The Insomnia Phobia Connection

From extensive personal experience, I can attest that Saniya Warwaruk is sharing vital information for ending insomnia and other sleep problems. In fact, as of this posting I will be following the shared advice for my own.

The advice was born of rebel sleep therapist Daniel Erichsen. The advice reminds me of how I handled what was an addiction to time. I experimented with Eckhart Tolle's idea of being addicted to time by committing to not wearing a watch or looking at clocks. I was very successful to the point of being able to, in effect, slow down and speed up time, similar to how a watched pot never boils and time flies when having fun. Where I failed in the experiment should have been a clue to my sleep disorder: I had a panic attack at the idea of not knowing what time I had gone to bed nor what time I had gotten up. I compromised by not giving up my watch, as I intended, and instead allowed myself to look at it only at bedtime and first thing in the morning. It worked in that it calmed me down. However I should have asked myself why I was so obsessed with sleep to begin with.

I also used the advice in this video, which I will summarize at the end based on my own perspective, when I cured myself of an obsession with order. By order I mean "a place for everything and everything in its place." It is a fine and wonderful standard to live by, but I had little flexibility or resilience around the idea: If things were not where they were supposed to be, I became an unhappy person, at best. How I handled it was to put something unclean on the floor and in my way and in sight of me, promising myself that I would not move it from that location until it no longer bothered me. A couple of months went by before that happened, but it did happen, and now I am a less rigid person. The point to this example is that fears must be faced, head-on and willingly - and I do believe many sleep disorders are based on hidden fears. Fears faced are fears evaporated.

Many times in my life I have faced fears for the purpose of evaporating them. Yet there have been things that I did not know I feared, just like the idea that my sleep problems are fear-based. The moment I read about sleep phobia, resonance kicked in. Whenever resonance  is felt, it is wise to follow up.

As of this writing, it is 4:35 AM and I am already teaching myself that my being up since 1:30 AM is OKAY. No judgement. My mind was preoccupied, so I sat up and emptied it here, and in my journal and calendar. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I already know that facing any fear, whatever form the fear takes, is a multistep process that takes time, like a new habit takes time. Being okay with being up in the middle of the night and refusing to judge the situation, is the first step.

Another tip is commiting to a sleep window as I've learned to commit to an eating window: Just accept it as a necessary fact for well-being and do it - without judgement. I need 7-8 hours sleep to feel well, so my window will likely be 11-7, or maybe 10-6. As I get older, earlier feels better.

Non-judgement is key and should be expanded upon. Judgement is a form of pathological attention. Everything in life can be executed in either a pathological or healthy way. Observing without judgement is assessment and is healthy. Observing with judgement is assumptive and is pathological. Refusing to observe, temporarily, is therapeutic when attempting to get out of the judgement habit. It's akin to how I threw something on the floor and forced myself to ignore it until it didn't bother me anymore: I cured myself. Refusing to give sleep any mental attention, whatsoever, is needed to cure underlying fears associated with sleep - which means you don't have to figure out what those fears are or where they came from, which is good, because my stuff started early in life.

Lastly and just as importantly: A day loaded with feelings of accomplishment - whatever that means to you - is a night of contented sleep. Feelings of accomplishment arrive best when we choose to enjoy our waking moments. Enjoy our chores. Enjoy our work. Enjoy our family, friends, and neighbors. Enjoy the passage of time. If there is something you have tried your absolute best to find a way to enjoy and still can't enjoy it? Then seek help or delegate or do something to change the situation for the better. When I was younger, I slept best after extensive physical activity during the day. Now that I am limited in physical activity due to disabilities, I find that it is absolutely true that the days I have enjoyed my non-physical daily tasks are the days I sleep easier. Which only tells me that I have been judging my daytime activity since becoming disabled - and that changes, today.