and feels it’ll just be like this my whole life. Can I really get out of this?? I used to sleep so well before insomnia, I just want to be normal again, it’s such a ridiculous problem. I wish I could erase it all from my mind and go back to when I was normal and slept great, I really want it to be over but feels like I am stuck not knowing what to do or not do anymore.... I am not doing anything to fix it, I don’t think about it during the day... but things don’t get better. please help
Hi Ange, I am really sorry that you are going through the rough patch now. The state of despair, frustration and fatigue is something I can relate to a lot and sometimes writing all our thoughts down or talking to someone can make us feel a bit better. Thank you for sharing this. As I read your message I had a few thoughts, so I hope they will make sense to you and offer some clarity on your path.
You know, I noticed that acceptance and letting go of control are some sort of all-or-nothing things. This means that we can't be 50% accepting, or 90% accepting. We either truly 100% accept something, or don't. But when we keep trying to accept and be ok with any outcome of the night, but there is a tiny voice that keeps checking on us: "are we there yet? Does this work? When will i feel peaceful?" - this isn't full acceptance. In other words, when we approach this mechanically and strategically ("I am going to accept and this has to work!"), we only introduce more pressure.
To me, the true acceptance feels different. And it can't be forced. If it comes naturally great! If it doesn't come easy - no need to push on it. So when try to accept but deep-deep inside we still feel resistance - then maybe we can accept the fact that currently we aren't in the mood for accepting and stop trying to accept. I.e. accepting that we can't accept.
As I read your message, I couldn't help but notice a lot of pressure you are putting on yourself by trying to do everything "by the book". But sometimes by trying to do everything right, we can become more critical on ourselves which paradoxically becomes the only thing that keep the struggle going.
So now the question is: how can we remove that pressure? Well one possibility is to be very sincere with yourself and giving yourself permission to do things that you want or not to do things that you don't want to do. E.g. if you feel you are too tired or frustrated to practice awareness or acceptance - can you allow yourself not to do it? Oftentimes, allowing ourselves to "break the rules" can actually bring relief ("thank god I don't have to do this!" or "great, at least I don't have to pretend!") can really help us move on. Hope this brought some clarity!
@@FearlessSleep thank you Alina, yes looks like I am trying to force acceptance... it’s difficult not to have expectations when I am just exhausted so frustrated. I don’t even know what I want or don’t want to do anymore. I just want sleep. But I definitely don’t like being in bed while anxious, I might start getting out of bed if I feel anxiety is not calming down. I don’t like leaving bed but it’ll be better than staying in bed while hyperarousal is on. I hope one day anxiety will stop. It seems that I don’t even know how to behave when falling asleep. I know “doing nothing” is the way, but I think I might even be forcing that - trying to stop thoughts, making sure my “doing nothing” is correct, I don’t even know how it act naturally when I want to sleep. In the past it was never a problem and o switched off within a few minutes of getting into bed, I had no idea how I did it.
@@angepetit413 Hi Ange, I’ve been in the same boat as you. This whole journey is a JOURNEY! Not sure where you are in your journey, but I’m pretty far in and still have more off nights than anything. I’ve been experiencing those same thoughts as you where I’m wondering WTF am I doing wrong?? I think the message is definitely to accept all parts of the ups and downs that come with healing. This is what I’m working toward everyday.
The concept of acceptance is not an easy one and I really like Alina’s approach of saying to accept that you can’t accept right now 🤷🏾♀️ We’ll get there eventually but these are all new practices. It’s tough because we just want out but it’s learning to be okay with it. Honestly, I’m still not 100% accepting but that’s what I’m working toward. I’m even learning to accept those days that I cry and am pissed off because I didn’t sleep. It’s all apart of the healing process. None of us can bypass it. Just know you’re not alone in navigating through it but we’ll get there one day soon (:
Hey... I think you got it wrong. Maybe you are affraid of sleeping not of sleeplessness. But in fact it is the fear of not to sleep.
Hi how are you doing now? I struggle with acceptance myself. Did it work out for you? And how did you do it?
Hi Alina 😊 your videos are very helpful, thank you
Hi Alina. Please make a video on hyperarousal or hyperawareness, where transitioning of sleep is checked
Hi! Thanks for the video idea! Will make sure to add it to the list of upcoming videos!
When you had insomnia did you have a lot of physical sensations next day post lack of sleep and anxiety ?
Thanks a lot for this one Ali. Lots of wisdom, experience, reassuring thoughts. Makes everything easier to go through. As you said, this is a sort of trauma and will heal by the time, for anxious people it might take longer since they are prone to question everything, overthink even when all is good. Thanks for explaining the mechanisms, absolutely agree that education nad understanding of it takes a huge role in healing process. Odd thing, but I think it comes with someone's character, is that speed bumps create that bad feelings and thoughts " oh I am again at square one, this will never heal, what sort of life is this,.." - unfortunately such nature may take all this journey longer. Still, it will pass and as we understand the behind mechanisms it really helps. We heard a lot of stories of people suffering for 20 yrs from insomnia, from such stories of people who obviously did not learn of it as you or us learning did, so might be scary for everyone to have them as an example of probable outcome. Maybe you could discuss on it on some new video, people who suffer so long of insomnia should not be taken as for granted and not treated as some expected outcome. Many thanks again 🙏
Hi Kadir, glad my reply made sense to you! Thanks for video idea - yeah, you are so right! It doesn’t matter how long you had insomnia, 20+ or less years/months - the moment you begin to understand how it all works, this is a huge shift in the journey.
And you know, interestingly enough I don’t find the anxious character playing a role in the speed of recovery. In fact, I talked to several people who said they didn’t suffer from anxiety before insomnia. But nonetheless this didn’t help them in recovering faster. Sometimes getting sleep anxiety when you never had anxiety is even more shocking, than for people who were anxious all their life.. I myself is a super anxious type, I can’t let go of something unless I am 100% sure I know and understand everything about the problem - but inspite of that trait of mine, I don’t struggle with sleep anymore. So I just wanted to share that personality type plays almost 0 role in recovery - because all our brains work similarly when we feel potential danger :)
@@FearlessSleep Many thanks again 🙏
Alina, thank you.
You are Just great
Thank you Ahmad!
Hello Alina, does the first subject also apply to hypnic jerks that occur for hours at night? I was fine for around 2 months, had the odd jerk here and there and had some rough nights but in those 2 months I did not care about the jerks. However, I saw a very triggering video and my fear about hypnic jerks is back and so are my jerks... What to do
So sorry to hear about your recent struggles - this must be very frustrating..
The fear of hypnic jerks can make them more prominent. I think 2 things are good to keep in mind -
1. Hypnic twitches can happen to any person, even those without insomnia. This might seem a strange but totally normal experience. My husband is actually having those from time to time - which ultimately doesn't prevent him from having a peaceful night anyway because there is no fearful response to them.
2. We can help the brain become more desensitized towards them and that includes being willing to experience them without trying to run away from them. Let's use the cold water analogy: when I enter into a cold water, the initial response is always a shock and discomfort. But the more I am willing to stay in it, slowly moving towards it, my body begins to get used to that temperature and the initial shock is no longer there. Similar with meeting the hypnic jerks, being willing to experience the initial "shock" when it comes, makes them less and less scary, until we feel so comfortable with them that the brain stops reacting on them allowing us to get to the "other side" - meaning the sleep state.
Hope this makes sense!
Hi Alina, I have this feeling of shaking/tremor when about to sleep/nap. It's a little bit scary to be honest. Have you encountered someome who had this or what it's called?
Great thank you very helpful
Anytime, Jake!
Hi @jakebolton1438, hope you're doing well. I'm also in the phase of being anxious about anxiety/hyperarousal disrupting sleep. Have you been able to overcome this? If so, what insight made it work for you?
Hi Alina, I tried to let go my thoughts I try not to put any sort of effort while I go to bed thinking insomnia wont hurt me.
But its like almost a year its not helping me. My eyes are totally tired and full of scars.
I know you would call them battle car but I always try to lie down thinking i m safe but not working.
*battle scares
Somewhere at the back of my mind could be subconscious mind my brain is expecting sleep and trust me I cant do anything to stop it because thats what my brain is doing.
Can you coach me one on one or guide me how to come out of it.
Looks like my brain wants to explore possibilities and enjoy being awake. I feel as if it wants to see how sleep happens
Looks fatal insomnia
Hi Jack, thank you for sharing and sorry to hear about your struggles. Insomnia, being this crazy paradox, takes really a lot of work to get out of it and I can totally understand that sometimes we simply get stuck not knowing what to do next. But it all comes down to the intentions. Anything that we do, avoid or even think with the intention to force sleep - will turn into an effort. Even a thought "insomnia won't hurt me" - can eventually become an effort, once you outsource to it the power to make you asleep. At the beginning this thought probably helped you to let go of control, once you reminded yourself that no matter how much you sleep - this isn't dangerous. This thought gave you that peace not to fight anymore. But with time when we become too reliant on that thought, giving it "magical" power to make ourselves asleep, it becomes another sleep effort. I've been in this trap too. And the first helpful thing here is simply being aware of it becoming an effort! The truth has been all along that it wasn't the thought that helped you sleep, but that letting go of control and being ok with any outcome. Hope this made sense!
And of course you can reach me out via email sleepcoach.a@gmail.com if you'd like a 1-1 coaching session and we can have a closer look at your current obstacle!
Take care!
Oh my gosh this is me!
What’s the reason the brain tries to come up with new things to grab your attention? Fantastic videos btw!
Thank you Ellie! And good question! Our brain is a survival machine, when it gets into a situation that looks to it as unknown, uncontrollable, potentially dangerous, it starts alarming. And until it fully understands that there is no danger, it will keep sending signals - thoughts, feelings, etc. The way it turns off that alarm is gradual. It slowly lets go of control and during that “learning curve” it will sneak its usual safety signals to our consciousness. But when we see that those signals are nothing but a product of automatic safety programs, we start seeing things differently, more clear, which translates into decrease of hyperarousal. I know this is a hard concept to explain, but was this a bit clear?
@@FearlessSleep thank you, it does make sense, so this could be any type of anxiety that develops after insomnia right? the thing I don't get is why after getting insomnia, my mind tries to look for anything else to be anxious about. even things unrelated to sleep. I think what it is, is my mind looks for anything that might produce more sleeplessness and focuses on that as the threat. so then, like you said in the video, you're trying to control all these different anxieties when they really come from one place which is the fear of losing more sleep.
Another question I have is, why does it feel like you put your life on hold when you don't sleep well for even one night? for me, it feels like I fall into an instant depression when I don't sleep well for another night. is it another survival response?
Hi Alina, do you have any book recommendations on anxiety?
I really like the Anxious truth podcast - I think the author of that podcast shares similar teaching as I do! I recently found books and videos of Michael Singer very helpful to address the emotional turbulence.