Insomnia is an AI + two new YouTube videos
Hi friend,
I wanted to share with you the text I wrote when I was still on my sleep recovery journey. Things at that time were moving slowly and “aha“ moments were an extremely rare event. Most of the time I spent pondering and figuring out how to end my insomnia (most of which were sneaky sleep efforts). But one night I had an “aha” moment that kicked me in the right direction. It didn’t end insomnia right there for good, but it gave me some ground I could feel when things got turbulent.
To this day, I have been using this insight (and the analogy) in my content and coaching.
✏️ A quick note: this is the extract from my email that I sent to coach Daniel from the Sleep Coach School. He’s been a tremendous support throughout that time. I slightly edited the text to make it a bit more consistent but the core stayed untouched.
Oct. 2020
I know that we always talk about how you can’t control your thoughts and emotions, how we need to befriend wakefulness, stay unattached to the outcome. It all makes so much sense but for me, it felt a bit vague (though I felt this was true) and once the evening comes I still get overwhelmed with anxiety. So I was thinking, since anxiety goes on, there must be some resistance from my side, but I just didn’t know yet what it is.
So I started dissecting the fear into small pieces: so small that I didn’t have any mystery about how it works. And here is what I came to:
Fear is nothing more than “software” that is run by our brains. This “software” is written not by us, our environment or the initial event that started insomnia, but evolution.
You can’t directly affect it because it is a program that just goes on without your conscious choice. You can’t really become friends with the program or start liking it – it’s just software! But you can become aware that it’s there, in you, and every person has this software pre-installed. It’s our safety system.
But it is not just a program, it is an AI program, meaning that it learns as long as it gets input from you. The input can be avoidance or fighting or any sort of resistance. Every time you “feed” it, you provide input and the program gets stronger after every iteration.
In case of insomnia, we had our first bad night and reacted on it, which gave the program a command (an input): “hey, there is something going on with the sleep area. Go and problem-solve it” and the software starts “scanning” sleep. First, it has too little input so its effect is not that noticeable. It is not yet too reactive, not too strong. You just start having occasional bad nights. “Hm, the soothing tea didn’t help, but let me try sleep meditation, that’s going to work for sure!“
But the more you react, the more input the program gets and the more it learns. It learns that you’ve tried X and it didn’t help, now you try Y and it didn’t help either, and you go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole each time discarding more and more things that didn’t work, thus teaching the AI program “This situation is more serious than we thought!”
Now, to stop this, new information is needed (a new kind of input). Education is a great start: understanding how hyperarousal works, identifying sleep efforts, learning about phases of sleep and so on.
And most importantly, in my opinion, we need to understand that fear is the automatic lifeless AI program that was made throughout evolution. And insomnia (fear of not sleeping) is not a special type of problem, but the same fear program that might also run for you in the work/health/relationship areas. It just happened to have sleep on the radar. We don’t have to like it, but it’s good to understand it and see it for what it is.
Once I truly realized that there is no mystery, that it’s just the way my brain works (automatically!), everything what I’ve been learning so far came together nicely – changing the relationship with wakefulness, non-resistance, acceptance. Pretty soon I felt at peace. I was lying in bed, totally calm, knowing that it’s ok to be awake because this program is still running and I just need to wait until it runs out of “fuel”. I know I will not die if I wait a few days-weeks until the fear program turns off.
I’m writing this in the middle of the night, after waking up (!) absolutely calm but excited about this realization :)
End of message
What’s new 👀
Two new videos on my channel that are worth checking out:
What to do at night if you can’t sleep
I went in-depth on how to guide ourselves as we go through nighttime wakefulness moments.
Vacation special: when you have to wake up much earlier than usual
My awkward monologue on the topic of handling high-pressure nights when we don’t have much time for sleep.
If you feel you need extra encouragement and mentorship on your journey, I have a few slots available for my new email-based support package. Check it out.
Take care ❤️
Ali