Tarik has been told that he has hypertension and is worried that insomnia is destroying his health. Thea has come off Xanax and is not sleeping. Despite not sleep she doesn't feel tired during the day and is worried that this is a sign that something is wrong. Karen is obsessed with the moment she is about to fall asleep which keeps waking her up.

Erin graduated from BedTyme several months ago and was doing well until recently. When the state of the world make her worried, Erin started having marijuana to calm her nerves. Now she has gone several nights with patchy sleep and wonders what to do.

In this episode we talk about how to make sure you don't fall back into having trouble sleeping after having gotten to a place where sleep wasn't on the radar.

A tricky question from Dinara takes us deep into the psychology of insomnia. She is wondering if reading in bed, in context of the gas and brake model, isn't problematic because it increases the braking. We explore this questions and land where at the core of the dilemma, the fear of wakefulness. More importantly, we see how doing something enjoyable at night teaches the brain that wakefulness is not a threat or enemy but a friend. And when this happens, fantastic sleep is around the corner.

In this episode Coach Daniel reads a chapter from his new book Set it & Forget it and shares the story of how it came to be.

Fernando is sleeping well but - what to do about the lingering cognitive impairment? Salima started sleeping well as quarantine relived her or obligations. But then she started taking a long time to sleep and she still takes medications. What to do? Yuchen has seen much improvement but is stuck at the 5 hour mark, well short of the 7 hours or so desired. How take the final step? Ricardo is moving to England and anxiety flares up. Tracy feels good but has been told that she is an enigma because she sleeps no more than 2 hours. Has she hit the wonder wall?

Matthew wonders why sleepiness disappears and why he’s not sleepy despite a very active day. Karan is not worried, but wonders when to expect feeling sleepy at midnight and no longer having sleep state misperception. Young sleeps very little after starting to have migraines about a year ago. What to do?

In this episode Luke guests the podcast and shares his story. It always took him a long time to fall asleep but, this was never a problem until a night where he was up until 4 am. He now understands what happened, what insomnia is and he is ready to take the step of leaving trouble sleeping behind. Yet he always seems to get pulled back.

Insomnia is often described as something similar to PTSD. Something happened in the past that triggered ongoing trouble sleeping and although you sleep better, this fear and the insomnia that came with it, can be triggered again.

In this episode we look at an email from Natalie and talk about how the way to not have Post Tramuatic Insomnia is to accept that the trigger and the trouble sleeping that followed can happen again. Because when you stop resisting that potential trigger, you avoid the reaction that lead to ongoing insomnia.

Insomnia happens when we fight the perceived opponent of sleeplessness. This narrative is reinforced if you look at sleeping well on any given night as a victory. This is why you should be happy and celebrate when you sleep well, without being victorious or becoming attached to the outcome.

At what point should I go back to sleeping in my bed? This is a very common question from a viewer or client who’s been sleeping on the couch or spare bed since insomnia started.

The answer - the sooner the better!

Because when you do, you no longer feel that you’re being punished for having trouble sleeping, you no longer have that looming inevitable future trigger of having to go back to bed and most importantly - you will start building true sleep confidence.