Stuck in insomnia recovery? Revisit your goals

Have you been trying to follow every single principle of the recovery process – acceptance, letting go of control, reducing sleep effort, befriending wakefulness, etc. – only to find yourself still struggling with insomnia? If so, this article is for you.

When we see that things aren’t changing, it can be really demotivating and instill doubt that maybe our insomnia is somehow different or more resistant to these ideas. In reality, this is a common thought that visits many people during the recovery process.

And sometimes, the reason why we feel stuck is because we do all the right things with the wrong intent.

As you probably know – and if not, I suggest reading this article first – sleep is beyond anyone’s control. People don’t get to choose when they fall asleep or how long they sleep – it happens on its own.

When we introduce effort to sleep, we also unintentionally bring more awareness to a process that isn’t meant to be closely observed. Falling asleep naturally requires our awareness to gradually fade and our focus to diffuse, which is difficult to do while we’re intentionally doing things to make sleep happen.

And this is where things get tricky in recovery: when we do the recovery work while also fixating on the outcome, it overrides the helpful intent of the teachings. In other words, the recovery work itself becomes a sleep effort.

If this happens – no need to panic. Many people find themselves in a similar spot and we can still move from there. Here are a couple of ideas that can help.

Recalibrate your understanding

Sometimes, even after initially learning about sleep and insomnia recovery, we might lose sight of what we are here to do. Our survival brain is skilled at persuading us that we need to keep chasing sleep and fighting wakefulness. Revisiting what we’ve learned on a regular basis is a good way to recalibrate our understanding. For example, you might want to check the Recovery Essentials Guide from time to time as a refresher. Don’t rely on reading the materials once.

Don’t turn sleep into a goal

Of course, you want to sleep – who doesn’t? And it’s natural to view better sleep as the goal of recovery. But here’s the thing: when sleep becomes the goal behind everything we do, even recovery practices can turn into sleep efforts, potentially messing with the process.

Here’s what we can do: instead of viewing sleep as the goal of recovery, see it as a byproduct of recovery. This subtle change can make all the difference! Your main goal becomes changing your relationship with nighttime, and when sleep comes after the pressure has dropped, treat it as a nice bonus rather than the sole goal of recovery.

I spoke about how to set helpful recovery goals and measure recovery success in the video lecture “How do I know I’m recovering?” inside the Fearless Sleep Library community – if you’d like more support and structure on your recovery path, feel free to join.