If you’re like many people struggling with insomnia, you’ve probably heard of CBT-i.

Maybe you even tried it.

Or maybe you’ve been told it’s your best shot at fixing your sleep.

CBT-i (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) is often called the "gold standard" treatment.

And while it does help some people, many fall through the cracks.

Maybe you did too.

Let’s talk about why that happens.

And how the End Insomnia System takes a very different approach—one that works for people who feel like they’ve tried everything else.

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Why CBT-i Doesn’t Work for Everyone

CBT-i has four main components:

1. Sleep education
2. Cognitive restructuring (aka thought challenging)
3. Relaxation training
4. Behavioral interventions like sleep restriction and stimulus control

Let’s break each one down.

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1. Sleep Education

CBT-i aims to correct misconceptions about sleep.

This is helpful.

When you don’t understand why you can’t sleep, you get anxious.

And anxiety—as you know—is the thing that keeps you up.

So sleep education matters.

But here’s the problem:

CBT-i often includes a checklist of "sleep hygiene" tips.

Like:

• Make your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet
• Avoid blue light and caffeine
• Follow a bedtime routine
• Get morning light

These are reasonable suggestions.

But for people with insomnia, they quickly become Sleep Efforts.

You cling to them.

You try to do everything "right."

And when you still can’t sleep?

You feel even more broken.

The End Insomnia System takes a different view.

Yes, we teach how sleep works.

Yes, we support gentle sleep hygiene.

But we help you approach it flexibly.

No checklist.

No pressure.

And most importantly?

We focus on the real root of the problem:

Sleep anxiety.

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2. Thought Challenging (Cognitive Restructuring)

CBT-i encourages you to identify your anxious thoughts and replace them with more accurate ones.

This can be helpful sometimes.

But there are two big issues:

First: Thought challenging can become a sleep effort.

If you’re lying in bed frantically trying to challenge every thought so you can relax and sleep, you’re back in the performance trap.

Second: Some thoughts are true.

You’re tired.

You might feel terrible tomorrow.

That’s valid.

And arguing with reality just makes you feel more stuck.

The End Insomnia System gives you a better way.

We don’t fight thoughts.

We teach you to relate to them differently.

To notice them.

To stop fueling them.

To stop reacting like they’re emergencies.

And we help you build real confidence, so those thoughts lose their power.

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3. Relaxation Training

Some CBT-i therapists teach breathing techniques, muscle relaxation, or meditation.

These tools can be great—if you know how to use them.

But if you use them to make yourself sleep, they become sleep efforts.

Then you get frustrated when they "don’t work."

The End Insomnia System teaches nervous system regulation, too.

But we’re clear about the goal:

Not to make sleep happen.

But to build resilience.

To train your system to stop overreacting to nighttime wakefulness.

It’s not about short-term tricks.

It’s about long-term transformation.

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4. Sleep Restriction & Stimulus Control

These are the most intense parts of CBT-i.

Sleep restriction means limiting your time in...

If you’ve ever thought:

“I did all the right things and I still couldn’t sleep…”

You’re not alone.

And you’re not doing anything wrong.

The truth is, most of the things people try to fix their sleep are sleep efforts in disguise.

And that’s why they don’t work.

Even worse?

They often backfire.

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Let’s Look at a Few

1. Spending more time in bed

You’re exhausted.

So you get in bed early, hoping to squeeze in a little more rest.

Or you stay in bed longer in the morning to “make up for it.”

But that extra time in bed reduces your sleep drive.

Which makes you less sleepy the next night.

Which means you’re more likely to lie awake again.

2. Sleeping pills, cannabis, or alcohol

They might help you knock out short term.

But they mess with the natural architecture of sleep.

You don’t wake up feeling restored.

You just feel groggy.

And over time, they stop working as well.

You build a tolerance.

And worse, you start to believe you can’t sleep without them.

Which makes you even more anxious if you forget your pill or run out.

That belief is part of what’s keeping you stuck.

3. Nighttime relaxation exercises

Breathwork.

Meditation.

Visualizations.

These techniques can be helpful for many things.

But if you’re doing them to make sleep happen…

They become performance-based efforts.

You lie there thinking:

“Am I calm yet?”

“Why isn’t this working?”

And now the pressure is even higher.

4. Controlling your thoughts

Maybe you try to chase away every anxious thought.

Or you’ve learned to “challenge” them with logic.

That’s helpful during the day.

But at night, if your goal is to silence your thoughts so you can sleep…

That’s another effort.

And it puts you right back in the loop:

You think → You react → You analyze → You can’t sleep → You panic.

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Now Let’s Talk About the Daytime

Sleep efforts don’t stop at night.

They often show up all day long.

Like:

• Taking hot baths at exactly the “right” time

• Avoiding blue light like it’s poison

• Drinking sleepytime teas

• Rigging your bedroom with blackout curtains and sound machines

• Exercising solely to “wear yourself out”

• Avoiding caffeine, people, plans, fun

All of these actions reinforce one idea:

Sleep is fragile.

And the more fragile you believe sleep is, the more anxious you become.

And the more anxious you become, the more your nervous system gets in the way.

That’s the Sleep-Stopping Force (i.e., sleep anxiety and hyperarousal) at work.

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What About Screens?

There’s truth to the idea that blue light can slightly delay your body clock.

But people with healthy sleep still scroll before bed and sleep fine.

A 2014 study found that using an iPad for 4 hours before bed only delayed sleep by 10 minutes.

That’s not what’s keeping you up all night.

The root issue isn’t blue light.

It’s hyperarousal.

It’s sleep anxiety.

It’s your nervous system saying:

“Sleep isn’t safe.”

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Micromanaging Bedroom Conditions

It’s natural to want a peaceful sleep space.

But when you believe your room has to be perfect—silent, cold, pitch black—just for sleep to happen…

You become dependent on your environment.

And once again, the message your brain receives is:

“Sleep is fragile. Dangerous,...

If you’re like most people with chronic insomnia, you’ve probably tried a lot of things to fix it.

• Pills
• Relaxation exercises
• Strict wind-down routines
• Endless adjustments to your bedroom setup

But despite your best efforts, you still can’t sleep.

That’s not your fault.

And it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It just means you’ve been stuck in a trap most people fall into.

Here’s what it is:

Most insomnia fixes are actually sleep efforts.

And sleep efforts are one of the core reasons insomnia persists.

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What Are Sleep Efforts?

Sleep efforts are any actions you take to try to make sleep happen.

They come from a place of urgency and desperation.

You’re exhausted.

You’re anxious.

You want sleep to come—but it won’t.

So you try to force it.

You do something to fix it.

Because that’s what we’re taught to do in life.

See a problem, take action, fix it.

But that logic backfires with sleep.

Because sleep isn’t something you do.

It’s a passive biological process.

Just like digestion or your heartbeat.

It happens on its own—when the conditions are right.

And trying to make it happen just sends your body the wrong message.

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Why Sleep Efforts Keep You Stuck

There are two big reasons sleep efforts fail—and actually make things worse.

1. They activate your nervous system.

When you treat being awake at night like a crisis you need to fix, your body hears:

“There’s a threat.”

And when your body thinks there’s a threat, it activates fight-or-flight.

That ramps up the Sleep-Stopping Force—your anxiety and hyperarousal.

And that stops sleep from happening, no matter how tired you are.

2. They reinforce fear.

When your efforts fail—which they almost always do—you feel even more anxious.

More out of control.

More desperate.

Which just ramps up the cycle again.

You try harder.

Sleep resists.

And on it goes.

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Examples of Sleep Efforts

Here are a few common sleep efforts that might sound familiar:

• Elaborate bedtime routines

• Using breathwork or meditation specifically to induce sleep

• Micromanaging your bedroom environment

• Taking sleeping pills or supplements

• Changing your entire day around to “protect” your sleep

• Getting in bed early or sleeping in late to “catch up”

None of these are bad in themselves.

But if you’re doing them as a way to control sleep, they’re sleep efforts.

And they’re keeping you stuck.

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So What Should You Do?

The first step is to recognize sleep efforts for what they are.

Desperate attempts to control an uncontrollable process.

They’re not evil.

They’re just misguided.

The next step?

Let go.

Not of sleep.

But of the efforts.

This might sound counterintuitive.

But it’s exactly how normal sleepers sleep.

They don’t try to sleep.

They just allow sleep to happen when it’s ready.

And your body can too—once the sleep-stopping force is lowered.

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A Quick Experiment

Let’s test it.

Right now—or tonight when you go to bed—try this:

Lie down.

Close your eyes.

And tell yourself:

“Sleep. Now.”

Feel that?

Even with a strong desire to sleep, you can’t force it.

It’s just not how sleep works.

And that’s actually good news.

Because once you stop trying to force it, sleep gets a lot easier.

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What Happens...