How long recovery takes: my thoughts

If I had to choose one of the trickiest questions to answer, it would be about the duration of the recovery process.

It’s understandable why we want to know how long journeys like these last, even in rough terms. Insomnia and sleep anxiety are very challenging experiences, and it’s natural and normal to want to be over them soon.

However, when it comes to time specifics, those who truly understand how this paradox operates can never give any promises or forecasts. Because: a) no one can know the future and b) forecasting the outcome tends to shift the outcome.

Let’s say someone tells us, “You should be completely insomnia-free in three months if you do X, Y, and Z.” At first, that might be very empowering, and we get to work. But as the timeline progresses, our brain checks in on how we are doing, and we begin to feel the pressure to hurry up. The closer the “deadline” gets, the stronger the tension and the higher the stakes. All we now focus on is whether we are “there” or not. Any minor imperfection can throw us into panic because there’s not much time left.

Creating any notion of a “finish line” does us a disservice. It doesn’t matter whether we talk about deadlines in weeks, months, or years – the brain will use it “against us.”

I’ve been talking about sleep recovery for quite some time, and I’ve noticed a significant gap in communication: normalizing longer journeys.

A common impression people get from consuming a lot of success stories is that insomnia recovery should take roughly 3-6 months. That’s simply not true!

Last year, I wrote a blog post about Success Story Fatigue where I tried to dispel the myth of quick and easy successes. If you’re interested, you can check it out.

Recovery is a delicate, nuanced process with many moving parts. It can’t be “templatized” or planned through ahead of time. As we progress, things tend to become more subtle, which may create the feeling that we aren’t moving at all. But this is because the brain tries all possible backdoors to sneak back its control mechanisms – backdoors we didn’t even know existed!

Thinking that our insomnia recovery should be faster and easier tends to prolong the recovery process. What a cruel irony… This is why it’s so important to talk about longer recovery times, normalize longer journeys, and recognize that short recovery stories are more of a rarity rather than the standard. Most likely, recovery goes beyond one, two, or even three years. Whatever pace we are going at, we aren’t lagging behind.

Here are a few observations from my journey and from witnessing the journeys of others. Don’t hold them too tightly, though:

• It’s going to take as long as it takes. I know this is a terrible answer, but it’s one of the closest to the truth, in my opinion. The sooner we let go of the finish line and keep this an “open-ended” journey, the sooner we disconnect our brain from engaging in self-defeating patterns.

• It’s very likely to take more time than we would like.

• It’s not going to take an eternity if we keep working with our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around sleep and life in general. Freedom from suffering is available in this lifetime.

• Don’t be intimidated by a lengthy journey – it’s not going to be all dark ages. There will be periods of greater peace and clarity, newfound trust in our body’s ability to sleep, especially as things progress and evolve.

Hope you found this letter helpful ❤️

See you next time!

Ali