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

Laura never expected insomnia to arrive during one of the happiest times in her life. She had just gotten engaged. She was heading out on vacation. But one sleepless night quietly snowballed into many — and nights quickly became something she feared. She tried everything: supplements, routines, medication, strict sleep hygiene. But nothing seemed to work. The harder she tried to fix sleep, the more distant it became. And eventually, she realized the struggle wasn’t just with sleep — it was with her thoughts and feelings about sleep. She found herself caught in a loop: trying to control, reason with, avoid, or edit every uncomfortable thought. Every wave of fear or frustration. And it was exhausting. The real shift came when she began to relate to insomnia differently — not as a problem to defeat, but as an experience to meet with less resistance. She practiced making space for the thoughts and feelings that showed up, and bringing her attention back to actions that helped her live the life she wanted to live. It wasn’t a straight path. There were setbacks. Relapses. Hard nights that tested her resolve. But each time, there was something to learn. Because while change is hard — not changing can be even harder. And Laura kept going. With persistence. With compassion. With honesty. With courage. Today, she still has the occasional tough night — like all of us do. But those nights have lost all the power and influence they once had over her. She knows how to move forward, independently of sleep, and no matter what thoughts and feelings might be present. This is Laura’s story. Click here for a full transcript of this episode. Transcript Martin: Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that by changing how we respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it, we can move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life we want to live. Martin: The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. The statements and opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied. Martin: Okay. Laura, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Laura: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Martin: Great to have you on. Let’s start right at the very beginning, as always. Can you tell us when your issues with sleep first began and what you feel might of caused those initial issues, that initial sleep disruption? Laura: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that it started about two and a half years. It was like around August of 2022. So I’m going on three years of, since it initially started. And I would say there wasn’t a particularly like super stressful, like negative, stressful life event. But I remember that I was going on a trip abroad and right before I left for the trip, my husband proposed to me and I was very excited. Laura: Like I was happy and excited but I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep that night. Going into the next night we went and I think we stayed at, like his aunt and uncle lived near JFK airport. So we went and stayed with them and I think like we were up late. Laura: I wasn’t in my own environment. I struggled to sleep again the next night we had the flight. So it was a red eye and I can, I like, cannot sleep on airplanes. I can’t get comfortable. So I was up again and I remember that was kinda the moment where I like, and now I know like in retrospect that was the moment where I started to place this like level of importance on it, of this is bad. Laura: But I didn’t know that at the time. I just thought okay, this is bad. I need to sleep. Like I really need to sleep tonight. And I remember the first day on the trip we get there, like I had a pretty good day, but leading like the hours leading into bedtime, I started to just get really nervous and like putting a lot of pressure on needing to sleep because I just didn’t, at the time, I couldn’t perceive myself being able to enjoy a vacation if I wasn’t sleeping. Laura: So I went to bed that night and it was like full blown like panic. That like hyper arousal feeling like of Yeah, just anxiety and like shakiness having to get up to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes, like just so over the top anxious. And that kind of started it and I remember that was the first time and then that that led into nine nights on the trip. Laura: I like didn’t sleep like almost at all. I would get maybe like...