To Overcome Insomnia DO THE OPPOSITE

If you want to overcome insomnia for good, do the OPPOSITE of what you’re usually told to do by doctors, providers and the Internet.

I go over 5 things that are frequently recommended for insomnia that DON’T work, and the one thing that DOES work.

Do the OPPOSITE of these 5 things:

1. Medication (NOTE: This is not medication or medical advice. For any change in medication, be sure to consult with your doctor/prescribe first)

2. Herbal remedies/supplements

3. Sleep hygiene

4. Sleep gadgets and products

5. Meditation/relaxation exercises

What actually works: CBT-I (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia)

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WHAT I DO:
I help people overcome insomnia and get good sleep (without medication, drugs or supplements).

To Your Sleeping Better!
- Steve

RESOURCES
CBT-I Playlist

00:00 Introduction: The Unconventional Approach to Insomnia
00:34 Medication: Why It Doesn't Solve Insomnia
01:58 Herbal Remedies: The Placebo Trap
04:13 Sleep Hygiene: The Misleading Solution
05:29 Sleep Gadgets: The False Promises
06:50 Meditation and Relaxation: Not the Ultimate Fix
08:50 The Real Solution: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI)
11:24 Conclusion: Moving Forward with CBTI

TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: The Unconventional Approach to Insomnia

Today, I'm going to tell you to do the opposite of what you're usually told to do to overcome insomnia. If you go research online, or you go to a doctor, or you go to most providers, they will tell you to do things to get rid of the insomnia that do not work, and they are very commonly recommended.

And what I'm going to tell you today is five things that are the usual things that most providers will recommend. Or if you just research yourself on the internet for overcoming insomnia that don't work. And I'll explain why they don't work, and then at the end I'm going to tell you what you should do instead.

Medication: Why It Doesn't Solve Insomnia

Number one is medication. Now this is not medical or medication advice. If you make any decisions about your medication, you want to consult with your doctor, your prescriber first. If you're either considering coming off medication or taking it for insomnia, you want to get all the facts, you want to look at pros and cons and things like that.

But generally, if your goal is to overcome insomnia, meaning eliminate insomnia For good, [00:01:00] then you need to address the underlying causes of the insomnia and medication doesn't do that. It simply sedates you. It treats the symptoms, the difficulty falling or staying asleep, and it'll sedate you or it'll knock you out.

But it doesn't address the underlying cause. And so it's not a long term solution or really an ultimate solution for insomnia. And then obviously it has other negative effects like side effects and many times having to continue to switch medications and change dosages and things like that. And then there's effects even during the day, even when you do sleep with the medication.

I'm not telling you if you're taking medication to just come off medication, that's not a safe thing to do. But I want you to consider the pros and cons and also what is your goal with insomnia? Is the goal just to get yourself to sleep each night or is your goal to ultimately eliminate the insomnia?

To do that, you need to address the underlying causes and that's something that medication, whether it's prescribed or over the counter, does not do.

Herbal Remedies & Supplements: The Placebo Trap

Number two are [00:02:00] herbal remedies. So herbal remedies or supplements. These are things like magnesium or valerian root or melatonin. I mean, there's a huge list of supplements or herbal remedies that people use for sleep.

Can they have some benefit for sleep? Possibly, but I have to say these are not very well studied and particularly with insomnia. There's a difference between, I want to improve my sleep. Like if you don't have insomnia and you think an herbal remedy or a supplement will help to improve the sleep in some way. There might be some benefit to that because you're not dealing with an underlying problem that's getting in the way of the sleep.

But if you're dealing with insomnia, these things don't do anything. Now, there's a placebo effect sometimes, meaning you take it and you think, This is going to help me and in turn it does, but usually that's a short term effect.

And also the really the main problem with an herbal remedy or really any substance, whether it's a medication or a supplement or an herbal remedy, is what's called psychological dependence.

That is [00:03:00] you start to develop the belief that I need to take this substance, this herbal remedy or whatever it is to sleep. I don't have the ability within myself to sleep or to sleep well. So I need this extra thing to put into my body. And that undermines your confidence in your own body's ability to sleep, it raises anxiety and uncertainty and that creates part of the cycle that actually perpetuates and maintains insomnia.

So even though there might be some short term benefit to herbal remedies, ultimately they're not going to do anything other than sort of deepen the problem and make you more frustrated and more anxious about your sleep.

Now the one exception to this is if you're older. If you're 60s and older, sometimes what happens is you start producing less melatonin when you get older.

If you're younger than your 60s, then you generally will produce melatonin. It's produced naturally in the body as part of your circadian rhythm and your sleep cycle. So you don't need to take a supplement. The supplement doesn't help you sleep better.

If you're in your [00:04:00] 60s or you're older, production can go down. And therefore, having it as a supplement could actually help your sleep a little bit. Although, if you have insomnia, at that point, you need more than just the supplement to solve the problem.

Sleep Hygiene: The Misleading Solution

The third thing that's very highly recommended when you have insomnia is sleep hygiene.

Now, sleep hygiene are things like changing your environment, or making your room more comfortable. It's things like getting sunlight exposure during the day or using like a light exposure box, like machine, to get light exposure. It's things like stop drinking caffeine or alcohol, exercise. Basically, lifestyle changes or changes to your environment, your sleep environment, that will supposedly solve the problem of insomnia.

The problem is these things do nothing once you have insomnia, because again, they don't address the underlying root causes of insomnia, which is your actual behaviors around your sleep and your thoughts around your sleep. It's not your [00:05:00] lifestyle. And it's not how dark it is in your room.

If you have insomnia, the Sleep Hygiene, all it will do is make you focus more on sleep, which is not good when you have insomnia, and make you frustrated and more anxious and hopeless over time because you're doing all these things, you're putting all this effort into making these lifestyle changes or changes to your bedroom and making everything perfect, and it's not solving the underlying problem, and that's going to make you more scared because you're going to think, well, I'm doing what I was told to do, but it's not solving the problem.

Sleep Gadgets & Products: The False Promises

Number four is using sleep gadgets or sleep products. So there's all kinds over the last decade or so, there's been all kinds of products and things for sleep, which are great, but don't do anything for insomnia.

So in terms of gadgets, that could be like a sleep tracker. The problem with a sleep tracker is yes, it will give you data about your sleep. But what do you do with that data? If the data is telling you you're not sleeping and you're not getting very much sleep or it's not very good quality sleep, all that's going to do is raise your anxiety and make you more focused on [00:06:00] sleep and more worried about it. And that feeds the cycle of insomnia.

The other things that people might try are getting things like a chili pad, or a special mattress, or a weighted blanket, or there's all kinds of, you know, sound machines, and there's all different kinds of devices now to help somebody make their sleep environment more comfortable, or to help them sleep better.

Again, if these things are actually helping you sleep better, then use them, but generally they're not going to solve the insomnia because it's not coming from you need a heavier blanket or something like that. It's not about that. It's about some shift in your actual sleep system that can't be taken away by an external thing like a gadget.

Not to mention these things can be very expensive. And again, you're putting a lot of focus on things that aren't ultimately going to solve the problem. It's going to make you more frustrated and more uncertain and anxious about your sleep.

Meditation and Relaxation: Not the Ultimate Fix

And number five is meditation or different relaxation exercises. Meditation can be a part of overcoming insomnia, but it is not the key part. You [00:07:00] can't just relax yourself past insomnia. Unfortunately, once it becomes a pattern, yes, you have to get relaxed to be able to sleep. But what happens with insomnia is something called hyper arousal, where your

I'm sure you've experienced this. This happens both at night, even if you're exhausted, you could get in the bed and have this kind of wired feeling. And it can also happen even during the day, even if you don't sleep very well the previous night. During the day, you could actually be aroused and not sleepy, but actually very alert.

varies during the day and depending on the person, but that is a normal part of insomnia where your system is sort of overcompensating for the fact that you're not sleeping and it kind of creates this hyper arousal or alert feeling even though you're exhausted.

When you're in that state and you're in the bed, meditation is not going to work and it's just going to get you more frustrated because you are so focused on trying to relax.

It's kind of like sleep. Like sleep is a paradox. The harder more you try to sleep, the more you focus on the sleep in the [00:08:00] wrong way, the less chance that you're going to sleep because you're interfering with the natural sleep process by consciously focusing on it.

Many times that's the case with relaxation and meditation and things like that is we're focused so much on trying to relax so you can sleep that you can't really relax and let go because your conscious mind is, is, is like trying to do something.

So generally, it's not a good idea to just try to meditate. Again, if you want to meditate for relaxation or other benefits, by all means do it. But in terms of addressing and getting rid of insomnia, it's going to lead to more frustration and things like that because it's not ultimately going to work.

So again, these five things are medication, whether it's over the counter or prescribed, herbal remedies, sleep hygiene, sleep gadgets or products, and meditation or relaxation exercises.

The Real Solution: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I)

So what does actually get rid of insomnia? Well, you need to address the underlying core issue. And the gold standard treatment for doing this is something called [00:09:00] CBT I, which stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia, CBT I.

This is the gold standard first line treatment for insomnia. And what it does is it actually just focuses, solution on the change of a few key behaviors around your sleep. So these are behaviors you're actually practicing at night when you go to sleep. So this is actually like when you get into bed, when you get out of the bed, what happens when you are having difficulty falling or staying asleep, or you wake up early in the morning and you can't get back to sleep, how do you respond to that in your behavior? What actions do you take? And what then goes through your mind? Because usually what goes along with that is something called negative sleep thoughts or worries about your sleep.

And it's those two things in tandem. The negative sleep thoughts and what are called poor sleep behaviors, the way people respond to when they're not sleeping, that actually create and maintain insomnia and create that cycle and make it sort of an ongoing perpetual [00:10:00] problem.

And then these other things that I talked about kind of just feed the problem because they feed the anxiety and the frustration and the hopelessness because you're trying all these other things that don't address the core issue that just feed that cycle of worry and frustration and hopelessness many times.

And instead, what you want to do is just do the CBTI, which does not involve taking any substances. And if you are taking a medication, or you're using any kind of substance, it'll help you taper off of that safely if that's something you want to do, at the same time, you are adding and making key changes to your sleep behaviors.

So I've talked about CBTI in more depth in other videos. I'll put a link to other videos. I actually have a playlist that goes over different aspects of what CBTI is, but this is what you want to do.

If your goal is to eliminate insomnia, is to like solve the problem and be able to maintain it for good because you learn Relapse prevention, when you go through CBT I, meaning you learn how to prevent it from coming back, even when there's a stressor [00:11:00] or a trigger that's interfering with your sleep, you learn how to not get pulled back into that cycle of insomnia.

This is what you want to do, and you essentially want to remove all the other things out of there, or slowly wind them out, again, doing it safely. If you're taking a medication, you would talk to your doctor, or if you do CBT, there would be a tapering plan that you can share with your doctor so you can come off any kind of medication or substance safely and effectively.

Conclusion: Moving Forward with CBT-I

If you've already started doing some of these things I said not to do, don't worry. Probably a hundred percent of people that get insomnia end up trying all of these things I said. Even other things I didn't even mention, because that's usually what they're recommended first.

Or if you go online, or if you go to your doctor or a provider, most of the time these are the things that they're going to recommend, the five things I said that you should do the opposite of, meaning don't do those things.

So if you're already doing those things and you're trying them, that's fine But now you know what the real solution is is CBTI cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia You also understand why those things are not [00:12:00] working and I fell into the same trap when I had insomnia I didn't know anything about insomnia or sleep when I first Developed it and I tried all these different things like sleep hygiene.

I never took medication fortunately, but a lot of people do because if you go to your doctor almost always that's what they're going to recommend.

But all that stuff can be slowly removed and undone and they all you need to do are a few key powerful things that actually solve the underlying core problems that are actually creating the insomnia.

So, I hope you found this video helpful. If it was, just press the like button and you can subscribe to the channel. I do two videos like this every week.

And if you have questions about your insomnia or anything I said in this video, then you can leave that in the comments below the video because I read those comments and then I also will create videos to answer those questions.

When I get a certain number of questions I'll do a Q& A video and I'll just answer those questions. So if you have questions then just post them in the comments below and I hope you have a good rest of your day and I'll see you next time.