Who gets insomnia?

If you've had trouble sleeping, you may have wondered if only people with a certain genetic make up, life experiences or habits have sleep troubles? The answer to this question, perhaps you’ve figured, could help you not only understand your own situation, but highlight the way back to peaceful sleep. 

And it certainly can. 

The answer is that anyone can find themselves in a sleep struggle, but those of us who end up with insomnia do share some traits. 

In other words, although people from all backgrounds, all ages, all corners of the world, with all different types of temperaments have been known to have insomnia… there tends to be a set of personality aspects that make it more common. Let’s summarize these as the high achiever. 

The high achiever

The high achiever is driven, Type A, hardworking, goal-oriented, and health conscious. They don’t give up easily and when things don’t go as planned, they try harder and often criticize themselves for not having achieved what they set out to do. 

Please know that none of the above is “wrong” or meant as criticism! No, being a high achiever is rewarded in almost every aspect of life. The world is a more wonderful place thanks to all the high achievers out there. But, when it comes to sleep, things are different. 

Sleep is a passive process that happens by itself when we aren’t trying to force it. 

For those of us used to achieving our goals by effort, the instinct to “fix” sleep after a short span of choppy nights can lead to more frustration and more sleepless nights.

Trying harder and harder to achieve sleep can lead to the ongoing struggle we call insomnia. 

So to yet again answer the question of who gets insomnia, we can say that although it can happen to any of us, it is more likely if we are a high achiever. 

The great news

If you recognize yourself as a high achiever, an unpleasant thought can pop up: being destined to choppy nights. That’s not a thing! 

The great news is that as peaceful sleep has no requirements, there’s nothing standing in the way of restful slumber for anybody on the planet, regardless of personality. 

There are millions of high achievers out there who sleep wonderfully well, because their focus is not on fixing their sleep. 

And thanks to your diligent search for the answer to the question of who gets insomnia, you can now work hard on anything you like, let sleep drift off the to-do list, and see peaceful slumber come your way.