How Dulce gained freedom from insomnia by giving up her attempts to control sleep and reducing her resistance to the difficult thoughts and feelings that came with it (#63)

Insomnia Coach® Podcast

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Dulce’s insomnia began when she left Mexico to study abroad in Canada. The stress of midterms and the change of climate led to sleep disruption. However, even after returning home, sleep continued to create a struggle and insomnia became a part of her life.

Even when she felt sleepy, Dulce struggled to rest. Anxious thoughts regularly interrupted any sleep she was getting. Medication and supplements didn’t get rid of the insomnia or the difficult thoughts and feelings that were showing up with it.

Things began to change for Dulce when her brother shared his observation that the more she seemed to try to make sleep happen, the more she seemed to struggle. Dulce began to realize that all the trying and all the effort to make sleep happen and all the sleep hygiene rules and rituals were giving insomnia more power and influence over her life and making things more difficult.

Dulce then found the Insomnia Coach podcast and took comfort in the fact that what she was going through wasn’t unique or unusual — that she wasn’t alone. Realizing that a different approach was needed, she enrolled in my six-week course.

Dulce started going to bed later at night and really appreciated the extra time she had in the evening (she also gave herself permission to watch TV, listen to music, and read books that were interesting rather than boring at night)! She started to respond to wakefulness and the thoughts and feelings that came with it with less struggle — being more of an observer rather than an opponent. She reduced and eventually eliminated her use of melatonin.

Dulce found this approach empowering. Instead of trying to control her sleep, she was letting go — and this freed up energy that helped her do more of the things that really mattered to her. She became focused on controlling her life rather than her sleep and that shift reduced the power and influence sleep had over her.

This process took time and Dulce created the best possible conditions for success by focusing on implementation rather than putting pressure on herself to make a certain amount or type of progress happen within a certain timeframe. As a result, Dulce has now freed herself from the insomnia struggle.

Click here for a full transcript of this episode.

Transcript

Martin: Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that by changing how we respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it, we can move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life we want to live.

Martin: The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. The statements and opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

Martin: All right. So Dulce, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come on to the podcast.

Dulce: Thanks for inviting me. I’m so excited and happy to share my story with the people that is listening to your podcast, because that was the way that I discovered you. I discovered your program and listening to other people’s stories. So this is. The best way to share.

Martin: Yeah, it can be so powerful to hear other people’s stories, that’s one reason why I’m just so grateful for guests like yourself being willing to come on and share their experiences, without further ado, if we can get talking about your experience and your story, if we start right at the beginning, when did your issues with sleep first begin and what do you think caused those initial issues with sleep?

Dulce: I think that I struggled. I started struggling with insomnia like around 15, 17 years ago, almost when I was in college, two specific events triggered my insomnia. First, I moved to Montreal to study abroad and the stress of midterms. And also, it was very cold. down there. I was living in Mexico at that point.

Dulce: So Mexico is pretty warm and I was so used to certain temperature. At night and I don’t know, I was used to my climate. And then when I moved there, I couldn’t, since I, I suffer from a lot of allergies and also my skin, I have a lot of skin problems. I couldn’t turn the heater on. And. In the middle of the night.

Dulce: So I had to turn it off, but I couldn’t get, warm. So I couldn’t sleep and that started triggering insomnia afterwards because that got me anxiety like a couple of weeks. I couldn’t, I, was just starting thinking about. Okay, I’m not going to sleep again because so cold and that started with the trigger and that was my first one, the cold weather, the allergy flare ups in Montreal, along with the anxiety from academy pressure because the, academy level in Montreal was so high.

Dulce: very complicated, then there made it difficult for me to sleep and upon returning home the stress of my university, because it was the last semester. And at the same time I was, in musical theater rehearsals and further also that exacerbated my sleep issues because I couldn’t calm me down. It was a lot of energy.

Dulce: And we used to rehearse with a lot of people. People and music and we used to sing and dance. So when I came back home, I couldn’t sleep because of the energy. And during that time, I started, experimenting with, Valerian and herbal teas and. so many supplements and nothing could work. Nothing was working, not even in Montreal, not in Mexico, nothing.

Dulce: So I would say that everything started there and. It became part of my life forever until now.

Martin: So you had a lot going on. Sleep in general is quite sensitive to what’s going on in our lives when we are going through really busy periods or stressful periods or difficult periods or even really joyous periods. I like to use the example, if someone wins the lottery jackpot, they’re probably not going to sleep for a while, right?

Martin: and I think that’s understandable. I think most of us can. understand, it’s not really mysterious, when insomnia shows up in the midst of, in that context with all, everything that’s going on. But what could then can happen, which then makes things mysterious and can lead us into that struggle that leaves us feeling stuck, is when all of that stuff, whatever it is, when all of that stress or whatever the circumstances are.

Martin: when they’re no longer present or they don’t feel relevant anymore, when our focus is now really on sleep and it becomes like a preoccupation and it feels really mysterious and we find that our actions Whereas once we engaged in actions to do things that were important to us, that matter to us, we can start to find all of our actions are geared towards trying to make sleep happen, or trying to get rid of wakefulness, or trying to get rid of anxiety, trying to make ourselves feel relaxed and calm.

Martin: And that’s how it can just so easily progress to this stage where, We get really confused and worried even more and start to think that, maybe there’s something broken with our sleep system. is that what kind of happened for you as these stressors and everything that was going on started to feel less relevant?

Dulce: Yeah. at that moment I thought that it was that period of time that, and it would go and disappear, but then it persisted. That was the problem, that it persisted and, I thought that there was something wrong in me. Even when I felt sleepy, I struggled to rest. Anxious thoughts would wake me up all the time.

Dulce: and that created the vicious cycle that you, I think that you mentioned many times during the course, that it’s sometimes something, there is an event, Triggers that insomnia and then it becomes just part of the vicious cycle. this pattern persisted over years, like forever. And it, that impacted the, my ability to, do everything in my life, even in my wedding.

Dulce: probably I shared this. In the forum several times that in my wedding, I, during my wedding period, even it was a very small wedding. We were only 36 people, but I was so anxious and so, excited and she’s nervous at the same time. I couldn’t sleep during that time, like two months. I was sleeping, I don’t know, three hours, at night.

Dulce: And then creating all these thoughts that, okay, I’m not going to sleep. I’m not sleeping, so I’m not going to rest. and I’m not going to sleep the day of my wedding. And effectively I didn’t sleep the day of my wedding. my mom that day gave me two, it was a full dropper of antidepressants.

Dulce: And also I took two pills of Ambien in order to sleep. And I only slept three hours that day. that night. of course, the day of my wedding, I was completely high. I was super high. I was drugged because of all the, pills that I took. And, but I enjoyed my wedding and everything, thanks God. But besides that, everything persisted.

Dulce: The insomnia persisted and all those thoughts.

Martin: I think you just shared, you just gave us a really good illustration of how difficult this struggle can be and how it can really influence and disrupt us from living the kind of life we want to live. So it makes sense that we want to fix this problem. And that can lead us into that vicious cycle like you touched upon where it’s, like the more we try to make sleep happen, the more effort we put into it, or the more we try and control our mind or our thoughts and our feelings, the more difficult all those things become.

Martin: And so then we try harder and then the more difficult it becomes and we try harder and it just goes round and round right?

Dulce: Yeah, it’s, I love the way that you describe and it’s so easy to understand when you say, so you don’t eat if you’re not hungry. So you can’t go to bed. you can sleep if you don’t feel sleepy, but you persist and you insist and okay, you have to sleep. you must sleep. You, have to, try.

Dulce: And, but the more you try the worst. It gets, so that is a, huge problem that I wasn’t aware. I thought that was the only way to do it because I didn’t know how to. And at the end, when I realized that, okay, so you just have to go through another pathway, not this one that you keep being doing for years, almost, yeah, almost 16, I think it was 17 years, a lot.

Martin: Yeah, I like that hunger analogy. it’s like if, we’re trying really hard to make sleep happen, it’s how do we make hunger happen? So if I was to tell you, okay, make yourself hungry. Or there’s not really much we can do apart from not eat for a certain amount of time. And really that’s all sleep needs to happen.

Martin: We need to be awake for a certain amount of time for sleep to happen. but then what can make it more difficult even once we’ve been awake is as soon as we start engaging in all those efforts, start struggling, start battling with our mind, battling with wakefulness, the brain kicks up a gear and it thinks there’s a threat because we’re so engaged in this struggle.

Martin: So it fires up and it suppresses the sleep. System in order to keep us awake so that we can survive, even though there’s not really a physical threat in front of us. The brain doesn’t know the difference. And just as you touched upon when we are so tangled up in this struggle, there is that we’re not aware so much of we can just not even realize that we’re tangled up in this loop.

Martin: because it’s like our brain wants to solve this problem for us, even though it can feel It’s a bit adversarial, but really the brain is trying to fix this problem for us. So it’s coming up with all these ideas. let’s try this, let’s try this, let’s try this. And then when those things don’t seem to work, it runs out of ideas.

Martin: And so then the brain’s let’s, go back to trying all this stuff we’ve already tried, but we’ll try harder. Let’s just keep trying harder and harder and then we, It’s when we’re trapped in that cycle, it can feel like this is it. This is the only thing we can do is just keep trying harder.

Martin: But one reason why it’s so valuable having guests like yourself come on to share their experience is when you’re able to look back, you realize now that there’s this awareness that there is an alternative option. We don’t have to be stuck in that cycle, that there might be a different way of responding to all of this.

Martin: And it might be that different way that kind of gets us out of that vicious circle where it’s just more effort and more struggle. what, was that moment for you when, because you just touched upon, like, how influential this was in your life, some of the things that you tried. What was, what happened for you to think, ah, maybe there is a different way forward, there is a different way of responding to this?

Dulce: I wasn’t aware that there was a different way, but the moment that broke my mind into pieces, I would say, or my heart was, I remember I went to see my parents in Mexico and my brother was at home also. And I came with my husband and we, my parents have different separate rooms. They in their house. So I remember that I couldn’t sleep the night before, because I never slept.

Dulce: And, my husband told me, if you want, we can sleep in separate rooms and you can probably, you’ll fall asleep easily. And I said, yes, please let me sleep by myself in another room. And my brother came to the room and he knocked the door. He’s very direct. And he told me. Dulce, have you thought that you are so wrong?

Dulce: You, every, time that I see you, could be every two months or even every six months, I see my brother. And he told me that day, every time that I see you, you need one more thing. On the top of what you have built already. So you are adding more and more structure in your life and you’re adding more curtains and then you bring your own curtains because I used to bring my own blackout curtains and I used to bring my ear pods and earplugs, sorry, and, everything and my melatonin.

Dulce: And then I couldn’t, watch TV. at night with my family and enjoying my family time at night because I was thinking, okay, no, I have to start my, sleep hygiene. It’s eight o’clock. So I need to start right now. And I couldn’t enjoy my life as I wanted to. And my brother really Open my, eyes at day saying things so directly.

Dulce: And he told me, you, you’re not broken. you don’t have anything wrong in you. It’s just that it’s your mind. You have to think that probably, you just have to let it go. And I needed that. That part. And then I started, I don’t know, checking podcasts and I stopped and then I, saw yours and I started listening to different people’s stories.

Dulce: And I was like, okay, so there are more people like me in the world. I’m not the only one and they have overcome. So there’s. There’s a light.

Martin: I think, first of all, it’s great that you just had that. I think you’re quite lucky that you had that person in your life that was able to just first of all notice everything that was going on, how you were struggling and just be able to point this out to you. Because like you said, we can have this lack of awareness when we’re really tangled up in the struggle.

Martin: And second of all, I hope your brother never becomes a sleep coach because it sounds like he would put me out of business.

Dulce: no, he’s the worst. He’s the worst, but at least he opened my eyes to see that insomnia, it’s, it wasn’t the insomnia itself. It was the anxiety that provoked it in me significantly affected my daily life. I became so meticulous about travel preparations, for example. I was ensuring I had blackout curtains.

Dulce: And sleep aids, whatever, melatonin, magnesium, so many herbal teas. I was trying with one combination and then I was saying, no, this is not working. I’m going to change it for another combination or a mix of herbs. I spent many sleepless nights searching for solutions online. There’s so much information out there that is so confusing at the same time.

Dulce: And at the same time, when I was searching online, I was checking, okay, this could help, but in my mind, I was. Thinking, Oh, all the blue light is affecting me. That is why that is the reason. So everything was a reason, at that point in my mind, that’s what I was thinking, I was completely wrong.

Martin: It sounds like you had these. Just these lightbulb moments, aha, this is the solution. So then you try that and it turns out not to be. So it’s aha, this now is the solution, this is the reason. So then you try that and then it just repeats itself and repeats itself. And before you know it, it’s almost as though you are not living your own life anymore.

Martin: It’s almost like you’re living your life on behalf of insomnia, sleep, anxiety. Like, all of your actions are just aligned with, if you imagine all of that stuff as this little gremlin that sits on your shoulder, your life just revolves around that little gremlin now. You’ve got to keep that gremlin happy, try and keep that gremlin calm, and you just lose sight of just living your own life.

Martin: And It just makes everything so much more difficult, and I think it’s the reason why it’s so easy to feel stuck and to get stuck.

Dulce: I was completely stuck and it just say it very clear. It’s like an external force that you are trying to calm. And you can’t do sometimes anything about it, until you realize that, or you, let it appears and then you can just look at it or observe it instead of fighting against it because it’s like you are punching to the wall. The stronger you do it, the stronger you’re going to feel the punch. for me, for example, traveling to different time zones was completely nonsense. So I didn’t want to travel. Didn’t want to go to Europe. I remember that I, sent you a message, an email asking you, what should I do now that I fixed my, sleeping troubles, my sleeping issues?

Dulce: Should I just travel or not? And then your answer was so easy, it was so clear. You have to live your life the way you want to live it. You have to have the life, what is the phrase that you use? You have to follow the life that you want to live. And I love because I struggle with jet lag all the time and disrupted sleep patterns over and over again

Martin: The truth is that Even insomnia aside, anxiety aside, to live a rich and meaningful life, there’s going to be difficult stuff that comes with that, right? In order for us to form a relationship with someone, for example, we have to expose ourselves to the possibility that we will get crushingly, devastatingly hurt by that person.

Martin: To have children, we have to understand that they’re going to come with a lot of joy, but a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of worry. When we travel across time zones, there’s going to be some sleep disruption. But to do the things that matter to us, there’s going to be some difficult stuff that comes with it.

Martin: What can we really do? We can acknowledge that to live the life you want to live, there’s going to be some difficult stuff that comes with it. Or we can withdraw from living a rich and meaningful life to try and protect ourselves or to avoid the difficult stuff that comes with life. But the issue then is we withdraw from life and we’re doing less, but a lot of the time that difficult stuff still shows up anyway.

Martin: So now we’re in a place where we’re doing less and dealing with all of this difficult stuff compared to doing stuff that matters in the presence of the difficult stuff. And that’s really the two choices and it’s natural and normal for us to get pulled into this withdrawal strategy because I think it’s a survival mechanism.

Martin: But often when we reflect on that, we can realize that this isn’t really making things any better. And it is like you’ve got that baseline of all this difficult stuff and all the things we’re doing to try and fight or avoid it. We’re adding on top. So now, it’s not just the insomnia, the anxiety, and all the other stuff that comes with it, but it’s also this big pyramid of all of the stuff that we’re doing in response to it.

Martin: We just get dragged away from the life we want to live, and it seems like this is just consuming our lives and consuming our attention.

Dulce: Totally. Yeah, it was consuming a lot of my precious time the only thing that we have valuable in this life is our time and if I don’t know, 50 or 60 percent of your time you’re wasting on, okay, what is the next thing, the next supplement? I’m a nutritionist, so I was so focused on that. Okay. So probably it’s my diet probably is.

Dulce: the, this supplement is not working or I’m taking this supplement at night that it’s not working because it’s interrupting another supplement or another nutrient and it was in a rabbit hole eternally,

Martin: So you had this kind of, it almost sounds like a bit of an intervention moment from your brother, where he really just pointed out, all these added layers that you’re adding on top, through your response to the insomnia and the anxiety and all that stuff.

Martin: And so you found some podcast episodes, and you’d listened to some stories, realized that what you were going through wasn’t, unique, that you weren’t alone and that it was possible to explore a different approach. And so then we started working together. So you, enrolled in my online course.

Martin: What were some of the initial changes you made that now you’re able to look back? You think, that’s what got me started on this new approach, this new path forward that was more helpful.

Dulce: The sleep window. was perfect for me because that gave me freedom at the beginning. I was like, okay, so I don’t have to go to sleep early. Actually, I have to go to sleep a little bit later. No way that’s not, that, makes no sense, but I’m going to follow Martin’s instructions because, all these people have overcame their sleep issues, I’m going to do it.

Dulce: So I’m going to just trust the process and I started doing it. And that gave me so much freedom. My husband, he’s a great sleeper. it’s one of the things that I usually, that I’ve been listening into your podcast that, when partners are together, what, when they, a person who has insomnia issues, usually their couples have the best sleep.

Dulce: of their lives or they’re great sleepers. It’s like my husband. My husband is a great sleeper. So he would say, okay, do you want me to wait for you to fall asleep? And I said, no, just go to sleep. And I’m going to stay here watching TV. Why not? and that was something so weird for me because I stopped watching TV at, night. Or even, reading, novels or something that would wake my brain. I, used to stop reading that type of, science. I stopped reading science because I didn’t want to, think at night. So I say, why not reading whatever I want or watching TV? And it helped. I would say this since the first week it helped because.

Dulce: I don’t know what happened. It was just my anxiety went away and I was sleeping, only probably five hours and I was waking up in the middle of the night, but at least I was sleeping during the first week. And that gave me that new found freedom. I felt empowered to take control of my sleep patterns, not to take control.

Dulce: I would say to leave that control out. And just relaxing. So that was very, helpful.

Martin: Before you did that, did you find that you were spending like a lot of time in bed or allocating a lot of time for sleep, like more than maybe you even did when you were, when sleep wasn’t a concern, so you were going to bed a lot earlier than you might have wanted to or staying in bed a lot later in the morning?

Dulce: Yeah. As many people, I forced myself to go to bed earlier and being there because I was reading so many other books and other theories, that once you are In bed, you shouldn’t wake, you shouldn’t, wake up or stand up. You should stay there. I was not even drinking water at night because I was afraid of going to the bathroom and then when come back, my heart would beat harder so I couldn’t sleep.

Dulce: That was my mindset. so it was just putting so many, things in meticulous, processes in my sleeping patterns. And yeah, I was spending a lot of time, wake up in the middle of the night thinking, or, sometimes I would do the respiration, the breath exercises, like three, it was how many?

Dulce: Four seconds, inhale, five seconds, sustain and six seconds, exhale. I was doing that. That didn’t work. I was counting. I was, praying, asking God to send me, the sleeping and nothing worked until I woke up and then I went to the, pantry, took two or three or five or even six melatonin pills.

Dulce: And I thought that would give me. with me, back to sleep. Sometimes it would, but the next day I would feel horrible. yeah, so I was just spending a lot of time in bed. Nonsense.

Martin: I think that it’s understandable why we do that, because we want to get a certain amount of sleep, so we figure that, I’ll give myself that opportunity to for, sleep to happen. And then we can think, I normally spend, let’s just say four hours, five hours awake at night. So if I want to get.

Martin: say six hours of sleep. If I add the five hours of wakefulness, then really I should be spending like 10 or 11 hours in bed. That’s an extreme example, but that’s, the path we can go down where we just end up allotting so much time for sleep. and yeah, our average nightly sleep duration is significantly less.

Martin: So it’s almost like we’re setting ourselves up for really long periods of wakefulness. And, When we’re allotting so much time for sleep, there’s less time available for everything else, as you touched upon, and we can end up kind of feeling really constrained by it, because half of our life, maybe, is now set aside for us being in the bedroom trying to make sleep happen.

Martin: And we can also engage in all these, we can start move, removing all these things that are important or meaningful or enjoyable, like watching TV or reading books or doing certain activities because we’re concerned how that might influence our sleep. Really, our goal with it is to start moving away from the chasing, from chasing after sleep, by doing things like going to bed earlier, staying in bed later.

Martin: Because often when we can reflect on our own experience, the more we chase after sleep, the more elusive it becomes. So as a first step on the journey for moving away from chasing, to chase sleep less, is how about we start going to bed. or getting out of bed earlier, like just allotting an amount of time for sleep that’s a bit closer to what our current sleep duration is on average.

Dulce: Yeah, and I think it’s really helpful. The, all the studies that you show on your program, on the course, because those studies, For people that are so structured and rational like myself, that you have to have back science back. Everything those studies give you also release that, okay, I’m not gonna die if I don’t sleep.

Dulce: That’s okay. Some people can sleep five hours. at night and that’s okay and they feel fine. My dad, for example, he’s not the great sleeper and actually I already recommend him your course. because he really needs it. But all his life he has slept like five hours and that’s okay. That’s fine. But sometimes he struggles with anxiety because of that.

Dulce: He thinks that’s wrong. And I told him it’s not wrong. Actually, let me show you or share this studies that. There’s no back science, there’s nothing to prove that if you don’t sleep eight hours at night, and we, not all the humans, not all humans are equal, or we are similar of course, but we can, follow different sleep patterns or structure and that’s okay, and you don’t have to wake up every single morning at the same time. Sometimes you’re going to wake up earlier, and sometimes you’re going to wake up a little bit later, and that’s okay.

Martin: Suggesting that everyone needs to get, say, 7 hours of sleep or 8 hours of sleep. Would be like saying everyone needs to get a certain number of breaths every single day. It’s something the body wants to take care of by itself.

Martin: And it’s when we try and understandably get tangled up in the process of it, that things become more difficult because can you imagine trying to count the number of breaths you take every day? Like how distracting that would be, how much of a focus it would be, and then trying to modify and figure out, okay, so between 10 and 11 a. m. to keep me on track, I should take this number of breaths and then between one and three, while I’m working out, then maybe I should, I’m going to take a certain proportion of breaths then I’m confused already just trying to figure this out and that’s really what it can be like when we’re trying to control sleep, like the body wants to take care of it by itself and the more focus and attention we give it, it’s like the more it can consume us and recognizing that We don’t have to get a certain amount of sleep, and we can’t do that through effort anyway.

Martin: The body will take, will generate the amount of sleep it needs. It’s always going to generate the bare minimum. Maybe not on a single night, but over the course of a week, for example, it will generate the bare minimum we need. And everyone has their own individual sleep requirement, and even that can vary over our lifetimes, and it can even vary from day to day based on what’s going on in our lives.

Dulce: Yeah, in terms of nutrition facts, it’s just the same. Not everybody is going to need the same calorie intake. It’s not the same as a child compared to an older person. To, an older adult, it’s not going to be the same and you’re not going to need the same macronutrient intake. so everybody is different and every person needs something different.

Dulce: And also depending on the stage of your life. So this is something that really opened my mind. So why, if we don’t need the same amount of calories, why everybody needs the same amount of sleep? It’s makes no sense to me, but nowadays it makes no sense now, but before it would make sense.

Martin: Yeah, it’s, it is so much different, isn’t it, when we’re able to look back. we just have this different awareness. When we’re able to look back and describe this process, it can sound quite straightforward and quite easy, but it’s definitely not.

Martin: It’s one thing to talk about this. It’s really quite easy to talk about. But the actual action of change and the ongoing practice and the ups and downs that come with it, are still difficult. And it is a process and it’s a journey and it takes time. So you mentioned that a couple of the first things that you changed was you started going to bed later and that freed up more time for you to do other things.

Martin: You started to make decisions or take actions based upon what you wanted to do, rather than what, that little gremlin on your shoulder was telling you to do. So you started to not really be concerned about what kind of spectrum light you might be exposed to. You would watch TV, you would read books that were of interest regardless of whether they might activate your mind or not.

Martin: You started to break down those rituals or those rules and restrictions you had in place. What other changes did you make? Were there any other changes in addition to those?

Dulce: Yeah, initially, I reduced my reliance on melatonin, for example, and also all type of insomnia medications, nothing too strong, but still, those are, what is it, for allergies, but they, so I, used to take the anti allergic drugs or antihistamines that helps to sleep and I used to take those so I stopped taking those but I was taking a little bit of melatonin because I was afraid of non sleeping.

Dulce: but then I started lower down the dose little by little until I just stopped. I said I don’t need this anymore and embrace the sleep time restriction window. the frame. what about, or so I was learning about the correlation between sleep duration and health outcomes that, that has nothing to do rather than causation, because there is correlation, but there is no causation.

Dulce: And that provided me with newfound freedom. I felt empowered also to stop taking control of my sleep, just letting, things go. And besides that, the awake exercise, I was like, Oh my God, this is the exercise that I need, not only for my, for my anxiety at night, but also during the day. I’m still doing the AWAKE exercise every single day.

Dulce: I don’t care. And it’s part of my meditation, pathway because I’m in the journey of getting better in meditation and not because of insomnia is because of what type of peace gives me. But I think that your course gave me a starting point and exercising meditation, mindfulness. And I love the AWAKE exercise.

Dulce: It’s been a game changer for me. So yeah, those are the patterns that I started stopping at the beginning and then little by little, letting everything go. I didn’t took my blackout curtains because, Because that keeps my room cooler and I love being not too cool, but not too hot at night But not because that interrupts my sleep It’s because I the way I feel and that’s the mindset that I’m switching Compared to I need to have all these situations and all these patterns in order to fall asleep Compared to that is no it’s because it makes me feel good and I keep doing my sleep Ritual, but because I enjoy it and my ritual is okay.

Dulce: Now it’s 9 p. m I’m gonna start doing my makeup Removal routine my skincare because I love doing my skincare and I used to stop listening to music but now I’m listening to music at night or putting up a video Whatever video I want to watch in YouTube while I’m doing my skincare routine I love because that is my routine and that makes me feel good, calm Distress of whatever and during the day and then I close the windows I Drink a cup of tea Actually, I was stopping eating 5 p. m. Because I thought that was also one of the causes of my sleep issues. But now I stop eating at 6 or 7 sometimes, it depends on how I feel. But I do it not because of my sleep interrupting. I do it because that makes my, tummy feels better at night, lighter, and I wake up lighter, but not because that would interrupt my sleep.

Dulce: Actually, when I go to Mexico to see my parents, oh my god, they have huge dinner and very late night. I have it because I want to enjoy with them, and I have it, sometimes I just go for a walk in order to get better digestion, I come back and I fall asleep. That is something that I wouldn’t imagine before, I don’t recommend nobody to eat late at night, but it’s more because of health issues, but nothing to do with, sleeping.

Martin: Your actions are serving you rather than your actions are serving insomnia, sleep, anxiety, stress, worry, etc,

Dulce: Yeah. Yeah. The farther you step away from, insomnia. And actually I love what the exercise that you put on the course that you say insomnia, so you repeat the word over and over again. So say it, until you realize that it makes no sense. The word is just a word.

Dulce: That’s it. So the, farther you step away from that situation, the better you’re going to feel and the more focused you’re going to be on the things that matter instead of thinking on one little thing in your life.

There’s many exercise in the course, but don’t worry, there’s nothing complicated. This is just tools that you are grabbing or taking. And the better the best tool that you collect, it’s the one that you’re going to keep the rest of your life. That’s the way that I.

Dulce: I saw, but I found that incorporating these practices into my day and that helped me to manage the stress of the daily life, not only during night, but also the anxiety during the day.

Martin: first of all, I’m glad that you found those exercises helpful. , and I think it’s important to emphasize that any kind of exercise or practice or skill that we practice, We’ve got to be mindful of what our intent is, right? So if we’re doing something with the intention of making sleep happen or getting rid of certain thoughts and feelings or controlling our minds, we might be setting ourselves up for a struggle because usually we can’t directly and permanently control that stuff.

Martin: But with the exercises you mentioned from the course, really what they’re about is building skill in. struggling less when that stuff shows up. And it usually starts with acknowledging what we’re thinking and feeling rather than just trying to avoid it or immediately trying to fight it.

Martin: like you said, being more of an observer of it, being kind to ourselves when it shows up.

Dulce: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Incorporating those exercises is mindfulness into my daily life. And that helped me to regain, letting go. control over my thoughts and actions. Sometimes you can’t control them and that’s okay. Then you realize that, you’re going to get freedom and besides, or instead of controlling my thoughts, I prioritize in activities that brings me joy and stop letting thoughts about, I don’t know, insomnia or stressful activities in my day that dictate my life choices. For me, traveling was very important, was very joyful, used to be, and then it stopped being joyful. Stop, bring me joy because of my insomnia. so I learned to be more gentle first with myself and accept that occasional sleep disruptions that were part of everybody’s life. But also if you think with this, Biohacking movement that is out there, that we all need to sleep certain amount of hours at night and you have to experience and experiment with different, biohacks, like red light therapy.

Dulce: I, I spend so much money in all that stuff, thinking that would fix my sleep troubles.

Martin: There does seem to be this proliferation of, life hacks, and, they often come with new terminology or new slogans or new buzzwords and catchphrases. and I think often that can overcomplicate things or make it, or imply or suggest that there’s this one thing that’s going to be effective for everybody.

Martin: often, unfortunately, it can just add to the confusion, and when it comes to sleep there really doesn’t need to be any confusion because sleep is like breathing, like digestion. It’s something the body wants to take care of by itself. We just need to be awake for long enough for sleep to happen.

Martin: And really we need to not put any effort into making sleep happen. And then we’ve got the two perfect conditions for sleep. If we were going to summarize what the changes were that you made that you found most helpful, it sounds as though, maybe first of all, it sounds like that awareness of, the futility of adding struggle and effort on top.

Martin: What your brother pointed out was that first big moment for you, just the awareness itself. And then it moved on to not chasing after sleep so much. So you’d start to go to bed a bit later rather than earlier in an effort to make. more sleep happen or a certain amount of sleep happen. You started to identify and then break down any unhelpful rules and rituals that you had around sleep.

Martin: So you started to allow yourself to watch TV again. You started to allow yourself to read whatever you wanted to read again. you started to practice acknowledging the difficult thoughts and feelings that would show up, making space for them, being more of an observer of them, maybe being kind to yourself when things felt difficult to, and practicing ways that you might experience being awake at night, dealing with all the thoughts and feelings that can come with that with a little bit less struggle.

Martin: Refocusing your attention during the day when your mind started to pull you away and started to worry or think about what the next night might be like, or what you should try next, or this is never going to work, you should give up. Just acknowledging that and refocusing, bringing yourself back to the present moment with some kindness, refocusing on where you are, what you’re doing.

Martin: And, Doing what matters to you, so your actions served you. They didn’t serve your insomnia anymore. So everything you did was because that was important and meaningful to you, rather than important and meaningful for that little gremlin on your shoulder with the name of insomnia. does, that feel like a good summary of what your plan of action was?

Dulce: it was perfect. Yes. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing and nothing have been done overnight. So it’s being. a journey. You have to go, you have to be patient with yourself and allow things to, to do by themself, to let things go with the flow and calm down. And because people, and that is something that I also noticed On the forum, your forum.

Dulce: some people are super desperate. They want things for tomorrow. They want things be, they want results. overnight and that’s not possible. imagine how many years you’ve been struggling with this situation. And if you want results for tomorrow, probably that is a reason why you’re not sleeping.

Dulce: Because you are focused all the time in that anxiety. So instead of focusing on your insomnia, start focusing on letting things go, letting your anxiety be. Observe it and be gentle with yourself. so yeah, you, summarized perfectly the way that I’ve been, following those, steps. But I didn’t even think about the steps themselves.

Dulce: I only follow the process. I trust the process. I trust you and thank you. Yes. Thank you. I don’t know what I would done without my brother. Telling me at the beginning that day and opening my eyes. that I was just focusing in things that really didn’t matter. but that pushed me to find your course.

Dulce: I actually found, I think that I shared this with you that I was about to follow other course. it’s, it includes different tests, hormonal tests and, different biomarkers, neurotransmitters. And I was like, really? Do I really need this? it’s too much. It’s just giving me even more anxiety, but thanks God I found.

Dulce: your podcast. I found two podcasts. So it was like in between two. And I said, no, this is what my heart says. And yeah, I, follow it. I trust the process. And here I am.

Martin: I appreciate the, credit that you give me, but really, you did all the work. I can provide the information, no one’s gonna change their relationship with sleep just by consuming information.

Martin: Really what matters is acting on that information. and that’s, the hard part. Because change is difficult, change is scary, change is unpredictable. And like you touched upon, It makes sense that we want this fixed, right now. I want, and I wish I had that magic wand in my back pocket that I could just wave and everyone would just sleep perfectly tonight and never experience anxiety at night or any of the other thoughts and feelings that come with insomnia.

Martin: But we can’t. we can have this outcome goal in mind. But we can’t make that outcome happen through effort. What we can do is focus on the process of moving toward that outcome. And we can control that process in a way because it’s action based. So like you touched upon, what matters is making those changes, taking that, making that commitment to consistent action that move you towards the outcome that you want.

Martin: And it does take time. There’s no certainty in terms of the timeline, and there’s always ups and downs along the way. There can be patches where it feels like we’re doing great, and it’s all behind us, and then we have a difficult night again, and we feel like we’re back to square one. But we’re not. It’s just a case of continuing to practice if we feel that this new approach is getting us closer to where we want to be. If we’re noticing that, yeah, this is better than the alternative, which is struggle, fighting, avoiding, engaging in actions that aren’t realigned with who we are and who we want to be. How long would you say that it took for you to get to that point where you felt like you just weren’t engaged in that constant struggle anymore, the insomnia, sleep, the thoughts and feelings that come with being awake, were losing their power and influence over your life?

Dulce: It’s hard to tell, but I would say it started Doing certain effect in my mind since the first week, even though I, was struggling, I was still struggling with insomnia, I was waking up in the middle of the night, I was not sleeping the first week and not the following week, not probably one month, but at least my anxiety was lower, was not that high, and since the first week sleep window helped me to give me freedom. So that freedom allowed me to decrease my anxiety level. So from the first week. And then I would say that the second month, I only had two or three nights with insomnia, but I didn’t want to pay attention on them.

Dulce: I didn’t focus on them. And the third month, I didn’t have not even one insomnia, night. Not even one. I was waking up in the middle of the night, but that’s not insomnia. It’s part of your normal, sleep pattern. Everybody wakes up in the middle of the night. It’s just that some people, is more aware of it.

Dulce: And especially people that struggle with insomnia. They think that is part of the insomnia, but it’s not. It’s just that some people come back to sleep in 30 minutes, some people in 10 minutes, some people one. But yeah, I would say the third, month, I was in a wake or I, like for long, longer periods of time. Yeah. Like three, three months.

Martin: does this mean that now every single night is fantastic and perfect and you never have any difficult nights or never spend much time awake at night?

Dulce: no, Of course, sometimes I’m awake and, I was sharing the hormonal information a lot that when we are in our fertile, window, or years, women struggle more during luteal phase compared to, follicular, your estrogens are higher. So when they are higher, sometimes you can sleep.

Dulce: you can fall asleep deeper and that’s okay. And when you’re in the luteal phase, your hormones fluctuates more, especially because progesterone wakes you up a little bit more during the night or, gives you hot flashes. Like when you are in menopause also, you’re gonna keep struggling with that, with hot flashes.

Dulce: So you wake up and yeah, that’s a little bit hot. That’s okay. And just took the blankets out of myself. Just let it cool. That’s fine. And if I don’t sleep, if I can’t sleep, I just grab a book. I read a little bit and then I go back to sleep. That, is my life nowadays, but I don’t struggle with that situation. I don’t follow any rules.

Martin: It’s so insightful, just what you shared there, just this acknowledgement that, yeah, there’s going to be some difficult nights from time to time. Sometimes there might be a reason for it, like the hormonal fluctuations. Sometimes there might not be, but your response now or your relationship to that is completely different.

Martin: Like it’s not consuming you anymore, consuming your attention. It’s not this giant magnet from a Looney Tunes cartoon pulling you away from the life you want to live. You’re just acknowledging what’s happened and then you’re getting on with your life. It’s not throwing you around so much anymore.

Martin: It’s not a big focus. It’s not a big concern or an obstacle or a problem anymore on those occasional nights when insomnia decides to temporarily show up again.

Dulce: Yes, yeah, I no longer obsess over the number of hours of sleep. I get and focus more on the quality sometimes of my sleep and how I feel when I wake up. my husband used to be a better sleeper. He is a good sleeper, of course, but sometimes he wakes up and he says, Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t sleep. Oh, I don’t feel restful.

Dulce: And I say, I always feel restful, but it’s so rarely when I don’t feel restful, even if I just slept five hours. I feel restful and I feel with a lot of energy because I’m focusing on other things.

Martin: And on that note, something that I hear a lot from people is once they feel like they’re struggling less with being awake at night, maybe their sleep duration hasn’t even changed. Maybe they’re still spending a lot of time awake at night, but when they’re able to recognize that they’re struggling less with that wakefulness when it shows up, they feel like they’ve got more energy the next day, even though they’re not getting necessarily getting more sleep just yet.

Martin: But that absence of the struggle and the battle that takes place that might have been taking place for hours throughout the night is freeing up so much more energy. And that’s reflected in how we can feel the next day.

Dulce: Yeah. Sometimes we want to be perfect, but perfection is not attainable and embracing imperfection, once you embrace that imperfection that allow you to find peace within you.

Martin: I love that. I’m really grateful for the time you’ve taken out of your day to come on and show your story. I do have one last question for you, which I like to put in at the end of all these discussions.

Martin: And it’s this, if someone with chronic insomnia is listening and they feel as though they’ve just tried everything, what would you that they’re beyond help, that they’ll never be able to stop struggling with insomnia. What would you say to them?

Dulce: to anyone struggling with insomnia, I want to say there is hope. you don’t have to navigate this journey by yourself. sometimes we need guidance and support to realize that there are other people struggling with the same situations as you, and you can reclaim or let that control over your sleep and your life can get better, light. I would say trust the process and believe in your body’s ability to find balance again because your body is wise and it may take time and patience. But healing your body and your mind, especially your mind, because there’s nothing wrong with your body. I know people that have cancer. I’m a nutritionist.

Dulce: I work with elderly people. My patients, I have younger patients, but I also have older and, I work with over 65 years old people that are struggling with so many situations, cancer, diabetes, whatever you think, metabolic diseases, and they still, they can sleep, they still sleep. So if they can sleep while you’re not, while you cannot sleep, everything is in your mind and healing is possible. And I would say take the course. Don’t think about it. Just take it and trust the process and trust you.

Martin: Thanks again for coming on to the podcast dulce it’s really appreciated.

Dulce: Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. and thanks for, doing this, Martin. You are doing a great job, for this world.

Martin: That means a lot. Thank you.

Martin: Thanks for listening to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. If you’re ready to get your life back from insomnia, I would love to help. You can learn more about the sleep coaching programs I offer at Insomnia Coach — and, if you have any questions, you can email me.

Martin: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Insomnia Coach Podcast. I’m Martin Reed, and as always, I’d like to leave you with this important reminder — you are not alone and you can sleep.

I want you to be the next insomnia success story I share! If you're ready to move away from the insomnia struggle so you can start living the life you want to live, click here to get my online insomnia coaching course.

Note: Dulce is an holistic nutritionist and can be found at Dulce Dagda Nutrición (website in Spanish).

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