Anxiety & Insomnia: Anxiety tips & what we can learn from my client's transformation

If you have insomnia, then you definitely experience some level of sleep anxiety. You also might be experiencing general anxiety on top of sleep anxiety.

In this video and blog post, I talk about how we develop anxiety and my tips for dealing with it, and one of my clients will give you her tips on coping with insomnia.

When you have insomnia, the more you try to do things to fix your sleep that end up failing, the more frustrated, scared, and worried you get. This is what leads to the build-up of sleep anxiety.

Everyone experiences some level of general anxiety from time to time in response to all the stressors in life. This is a part of life and something we can’t escape. When anxiety affects your day-to-day living, it is considered an anxiety disorder.

If you are unsure if you have anxiety or what symptoms to look out for, here are some common physical and psychological signs and symptoms of anxiety.

• Feeling nervous, restless, or tense.
• Having a sense of doom
• Increased heart rate
• Shortness of breath
• Sweating
• Dizziness
• Ear ringing
• Trouble concentrating
• Trouble sleeping
• Gastrointestinal (GI) distress
• And much more

Of course, I can’t diagnose you, and you can’t diagnose yourself by looking at a list of symptoms. Only a medical professional can do that.

Here are my tips for you when you are experiencing anxiety.

1. Don’t fight the anxiety. When you are in the middle of experiencing anxiety, you can stop it or suppress it. The best thing to do is just to allow it to happen. Breathe into the feelings, and they will pass. The more you try to stop or control it, the more it will strengthen and the longer it will last.
2. If you feel some anxiety coming on, you can get a journal and write everything in your mind down on paper. This helps to show the brain that you are listening and get everything out on paper.
3. Know that you are safe. If you experience anxiety and even panic attacks like I did, it’s helpful to know that nothing bad can happen to you and that you are safe and okay.

 Let’s talk about one of my clients. 

I forgot to ask if it is ok to use her first name in the video and blog post so let’s just call her Jenny. I don’t know a Jenny personally, and it’s the first name that came to me. Lol

Before working with me….

• She was a highly anxious person, even before insomnia.
• Here are the symptoms she experienced.
• Nervous butterflies
• Chest pain
• Heart palpitations
• Sore tongue
• Sleeping less and less (averaged 4 hours per night)
• Developed Sleep Anxiety
• Felt physically and mentally awful

• Here is what she tried for her insomnia and anxiety.
• Medications
• Supplements
• Acupuncture
• Naturopath

After a couple of months in my self-paced program

• She still has general anxiety, but not as intense.
• Hyperarousal levels are much lower.
• No more physical symptoms of anxiety or rarely
• She falls back asleep now
• 8-9 hours of sleep every night from an average of 4 hours.
• She’s almost done with her recovery, but she is getting more than double the sleep she got before.

Her biggest tip and what she has to say…

• Don't get frustrated at it! I wish I could go back to my old self on that night it started and just tell myself, you have a lot on your mind right now, it's affecting your sleep and that's actually normal. Just go with it. If you sleep, you sleep, if you don't, it's ok. It's temporary.  

DO NOT PANIC! I panicked. And it started the insomnia cycle. But now I know and I tell anyone I know who is struggling with sleep about "This insonnia coach I found in Hawaii..." 

Now, if you want to learn more about dealing with all the thoughts of worry and fear, I have a separate video dedicated to this entire topic in even more depth, so watch this video next!

Do you have a self-critical inner voice in your head when you have insomnia?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycCM9N1_9XE