hello everyone welcome to another episode of The Sleep detective podcast where good sleep Health and Longevity are inevitable and I mean that we are meant to sleep well wake up feeling rested have energy and live a long healthy life and anyone has this potential to be able to do that so that is why I'm really passionate about this podcast and helping you understand what's actually causing your sleep issues and how to fix them so today I want to talk about the five phases of overcoming insomnia and this is from the perspective of of clients going through our program and so I just want to show you what this path could look like for yourself as well and first before I get started though I want to tell you about my client Michael so Michael and I just started working together a few weeks ago and he's having nights where he's sleeping four hours um sometimes less than that and so after our first session he made some changes to what he was eating to when he was exercising um to focusing on some detoxification and he wrote that with all those changes I have been sleeping more than four hours a night for one week in a row when before he was getting an average of at least two nights where he was sleeping four hours or less which does not sound good right so you know his goal is six hours so he's not he's not there yet but this is what can happen right away we haven't even gotten his test results back and he's already sleeping better so this happens to a lot of our clients so let's get into these five phases so the first phase when people come to me is likely where you are now and it's really being frustrated because you don't know why you can't sleep being frustrated because you can't sleep when it's what we're meant to do um and then like worrying researching thinking about sleep all the time maybe talking about sleep all the time you know when I was having sleep problems that's what I did I I was constantly like Googling okay how to sleep better trying to find a supplement that would help I was telling my husband and my friends and my co-workers about how tired I was all the time it was like all consuming in my life and I imagine if you're having sleep troubles and that's what is happening for you as well and you know this is normal like our bodies need sleep and so it's normal when when we need something that we aren't getting to obsess about it it's actually how our you know our brains protect us like if we're hungry it's going to make you obsess about food if you're thirsty it's going to make you obsess about water that way you're motivated to find food and water and so it can be the same with sleep so it's nothing to beat ourselves up about but at the same time you know one of the first steps I have people do is okay let's stop let's work on you know not thinking about sleep all the time definitely not talking about all the time even not researching all the time because that just reinforces the fact in our brain that we can't sleep and the more we tell ourselves at and the more that's going to continue to happen so you know doing this isn't going to cure your insomnia we definitely need to also look at the physical reasons why you weren't sleeping but this is one of the first steps it's you know it's addressing the mental part of it is not obsessing about it all the time and not you know calling yourself an insomniac or saying things like I can't sleep um in this phase we're also you're also probably spending money on supplements on courses on programs on therapists like trying to do all the things right maybe even gadgets I know people spend a lot of money on different gadgets um you're probably lying awake at night wondering why you can't sleep lying awake at night being frustrated and so whether you're having trouble falling asleep or if it's you know you're waking up in the middle of the night I know back when again when I wasn't sleeping like it would drive me crazy because I i' kind of run through my day and try to figure out everything I had done and what what in there did I do wrong that was making me be awake at night and you can really drive yourself crazy trying to figure that out there's so many variables too about what we're eating and drinking and watching and talking about and what happens with work and family you know there's there's so much so it it can be really hard to try and isolate one barable and be like this is why I'm not sleeping well and you know it turns out you know because there are physical imbalances that are affecting your sleep it's not just the one thing you did the one thing you ate the fact that you did or didn't exercise or whatever it is there's just more going on than that and I also really remember in this stage like feeling so out of control and helpless because you're trying to do the right things you know I was Googling everything I was following all what I call the Sleep rules and you know I stopped watching TV before bed I stopped eating chocolate in the evening I made sure to exercise every day and it's so frustrating when that's what you see over and over again as a solution and it doesn't work you're like I'm doing all those things it's not helping so it just feels very out of control and and very helpless so this is common you know if you are feeling this way it totally makes sense now however you can overcome this and so once our clients sign up for the program they do feel relief because they know that they are in good hands and that they're going to have a plan like we start them with a plan immediately in the complete sleep solution program so there are action steps they can take to start improving and again like Michael a lot of a lot of them do and but there's so much relief in knowing that you know you're going you're going to have someone helping you right an exp who knows what they're doing who can actually help instead of just trying to DIY it you know that's what I did for two years before I was finally like okay I really need help with this so there's a lot of relief that comes in just taking that step and signing up and deciding to move forward and then as they you know move forward in the program then they start to see Improvement and again for some people it's right away for some people it takes a month or two or three um a few people it can take up to six months but it usually doesn't so I would say an average is three months for people to start seeing Improvement in their sleep and what happens is maybe they have more continuous sleep or so they're sleeping in in bigger chunks of sleep or they're getting more hours overall or the time they're awake is decreasing um I commonly see in people who are having trouble fall falling asleep that then maybe they fall asleep fine but then they're waking up in the night so it doesn't mean that anything's gotten worse or you know it's it is really interesting how that happens so then we just need to work on them okay let's get you sleeping through the night so that's kind of The Next Step but that is really common for that to happen um they also tend to have less worry about sleep because again there's it's partly there's that relief and then that's also what we're working on we're working on kind rewiring your brain to not be thinking about sleep especially to be thinking these negative thoughts about sleep if someone has anxiety about sleep which is totally normal right like when you aren't sleeping while you start dreading bedtime and you you lie in bed and then you're just wondering like am I going to be able to sleep tonight or when you wake up and go to the bathroom then you get back in bed and you just wonder like oh am I just going to be awake now for two hours so we really start helping you rewire your brain so that you aren't thinking those things so that that doesn't sabotage your sleep um and then I do want to point out and I have to remind all of our clients this that the journey is always a roller coaster and what I mean is it's going up and down so we I think we expect healing in general to be linear right like you're starting down here at Point a and we want it to go straight up in a straight line way up to point B you know to the goal so say it's from getting two hours a night to getting seven hours a night and we expect that we're gonna get two and then three and then four and then five and then six and then seven and it never happens like that it's the same with any kind of health issues um it doesn't just get better and better and better I mean it does over time like that's the trend but there are dips there are ups and downs so that's totally normal and I call it the roller coaster so you know someone will sleep well for a week and then they'll have a bad night again and it's easy to spiral into oh my god I've I've backtracked I'm back to where I started and so that is what we help support is not spiraling into that because that can totally sabotage your sleep again but if you just keep in mind oh that's normal I'm G to have some of these nights throughout this process but I can see like a week of a better sleep is the most I've had in years and so then there's one night that's a blip and then they go back to a week of better sleep again and then maybe there's one tough night or maybe you know something stress comes up and it affects their sleep which is again going to happen so if if you can stay calm and realize okay this is just part of it it's fine then probably the next night you're going to sleep great but if you freak out about it and tell yourself that you're going backward and nothing is working and spiral in that direction then it you aren't going to sleep as well so this is why I say like working on the mental part is so important so and keeping in mind that the process is a roller coaster and there are going to be some dips but as long as the trend is going up in the right direction then that's a sign that that everything's going well and things are improving um I also you know talk a lot about focusing on um what I call the Gap versus or the gain versus The Gap so this is from I think it was Dan Sullivan who wrote this book The Gap and the gain and he talks about how let's say you're sleeping two hours a night and you want to sleep seven if let's say you start sleeping 3 hours if you focus on oh God but it's still 4 hours away from seven hours like I'm still so far from where I want to be then you're going to stay in this like scarcity seeing seeing the negative part of it instead of if you're like wow I just went from two to three hours in two weeks Amazing so focusing on what you've gained and then you're going to keep moving toward your goal without sabotaging yourself so it's also something to keep in mind during the journey and then um the fourth phase is then you know really like your sleep has drastically improved there are some bad nights here and there this may be a part of it forever like I have weird nights too and sometimes it's you know my son wakes up in the middle of the night and I get you know I can feel like the cortisol rush and it's hard to fall back asleep or a stressful thing happens at work um and it totally or you know I find out some bad news right before bed like that can totally affect my sleep I don't think it's a big deal anymore so that's what we're going for here is like really having less of an emotional reaction to to what we call bad nights or you know less than ideal nights um and tough times and that way then your sleep does keep improving because again you're not totally sabotaging everything by thinking that you've backtracked nothing's working all of those things so it's just yeah it's more of working on that mental part of okay a bad night is no big deal and they're going to happen fewer and farther between for sure and then just having less of an emotional reaction so being more even Keel always say like life is like this crazy squiggle line up and down like a you know an extreme roller coaster of of what can happen and we just want to our emotions can be more even Keel like you know slightly going up and down like a calm River or something um but we don't have to go to the ex emotional extremes with everything that happens in our lives so that's something else that we work on and that I see our happening with our clients which is just helping them deal with stress better which is also going to help them sleep better and then the fifth phase is sleeping well consistently so I always say like I sleep well 98% of of the time again there are going to be these weird nights but for the most part I'm sleeping great and that and that was a huge improvement from being awake for two hours pretty much every single night of the month maybe there would be like one night of the month where I would sleep well back when I was struggling with this and now it's like I sleep well 29 to 30 nights of the month so that's what we're going for like we can consistently sleep at least 7 hours a night pretty much uninterrupted Ed um I still do wake up and go to the bathroom every night and I used to think that that was a problem right because that's when I would then be awake for two hours now I still wake up and go to the bathroom and then I just go right back to bed and I go right back to sleep so that is what we are looking for that's the fifth phase is really being able to sleep well consistently and also I mean we feel so much more in control when we're at this point and if a bad night does happen like usually we know what's called pausing it so again we're not feeling like hopeless and out of control and just having no idea what's going on it's like oh this happened okay that totally makes sense why I had a rough night last night tonight's going to be fine so those are the five phases is you know starting off being really frustrated talking about sleep all the time researching about sleep all the time lying awake at night really feeling out of control and helpless to then getting some relief because you know you have a plan to then seeing improvement over time time to then really having you know accepting the bad nights that are getting fewer and F farther between having less of an emotional reaction and to then sleeping well consistently what I would say is 98% of the time so I hope that helps I do want you to know like this is what is possible for you so I I'm sure that you've tried a lot of things like so many of my clients and myself like we tried so many different things and it's really easy to lose hope and think that nothing will work but like I will tell you there are imbalances in your body that are totally affecting your sleep and we can find out what these are and if you've worked with other practitioners even functional medicine doctors naturopaths things like that if you haven't gotten better it doesn't mean that it's hopeless it just means something was missed and it could be like a physical imbalance or a lot of times what I see is missed is someone looking at the big picture looking at everything that is causing this because it's never just one thing by the time you aren't sleeping well multiple systems in your body are out of balance so it's some combination of gut health and hormone imbalance and usually neurotransmitters and toxins and inflammation um liver detox issues you know if I see them as everyone has their own puzzle with different pieces some of the pieces are the same like gut health is a major piece but how that looks for each person is different some people have a parasite some people have a lot of food sensitivities some people have hpylori some people aren't digesting food well it's some combination of those things so gut health is part of it it's different for everyone and it's only one piece we also need to look at okay how gut health has affected our hormones and our minerals and our ability to detox and so many other things so I just want you to know that you can sleep well again it's what we're meant to do so the way to sleep well is to find the imbalances in your body and fix those and to make sure that your mind isn't sabotaging your sleep and that is what we can help you with you can find more information in the show notes and thanks for listening I will talk to you next week