How Rupsa ended her insomnia struggle by being more open to experiencing insomnia and all the thoughts and feelings that come with it (#69)

Rupsa never had issues with sleep until a big change in her professional life led her to move to a new city. As sleep became difficult, she experienced a lot of anxiety. Her heart would race. She started to develop a fear of going to bed at night. She’d spend four or five hours awake in bed, hoping to fall asleep. Working with a psychologist provided Rupsa with some clarity and her sleep got slightly better for a couple of months. However, when she started a new job, insomnia returned with a vengeance. The more she tried to make sleep happen, the more difficult and exhausting it became. Everything was going well in Rupsa’s life apart from sleep. It felt as though her mind was working against her. The more she tried to silence her mind, the louder and more distracting it became. The more she tried to make sleep happen the more of a struggle it became. Things started to change when Rupsa realized that trying to fight or avoid uncomfortable or difficult thoughts and feelings was consuming her energy and attention and pulling her away from the life she wanted to live. So, she started trying to be more open to whatever showed up. As she did this, she found her thoughts and feelings often contained important information. Reminders of what mattered to her. With this, she discovered that her mind was never working against her. It was actually working for her. Rupsa stopped trying to control sleep. She practiced bringing her focus and attention back to the present whenever it drifted away. She was kinder to herself. She became more accepting of whatever her mind might do and whatever each night might bring. With this, a burden was lifted — and, with going practice, things started to get better. Rupsa now sleeps well and, when the occasional night of less sleep shows up, it no longer has any power or influence over her. 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. Rupsa. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast. Rupsa: Thanks a lot for having me. I’m happy to share my experiences and I hope it helps someone else. Martin: I have no doubt that it will help a lot of people. So let’s just dive right in, right at the start. Can you tell us when your issues with sleep first began and what you feel might have caused those issues? Rupsa: Absolutely. So actually previously I never had. Such problems. I also thought back to whether it existed and I didn’t notice or something like this, but it wasn’t true. I did enough sports every day and I would sleep well and so on. except yeah, except this one phase shortly during my master’s when I realized that yeah, I’m not able to fall asleep and so on. But somehow it also went away quite quickly, maybe a couple of months during a stressful period. But my main issues really happened or started a year and a half ago. There was some big changes due to challenges that took place in my professional life. And this led me to move to a new city, to a completely new environment and so on, and with further persisting challenges in the. Professional life. and slowly the sleep problem got worse and worse actually. So it just started with oh, I’m just awake on an hour or two hours. And then I noticed that my heartbeat is really high. I don’t wear a smart watch or anything, but I just noticed that that was the case. Rupsa: I feel anxious and so on. And then it led to the point where I think one starts getting afraid of going to bed at night, right? And that also happened and I think this was really the change point in the problem, in the sense that once I started fearing going to bed, I think it got really bad. Rupsa: So sometimes I would stay up for four or five hours. just lying in bed, hoping to fall asleep and so on. maybe not even getting sleep until three 30 in the morning. So I am an early sleeper, so I’m normally in bed at 10, 10 30 to wake up early. So yeah, that’s really a few hours there. Rupsa: And yeah. So it really got to that point. and then what was also ...