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How Maria faced the fear of insomnia by allowing it to exist and discovered that all its power came from how she responded to it (#49)
A couple of years ago, Maria experienced anxiety and panic attacks. When she didn’t sleep for over 72 hours, she felt that something was wrong with her. She feared that the chemistry of her brain had changed and her days became dominated by sleep-related thoughts and worries.
Medication didn’t seem to help. Maria felt lonely, confused, and afraid. She felt that she couldn’t even leave the house because things were so difficult. She withdrew from doing things that she enjoyed. She found it hard to focus on anything other than sleep.
Feeling completely stuck, Maria committed to a new approach. She started to leave the house and went for short walks — even when her mind told her that wasn’t possible. Taking baby steps, she started to do more of the things that mattered to her.
Perhaps the most helpful change Maria made was facing the fear of insomnia. Instead of trying to fight or avoid insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings associated with it, Maria started to allow it to exist. She would even start to welcome it, whenever it chose to show up — and, by doing this, Maria found that insomnia started to lose its power and influence.
She soon discovered that she didn’t need medication to generate sleep. That she didn’t need to do anything to make sleep happen. And, that trying to fight or avoid insomnia and the difficult thoughts and feelings that often come with it only set her up for an ongoing struggle that made everything more difficult.
Maria realized that insomnia’s survival depends on how we respond to it. And, she is 100% sure that with the right approach, no matter how bad your situation might be right now, you can recover.
Click here for a full transcript of this episode.
Transcript
Martin Reed:
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 Reed:
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 Reed:
Okay, Maria, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.
Maria Koziol:
Absolutely, no problem. My pleasure.
Martin Reed:
I’m really excited to have you on. Let’s just start right at the beginning. When did your sleep problems begin and what do you think caused those initial issues with sleep?
Maria Koziol:
If we’re talking about the trigger, I think it was a very complex case. There was not a singular cause or trigger that I could point out. I think I haven’t even been able to recognize it yet, like 100%, what was that? I just think it all started at the point when I actually started to have different mental health problems. That was at the beginning of 2021 when all of a sudden, I started to have panic attacks and anxiety attacks, when I had never ever experienced such things before. I was trying to figure out why at that time, why the beginning of 2021? I hadn’t had any major tragic events at that time, so this is still kind of a mystery to me. But I talked about it with my psychotherapist and we’ve come to the conclusion that it must have been for the reason that I’ve had a lot of personal issues that were like, I didn’t really have a chance to talk about them so they accumulated over time.
And then on top of that, we had COVID, the outbreak of COVID. I had to experience loneliness and detachment from environment at that time. Also, problems with work as well because I wasn’t sure if I’m going to be able to keep my position at work, because of COVID. So I think there was a lot of different things that started all of my problems, and insomnia came along with it. Insomnia came around beginning of 2021. That’s how I would describe the beginnings, how I would describe the trigger. I know it doesn’t really point out any specific trigger, but it’s kind of hard for me to say, to be honest.
Martin Reed:
I think everyone’s experience is a little bit different there. Some people have this really clear and obvious pinpoint and they know exactly when it began, what caused it. For other people, it can be a bit mysterious. The trigger itself is usually less of an issue. It’s more to do with how we’re responding to that sleep disruption when it turns up. So when all this difficulty arrived, what was sleep like for you? What was a typical night like if there was such a thing?
Maria Koziol:
I would have long streaks of not sleeping, and the longest I had was I think more than 72 hours when I didn’t sleep for the whole three or four days. At this point, I was absolutely anxious and freaked out. I hadn’t really slept. That was the longest streak of not sleeping for me in my whole life, so at that very point, I thought that something must be wrong with me. And I’ve heard a lot of people on your podcast saying the same, so I also could identify with them because when insomnia comes to your life, you feel as though something must be wrong with you. How can you not sleep? All of the other people are sleeping. How can you just lose your ability to sleep?
I just felt as though something in my brain, like chemistry of my brain, has changed permanently, and I was super anxious about that. So, how would my sleep look like? I had the long streaks of not sleeping and then following that, I would have maybe a microdose of sleep the next night, like two hours, and then another streak of not sleeping like two days, and then maybe again two hours of sleep. Sometimes I had five, six hours of sleep during this period, but then it would usually be followed by, again, not sleeping or sleeping in micro doses. So that was a nightmare, I remember that so well.
I could lay for hours in bed and just focus so much on trying to get asleep that it never happened. The more I focus on trying to fall asleep, it never ever happened. I would usually spend hours and hours tossing around, tossing over in bed.
Martin Reed:
What about your days? Were you finding this difficulty, the struggle with sleep was affecting your days as well?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, of course. At the beginning when this was all new to me, the insomnia thing happened so suddenly and I was so disorientated, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was so confused about all of this especially since before, I had never struggled with sleep, ever. I would fall asleep very easily anywhere, so that was all the more strange. About my days, I would be all shook up and I could cry over simple things, like a glass would break and I would burst out in tears. I was even shouting at my family members for no reason. I was crying. I was super emotional. Physically-wise, I was able to function normally. I could even go work out, to be honest, but the only thing stopping me from that was that my mind wouldn’t stop running around the thought if I will be able to sleep that night or not, or how I didn’t sleep the last night.
My whole day was dominated by the sleep thing because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Regardlessly of what was going on in my life, even if maybe I won lottery, I couldn’t probably be even enjoying that because I would be still thinking about how I am not able to sleep that night. That was manipulating my whole way of thinking. I felt like I couldn’t be really enjoying the activities I used to enjoy as well anymore. And to be honest, I think the worst part of it was the loneliness that came along with it. The feeling of being alone and the feeling of your family members and friends not having a smallest clue about what you’re going through because they have never experienced insomnia.
I know they have been trying to help me and comfort me, but they had no idea about what I was going through. My mom would usually tell me, “Okay, don’t worry. If you didn’t go sleep that night, you would probably go sleep the next night.” And I’m like, “But you don’t get it. I wasn’t sleeping for three days, what if I die?” No one could actually understand me. No one could relate to it, because none of my friends ever experienced insomnia, none of my family members ever experienced insomnia, so the feeling of loneliness that no one actually understands you, that was also a very big part of how I felt during the day, if that makes sense?
Martin Reed:
Yeah, it makes complete sense, and I’m sure it’s going to make complete sense everyone listening to this as well. You mentioned that physically, you felt like I could probably still work out or still do activities that I had planned or that are important to me, but at the same time, your mind is like, well, can you still do that? Do you have energy to do it? Are you going to enjoy it? Are you going to be able to focus on it? How did you actually end up responding? Did you still do things that you had planned or did you start to withdraw from those kind of activities because of all this mental chatter that was going on?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah. Of course, before I met you and your content, I would definitely withdraw from everything. I would stop doing what I liked. I would stop even leaving house because I felt like absolute waste, and I just refrain to do anything. I just did the bare minimum all day. And by the way, I couldn’t really focus on anything else other than thinking if I will sleep today. At the same time, because I was so obsessed about the sleep thing, and I’m very emotional and expressive person so I would usually say to people very sincerely what is in my mind instead of actually keeping that inside me. So I would tell all my family and friends about how I feel and about what I’m going through, and then I noticed people started to withdraw from me as well because I couldn’t stop talking about just one thing and they were fed up with this, which I do understand right now.
But at that time, it was also very disappointing for me because I felt like they didn’t want to hang out with me anymore because all I could talk about was sleep, and the lack of sleep. I started to lose friends at this point. Of course, not family, but my family would also be kind of… I felt as though I shouldn’t really talk to them about this anymore because they didn’t express this explicitly, but I felt like they’re also fed up and helpless because I would usually talk, call my mom and cry over the phone how I can’t sleep, but she couldn’t do anything. She was just like, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t know how to help you.” So, that was quite serious at that time. Before I actually met you and your content, I was completely lost with this.
Martin Reed:
Did you find that by taking that approach you did actually start to feel better? Or did you feel about the same? Or did it tend to make things more difficult? What was your actual experience like? What were the results of withdrawing and doing less?
Maria Koziol:
The results of actually withdrawing and doing less, I would just be stuck in the bubble of thinking about sleep. I would spend all my day in bed and freak out at the thought of the moment when I will have to go to bed. And I remember, whenever it was becoming darker outside, I would freak out completely because that means it’s the nighttime, so this is my nightmare time. This is where I will be suffering for the next seven, eight hours while everybody else will be asleep. Basically all my days would be staying in bed, working from bed as well on my laptop because I do have this possibility to work remotely. However, I wouldn’t even go for a walk. I wouldn’t do anything. It almost felt like I was stuck in a bubble and not do anything, and just await this nightmare coming in the evening.
Martin Reed:
When you picked up on this idea that we talk about a lot on these podcast episodes of trying to still do some of the stuff that matters, what were your thoughts on that? Were you thinking, no, that just sounds impossible? Or were you thinking, I’m going to give it a try? What was your response to that idea and how did you go about changing to start reintroducing daily activities back into your life?
Maria Koziol:
I think if I had heard it from a very random person, like my friend, like, “Hey, go enjoy your activities and still try to enjoy your life anyway,” I would think this person has no idea what they’re talking about. This is absolutely stupid and I’m not going to do it. They don’t know what risk is involved. But when I heard it from you, of course I studied your content before and you were a very reassuring and convincing person for me, also with a very, very huge knowledge about the topic and certified as well, so you were very convincing for me. So when I heard it from you, I thought, if he’s saying that, I need to try it, because it did sound a little bit, hmm, I’m not sure if it’ll work for me, but I still wanted to give it a try. That was my approach when I heard it from you. Probably might have been different if I heard it from someone super random, like my friend or someone who I met on the street.
Martin Reed:
And what was that process like for you? Did you take little baby steps, maybe start by getting outside each day, or did you just dive right in and try to do everything as though insomnia didn’t exist? I’m curious to what your approach was.
Maria Koziol:
As far as I recall, I think that was more like baby steps. I started with going out for a walk, going to the shop instead of ordering a delivery, just walking a dog out. And then it came to the point when after two weeks, I was actually meeting my friends out in the restaurant, which was inconceivable for me at the very beginning because after the night of not sleeping, I was like, that’s not possible. That’s not possible to meet anyone. That’s absolutely not happening.
And then I actually saw that it is possible. Okay, you won’t be your best form, you won’t be all shiny and glamorous, but friends wouldn’t even notice. To be honest, when I showed up without the night of sleep, no one would even notice that I wasn’t sleeping. No one even said anything. I looked normal and I kind of behaved normal as well. At this point I started to realize that if they didn’t notice that, I think it’s actually worth going out. No one will notice that anyway, so let’s just continue doing that. That’s basically how it went, I think from the baby steps up until the huge steps.
Martin Reed:
Did you find that it was really hard at first to get yourself outside, going for walks, being in social situations again? Or did you find that straight from day one, for example, as soon as you started to do stuff like that, you noticed that this was kind of an approach that was maybe more helpful, compared to doing less stuff?
Maria Koziol:
The very beginnings, it felt awkward, but I knew I was doing this to improve my situation so I did really have a lot of hope related to it. It did feel a bit awkward and difficult at the very beginning, but it got easier and easier over time. Logically if you see something is working, you trust it even more and you go into it deeper, so that was how it looked like for me, if that makes sense?
Martin Reed:
Absolutely. Were you finding that your brain was generating all different stories about this or thoughts that maybe weren’t very helpful? Maybe it was telling you things like, so you went for a walk today, that might have felt good today, but are you going to be able to do it tomorrow? Is this going to work? You can’t do this. Maybe let’s stay at home. Did you find lots of thoughts and stories like that turning up?
Maria Koziol:
Definitely. Yeah, exactly. I’m even surprised you’re saying this as though you were reading my mind at the time. I would always question myself after… There would be positive thoughts and two seconds after, these little demonic thoughts that are like, fine, you can do it today, what about tomorrow? You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not good for your health. So definitely, I did have a lot of these thoughts. It was super, super difficult to overcome them. It was a constant battle in my head. It was about questioning my actions all the time in my head. Yeah, definitely.
Martin Reed:
I think it’s interesting that you feel like I just accessed your brain there and pulled out those stories, even though we haven’t talked about this before this episode, and just because that’s how the human brain is wired. It generates thoughts like that, stories like that. Ironically, as it’s doing its job of trying to look out for us, it’s trying so hard, it’s being a little bit unhelpful and getting in the way. And it can be a little bit like these maybe two little mini brains, one on each shoulder. One is kind of reassuring, and yes, you can do this, and the other one’s like, are you sure you can do this? Maybe you can do it now, but what about tomorrow?
And so we are kind of caught in the middle of that. But I think where it can be so helpful, the process you described, even if it is baby steps, just kind of reintroducing stuff, doing stuff again, especially things that are important to us and meaningful to us, is we can prove to ourselves that even when our brain is doing whatever it wants to do, helpful thoughts, unhelpful thoughts, true thoughts, false thoughts, whatever it’s doing, whatever it’s churning out, we can still control the body. We can still choose how we respond to those thoughts.
So even if the brain says, you cannot go for a walk today, you’re too tired. Physically, we can still stand up, put our shoes on and go out of the door. That’s another reason why I think it’s helpful to start getting active again, is because we recognize and reinforce this idea that no matter what our brain is telling us, we still get to choose to respond. And every time we respond in a way that’s helpful or workable, we’re reminding ourselves of that. And maybe we are less likely to get tangled up in trying to battle with our mind because after all, do we need to battle with our mind when we are constantly reminding ourselves that we can respond however we like, regardless of what the mind is doing?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, absolutely.
Martin Reed:
Just rewinding a little bit, you talked about when the sleep disruption first turned up, one way you tried to deal with it, which is completely understandable, is to do less because you just feel, this is overtaking my life, I don’t have the energy to do anything. I don’t look right, I’m going to make mistakes, all of that difficult stuff. What other things had you tried in an attempt to improve your sleep to get things back on track, that now you’re able to look back, maybe weren’t effective or weren’t quite so helpful?
Maria Koziol:
The first thing I can list were medications. There was a lot of medications that only worsened my state at the very end. I was taking Zolpidem at some point, even SSRI. Then once sleeping pills stopped working because I was very quickly addicted to them… When I think about it back two years ago, it’s just so dreadful to think when I saw this pack of pills, I was running to them just to take it, like I couldn’t wait for the moment to take these pills. And never in my life I thought I could be addicted to something, and then it turns out I’m so easily addicted to these pills. So I got freaked out and I called my psychiatrist and I told them, “Hey, can we get off these pills? I’m just frightened about how it might end up because I feel like I’m super addicted. And by the way, they’re not working anymore because my tolerance went up. I started off with half of the pill and now I need to take two, which is not even an allowed dose, I think.”
My psychiatrist, they started to prescribe me even weirder things like antipsychotic medication that was used for treatment of schizophrenia, for example. I think it was called quetiapine, something like that. It was an absolute disaster. I was going for holidays and then my whole suitcase will be filled up with different types of antipsychotic medication, sleeping pills. I felt as though I just walked out of a psychiatric ward. It was a absolutely terrible experience and it lasted for a couple months that I was taking the pills. None of these pills actually worked. With the sleeping pills, they helped me fall asleep initially, of course, but afterwards, I would just need more and more to fall asleep. If I stopped taking them, I was in an even worse place that I was before starting to take them.
That was not a solution to the problem, not at all, and I kind of blamed the psychiatrist for that as well because they knew that they shouldn’t have been prescribing me this as a long-term solution. And even though they knew it perfectly because it’s an obvious fact, it’s a short-term solution for insomnia, not a long-term, they kept prescribing me this all the time. Whenever I asked, no questions, just give her the pills, get her off my phone and give her the pills. So it wasn’t working anymore, and not to mention that I started to feel super, super depressed the day after. And then I started reading articles about how Zolpidem is linked to creating depression. There were even cases studied of people that committed suicide and didn’t struggle with any mental health issues before taking Zolpidem. I think it’s very important to mention that because it’s never going to do any good.
Pills are never the solution for insomnia. I think it would never do any good, long-term. Short-term, yes, they’re working, but it’s just for a limited period of time and then you would need more. You would get addicted. You would develop other things like depression maybe as a side effect, which I started to develop, because I was also scared that they might have influenced my brain chemistry long-term somehow. Some medication, psychiatrist, I would usually call different psychiatrists like three times a week. It was a very helpless cry for help, and I never felt as though they would really listen to me. I just felt as though they take notes, prescribe something, and you would never hear from them again. When I tried to outreach to them, I remember they prescribed me this SSRI, I’m not sure what was that exactly? I can’t recall now.
But they prescribed me the SSRI and then I took it, and it was like five milligrams. How I felt, I can’t even describe it. I was super scared about how I’m feeling so I immediately called the doctor and I was trying to get in touch with him like, “Hey, please help me. I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going on with my body. I feel as though my receptors are not working.” I couldn’t even read an email. I was taking my pen and going with my pen to my fridge. It felt absolutely odd, so I tried to call them. They didn’t pick up, or they said to me, “Okay, you can schedule an appointment in a week. I can’t give you anything right now.” So there was no support from them. I felt as though they would just prescribe me pills and didn’t care what happened to me afterwards. So, that were the things that I’ve tried and they only had a detrimental impact on my mental health.
Martin Reed:
I’m curious to know, all the doctors that you spoke to, did anyone suggest alternatives to medication or offer you any advice as to how you might be able to deal with this without taking medication, or even make some changes while taking medication that might also prove to be helpful? Or were you just only offered medication as the only option that was available to you?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah. Most of them would actually only prescribe me pills without mentioning any other recourse. Some of them were pointing out at the CBT-I therapy. Some of them were like, “Here are the pills, but make sure you actually sign up for the therapy because this is a long-term solution.” So yeah, some of them did, but I feel like most of them were just prescribing pills without mentioning anything else.
Martin Reed:
When you heard about CBT-I, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, was that something that you’d heard of before? Is it something you explored or looked into? Were you able to research anything about that?
Maria Koziol:
Not specifically for insomnia. I knew that kind of therapy existed. However, I would more link that to depression, for example, and not really to insomnia. I’ve never heard of treating insomnia with that before, to be honest, so that was new to me. But at the time, I already actually met you and your content. I had you, so I didn’t really have to have any other help because it was helping to have your content to read and listen to you every day.
Martin Reed:
Let’s talk a little bit now about what happened next on your journey, the new approach that you explored. What were some changes that you made that you are now able to look back on and think that this was really what helped me start moving away from struggling with insomnia and started to create better conditions for sleep, reduce the influence it had over my life? Where did that start? You’ve already mentioned starting to do more things, be more active during the day. What other behavioral changes, new habits or old habits did you bring back that you’ve found to be particularly helpful?
Maria Koziol:
I remember after I’ve seen your video where you were talking about how we are never going to lose the ability to sleep, that was a milestone in my process because for some reason, that was so simple but it sounded so reassuring for me and convincing that I just trusted you 100%. And from the day I saw that video, I would usually also replay it in the next days as well. But from this moment, I just thought, he’s right, it’s true. I shouldn’t be freaking out about this, and you also provided some kind of evidence or lack of evidence that chronic insomnia can cause any health problems. There was no evidence of that as well. I feel like from this point, it all started to change. First of all, I stopped obsessing about whether I’m going to go to sleep tonight or not.
The method I have used, I would describe it as facing the fear or facing the pain. Previously, before I heard your video about what I just said, I would usually freak out when the night was coming, the bedtime was coming. I would run away from the fear. And the thing with fear is that when you run away from it, it gets bigger and bigger and holds you like a monster, but when you face it, it shrinks. So I know it may sound very odd to someone who didn’t apply this, but I applied this method in my life when it comes to insomnia and panic attacks, and it really works. It really works. When you face the fear, it just shrinks, and over time, it actually disappears. And the same applies to insomnia.
There’s something I read recently in a book, and it said, it stuck in my head, it said that pain and fear is not absolute, and your experience of fear and pain changes relative to how you react to it. And I think it’s perfect to describe the attitude we should have to insomnia. That is a great things to say, I’m not sure if you will agree with me, but this simple method I think has actually cured me. Your reaction to insomnia is something that essentially is the most important thing. It is all about how you react to this. And then once I understood it, of course, it wasn’t like, oh, I just started applying this method that I was cured the other day. No, of course not. It took time. It took quite a lot of time to apply it 100%.
But over time, I really stopped fearing the lack of sleep, stopped fearing the nighttime. Even though I wasn’t sure if I’m going to fall asleep, I would remind myself of the video you posted and I was like, okay, cool. Well, I won’t die anyway. I won’t sleep, but that’s it. I won’t die. Nothing bad will happen. I will live. Nothing bad will happen. And then I was able to change my thoughts over this. Of course, the bad thoughts would always pop up again. They would always try to devaluate what I was just saying to me. It takes time, of course. It’s not going to be overnight change, but it really works. It really works. When you maybe stop fearing insomnia, it’ll eventually vanish, evaporate because it will have no force over you. It will just lose its forces.
About the behavioral changes, what I mentioned so far, I started going out more, doing more activities, but I really started to not care anymore about sleep. I was like, well, I might not fall asleep this day, but it will not kill me. I will live, I not die, and there’s no proof someone ever died from lack of sleep. That was the same with my panic attacks. That was the same treatment that I used, and I was able to overcome them as well. I was like, okay, cool. I’ll have a panic attack, but there’s just a sensation. Nothing is actually physically happening in my body. It’s just a sensation of your thoughts and what’s going on in your head. There’s not nothing endangering your life at this point. So I think that was super relieving, this knowledge that the less you care, that the less powerful insomnia will become. I would say that was maybe my behavioral approach.
Martin Reed:
Do you remember the title of the book that you just shared that quote from? Just think people might be interested.
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, of course. That book wasn’t about insomnia, by the way, but I feel like it’s kind of connected to the way of how you might treat insomnia and anxiety and panic attacks, so it’s great. It’s called The Tools and the author is Phil Stutz. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing his surname in a correct way, but the book is called The Tools. You can buy it on Amazon.
Martin Reed:
Going back to this idea of facing the fear, if someone’s listening to this and they think, I think this is something that I want to try. I want to face this fear. I want to face this fear of insomnia. I want to face the fear of what tonight might bring. How do we actually go about facing that fear? If you were to give someone a list of actions to take that might help them face the fear, what might that look like? How do we implement that in practice, do you think?
Maria Koziol:
I know it’s super difficult. It’s very, very difficult even describe or maybe implement at the very beginning, but I promise you it’s doable. What I would usually do is… Let’s try to imagine that you won’t fall asleep again tonight. Try to imagine that you’re laying in bed for four or five hours, everyone else is asleep, but you’re struggling and the next day is just waiting in a few hours. You’ll need to live through the next day, but you didn’t have any sleep. Imagine you’re in that situation and let this thought be in your body, flow through your body and just say to yourself, bring it on, I want to experience this. I want to experience the worst that can happen. Bring it on. I’m ready. And you know what? When I said it to myself, I would feel like I actually get less anxious, and then I felt like a bit more powerful.
I would stop thinking about it. I’m like, I’m going to continue right now with my day. I’m going to go relax, watch TV. Then if I’m going to go to bed and the sleep doesn’t happen, I’m ready for it. I’m 100% ready for it, and I’m not going to be freaked out. I know it’s super difficult for people that are suffering with insomnia because they feel as though they’re dying, that they’re so desperate. I know where you are. I promise you, I’ve been there. It’s absolutely dreadful, but there’s hope. There’s always a way out, and you can do that. You can’t die from it, I promise you. There’s no way you can die from it. Nothing can happen to you. I’m sorry, I don’t really have instruction on how to actually apply this. It’s so difficult. I think it’s the battle that you need to have with your thoughts.
Martin Reed:
I think really what you described is moving away from the struggle, so moving away from trying to make sleep happen, trying to remove certain thoughts and feelings from your brain, but taking an approach where you’re acknowledging everything that you are thinking, everything that you are feeling, and you’re becoming maybe more of an observer instead of someone that’s trying to fight it. Or at the very least, you’re kind of removing the dam that you might be trying to build to stop all of that stuff arriving. But what happens when we build a dam? It all accumulates behind that brick wall and eventually it all comes overflowing anyway. I think what you’ve described is moving away from that struggle, just allowing this difficult stuff to exist, especially if your experience anyway tells you that you can’t really get rid of it, and just allowing it to flow through you, as difficult as that might be.
Maria Koziol:
I know, exactly, but it’s actually really working. It was the same for my panic attacks. When I first heard this method, I was like, I’m not sure if it’s going to work but let’s try it. When I had a panic attack and when I would try to calm down, it would only get worse, always. And then once I remember, I was on the airplane and that was a very long flight, like 11 hours, 12 hours, I had a huge panic attack on the plane. That was so frightening to the point that I was actually about to exit the plane, like at the boarding, I was about to actually tell the flight attendant, “Sorry, I think I’m not going because I can’t… I have a panic attack.”
But I said to myself, you’re going to get through this. It happened to you a lot of times. It’s not going to kill you, it never killed you. And then the panic attack came, and instead of trying to calm down as I would usually do, like oh my God, I need to calm down. Everybody will notice. Oh my God, nobody can notice that. I just felt as though this is normal. You’re just having a panic attack. Feel it, bring it on. I want to feel it even more. Just try to feel it with all of your body. Let it let this feeling flow through you and it will actually calm down after a while, after three, two minutes. And the same was with my insomnia. Let’s say that it was bedtime and it was like midnight, then 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, I’m still not sleeping. Normally, at the very beginning, I would freak out.
I would be watching my clock all the time and just getting crazy, whereas after applying this method of not avoiding the fear and just facing it, I was rather laying in bed and thinking, well, that’s okay. Eventually I’m probably going to fall asleep, even if it’s microdose. I’m just going to watch a movie right now. There’s nothing bad happening. I’m just going to watch a movie and let the bad feeling flow through my body. I’m not sleeping well. Okay, what can I do about this? Nothing. This is how I try to explain this to myself. And you need to remember, the bad thoughts will always pop up. Even sometimes they will try to devaluate what you are thinking, and they will try to push you away from your path, but those are just thoughts. Those are just thoughts. They will always pop up. It’s just thoughts. I think that would be my advice.
Martin Reed:
There’s just so much great stuff there. I’m curious to hear, I think you already mentioned this, but even taking this approach of facing the fear, allowing the difficult thoughts and feelings to show up, allowing the possibility of insomnia to show up, it’s not like, I’m going to do this and then all of a sudden all these difficult thoughts permanently disappear, and all of a sudden you’re having great nights of sleep again. I’m curious to know what the process or the timeline was like for you? Was this something that you found that you had to practice for days, weeks, or even months in order to notice that it was helping? I’m just curious to hear what timeline from your own experience?
Maria Koziol:
To be honest, that was when I started using this method. The behavioral change, that was quick. That was like a few days and I was back on track with my sleeping. I was like, wow, I slept seven hours. Wow, it really worked. But then when I had a bad night after a few days, I would have a rebound of anxiety like, ah, you see, it’s actually not working. So my bad thoughts would tell me, ha ha, you are so confident, but you’re never out of this. You’ll be stuck with insomnia for the rest of your life, and there’s no cure for you. I would have a rebound sometimes, but then I would again apply the method of what we were talking about just now, and then it would again improve for a few days, where I would have a rebound as well and then I would apply this and that would improve as well. So I would say that it took me… To fully recover from insomnia, is that what you’re asking for? Or just right after applying the method?
Martin Reed:
I would say, maybe where you got to a point where you felt, I’m free of it, I’m independent. I can live my life independently of how I sleep. I’m not so much tangled up in the struggle. It’s not something that has a big influence over my life anymore.
Maria Koziol:
I feel like that would be maybe a month or so when I got this confidence about, I’m actually able to recover from insomnia. But at this point, I was sure that it would at some point come back, but then I had the tools to defend myself and to approach it in a right way. I think the very, very big lesson for me was something that you’ve been talking about a lot in your podcast and in your content on YouTube, that the most important thing is actually your approach to the sleep and your approach to insomnia, and how you react to it will essentially influence how it will develop.
So, that was something that was super big lesson for me, the attitude. When I started having insomnia, when it happened in my life, my attitude was anxious fighting. I was super confused. I was freaked out. I was battling the thoughts all the time. I was trying to fight the fact that I’m not sleeping, forcing myself to fall asleep, which is impossible to do it. With pills, it’s possible, but there’s no way you can force yourself to sleep. So my initial approach to that, my reaction to insomnia was completely fighting with that. And then when I changed to accepting it and just acknowledging it, it was shrinking more and more, and eventually it disappeared.
Martin Reed:
I like that way you said that it felt like it was shrinking and shrinking, because one of my favorite analogies about the insomnia struggle is we have this big scary thing called insomnia, and we want to fix it, we want to get rid of it, so we want to study it to figure it out so we can get rid of it. So we might pick up a magnifying glass, and we’ve got the insomnia here, and we are just staring at the insomnia through this magnifying glass. And of course, when we look through a magnifying glass, that thing is really big. And when we are focused just on looking through the magnifying glass, we don’t see anything else around us. All we see is that thing that we’re staring at. I think when we start to move away from the struggle, it’s like instead of prodding and poking at this thing under the magnifying glass, what we’re actually doing is putting the magnifying glass down. So the insomnia might still be there, but now because we put the magnifying glass down, our field of view is so much bigger.
We can now see the world around us. We might be better able to engage in the world around us, and we free up our attention to do more of the things that matter rather than everything being consumed by what we see through that magnifying glass. I just think that aligned with what you were saying, where it kind of shrunk. That’s just what reminded me of that. When we’re able to recognize that this thing is here, maybe I can’t directly get rid of it, but what I can do is dilute it by adding other things to my life, doing good stuff. It starts to lose its influence, so it feels like it gets smaller. And even when it’s present, if something loses its influence over us, maybe then it becomes less of a problem that we feel we need to address. And when it comes to sleep and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it, the less engaged we are with trying to control that stuff, the more it’s able to take care of itself and get back on track by itself.
Maria Koziol:
Definitely. It’s so true because I felt like I just disempowered insomnia by taking away the importance of it. At some point, I just started to ignore it, like the screaming of insomnia, just ignored it and I felt like it devaluated the whole thing and then it becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, and eventually actually disappeared.
Martin Reed:
One thing you touched upon was that you’re not using sleeping pills anymore. I’m curious to hear what your process was to moving away from them, because sometimes it feels like they’re the only thing that we have available to us, that maybe we need them, otherwise no sleep is going to happen. Or we need to always have them as an option, just in case. What was that process like for you in terms of moving away from them and not even having them available anymore?
Maria Koziol:
I feel like it lasted very long until I actually was able to stop taking them. That lasted for months, maybe half a year. By that time, I already developed addiction to the sleeping pills. The moment I threw them all away, I remember even flushing them off in the toilet because what happened is that I really started to… I’m very sensitive person in terms of emotional intelligence, so I can very easily recognize when what I’m feeling is being influenced by external object or is it my own feeling. And then after taking those pills the next day, I would feel as though I was on drugs, I was depressed, the feeling of depression. I can’t recognize… I used to have my sad moments. Of course, everybody has them. Some maybe depressive thoughts a little bit, but those thoughts were different.
This was feeling as though I started to have depression. It was like everything was so vain. I felt like I would like to start crying, and it was so strange for me. I never felt that way before, so I immediately linked this to the sleeping pills because I knew this wasn’t mine. I never had this feeling before. At this point, I was so scared. I was super scared about my mental health at this point and I said to myself, okay, this is the point where I need to say goodbye to the sleeping pills. However difficult this is going to be, I can’t do this anymore because it started to have a super detrimental impact on my mind and I couldn’t allow it anymore. I just felt like, no, it can’t happen. I can’t deal with depression on top of that, it can’t happen. So, that was my trigger, the point where I decided goodbye, sleeping pills. I can’t.
Martin Reed:
Maria, I’m really grateful for you coming on and giving up your time to share your experience. I know that a lot of people are going to find your experience really helpful, hopefully as well, hopeful, and just giving people the possibility and the reassurance that we can get out of this struggle no matter how difficult things feel. But I do have one last question for you, which is one that I ask everyone that comes on, and it’s this, if someone with chronic insomnia is listening and they feel as though they’ve tried everything, that they’re beyond help, that they’ll never be able to stop struggling with insomnia, what would you say to them?
Maria Koziol:
I came from the point where once I even almost overdosed on sleeping pills and I drank alcohol as well. That was when I was on holidays. I think I was just so hopeless and so desperate and all the things you can imagine how I felt.It wasn’t just for clarity, it wasn’t like it was a suicidal thing. I didn’t want to do it. It’s just that I would do anything to fall asleep, so I just had a bunch of pills and I took like five or six pills at once and I drank a bottle of wine before, anything to fall asleep. I just wanted to fall asleep.
I’m very lucky and grateful that I’m still here today, but you see at what point in my life I came from, what point I was in. That was absolutely a nightmare and I almost killed myself. Where I am now, I don’t have insomnia anymore. I can sleep without any pills, without nothing. So, just wanted to say it as a word of hope for anybody that could be listening to that because it doesn’t matter what state you are in right now, maybe you’re taking a lot of pills daily as well, you are able to get out of it. There’s always hope. You can always do it. And definitely, you’re going to recover from insomnia.
Remember that you are not alone and there’s millions of people experiencing the same thing, even though you don’t see them around you, but they are there. There’s a lot of people suffering from the same thing you are suffering right now. And as difficult as it might seem right now, I promise you, you will recover.
And you need to change your approach to insomnia and try to disempower insomnia. I know how confusing it sounds, but I promise you will be fine and there’s a way out, and you will 100% recover. I’m 100% sure about that, because I was at the same point as you and maybe even worse, so there’s hope.
Martin Reed:
All right. Well, that’s great. Thanks again, Maria, for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, no worries. Thank you so much, Martin, as well.
Martin Reed:
Thanks for listening to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. If you’re ready to move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life you want to live, I would love to help. You can get started right now by enrolling in my online course or you can book my phone coaching package. My online course runs for six weeks. It will help you make changes that can create better conditions for sleep, it will help you identify and get rid of any behaviors that might be making sleep more difficult, and it will help you respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it in a more workable way. You can work through the course in two ways. You can choose the self-coaching option and work through it by yourself with the support of an online forum that is available only to clients.
Martin Reed:
Or, you can choose to add one-on-one email coaching and work through the course with me by your side. With the one-on-one coaching option, you get unlimited email access to me for eight weeks, starting from the day you enroll. Any time you have a question or concern, any time you are unsure about anything, any time you want to focus on the challenges you face or any difficulties that show up, you can email me and I will be there to coach and support you. You can get the course and start right now at insomniacoach.com.
Martin Reed:
With the phone coaching package, we start with a one-hour call (voice only or video — your choice) and come up with an initial two-week plan that will help you create better conditions for sleep and practice moving away from struggling with insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it. You get unlimited email access to me for two weeks after the call and a half-hour follow-up call at the end of the two weeks. You can book the phone coaching package at insomniacoach.com/phone.
Martin Reed:
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 can sleep.
Mentioned in this episode: The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels
I want you to be the next insomnia success story I share! If you're ready to stop struggling with sleep and get your life back from insomnia, you can start my insomnia coaching course at insomniacoach.com.
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By Martin Reed, MEd, NBC-HWC, CCSH, CHES®
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A couple of years ago, Maria experienced anxiety and panic attacks. When she didn’t sleep for over 72 hours, she felt that something was wrong with her. She feared that the chemistry of her brain had changed and her days became dominated by sleep-related thoughts and worries.
Medication didn’t seem to help. Maria felt lonely, confused, and afraid. She felt that she couldn’t even leave the house because things were so difficult. She withdrew from doing things that she enjoyed. She found it hard to focus on anything other than sleep.
Feeling completely stuck, Maria committed to a new approach. She started to leave the house and went for short walks — even when her mind told her that wasn’t possible. Taking baby steps, she started to do more of the things that mattered to her.
Perhaps the most helpful change Maria made was facing the fear of insomnia. Instead of trying to fight or avoid insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings associated with it, Maria started to allow it to exist. She would even start to welcome it, whenever it chose to show up — and, by doing this, Maria found that insomnia started to lose its power and influence.
She soon discovered that she didn’t need medication to generate sleep. That she didn’t need to do anything to make sleep happen. And, that trying to fight or avoid insomnia and the difficult thoughts and feelings that often come with it only set her up for an ongoing struggle that made everything more difficult.
Maria realized that insomnia’s survival depends on how we respond to it. And, she is 100% sure that with the right approach, no matter how bad your situation might be right now, you can recover.
Click here for a full transcript of this episode.
Transcript
Martin Reed:
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 Reed:
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 Reed:
Okay, Maria, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.
Maria Koziol:
Absolutely, no problem. My pleasure.
Martin Reed:
I’m really excited to have you on. Let’s just start right at the beginning. When did your sleep problems begin and what do you think caused those initial issues with sleep?
Maria Koziol:
If we’re talking about the trigger, I think it was a very complex case. There was not a singular cause or trigger that I could point out. I think I haven’t even been able to recognize it yet, like 100%, what was that? I just think it all started at the point when I actually started to have different mental health problems. That was at the beginning of 2021 when all of a sudden, I started to have panic attacks and anxiety attacks, when I had never ever experienced such things before. I was trying to figure out why at that time, why the beginning of 2021? I hadn’t had any major tragic events at that time, so this is still kind of a mystery to me. But I talked about it with my psychotherapist and we’ve come to the conclusion that it must have been for the reason that I’ve had a lot of personal issues that were like, I didn’t really have a chance to talk about them so they accumulated over time.
And then on top of that, we had COVID, the outbreak of COVID. I had to experience loneliness and detachment from environment at that time. Also, problems with work as well because I wasn’t sure if I’m going to be able to keep my position at work, because of COVID. So I think there was a lot of different things that started all of my problems, and insomnia came along with it. Insomnia came around beginning of 2021. That’s how I would describe the beginnings, how I would describe the trigger. I know it doesn’t really point out any specific trigger, but it’s kind of hard for me to say, to be honest.
Martin Reed:
I think everyone’s experience is a little bit different there. Some people have this really clear and obvious pinpoint and they know exactly when it began, what caused it. For other people, it can be a bit mysterious. The trigger itself is usually less of an issue. It’s more to do with how we’re responding to that sleep disruption when it turns up. So when all this difficulty arrived, what was sleep like for you? What was a typical night like if there was such a thing?
Maria Koziol:
I would have long streaks of not sleeping, and the longest I had was I think more than 72 hours when I didn’t sleep for the whole three or four days. At this point, I was absolutely anxious and freaked out. I hadn’t really slept. That was the longest streak of not sleeping for me in my whole life, so at that very point, I thought that something must be wrong with me. And I’ve heard a lot of people on your podcast saying the same, so I also could identify with them because when insomnia comes to your life, you feel as though something must be wrong with you. How can you not sleep? All of the other people are sleeping. How can you just lose your ability to sleep?
I just felt as though something in my brain, like chemistry of my brain, has changed permanently, and I was super anxious about that. So, how would my sleep look like? I had the long streaks of not sleeping and then following that, I would have maybe a microdose of sleep the next night, like two hours, and then another streak of not sleeping like two days, and then maybe again two hours of sleep. Sometimes I had five, six hours of sleep during this period, but then it would usually be followed by, again, not sleeping or sleeping in micro doses. So that was a nightmare, I remember that so well.
I could lay for hours in bed and just focus so much on trying to get asleep that it never happened. The more I focus on trying to fall asleep, it never ever happened. I would usually spend hours and hours tossing around, tossing over in bed.
Martin Reed:
What about your days? Were you finding this difficulty, the struggle with sleep was affecting your days as well?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, of course. At the beginning when this was all new to me, the insomnia thing happened so suddenly and I was so disorientated, I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was so confused about all of this especially since before, I had never struggled with sleep, ever. I would fall asleep very easily anywhere, so that was all the more strange. About my days, I would be all shook up and I could cry over simple things, like a glass would break and I would burst out in tears. I was even shouting at my family members for no reason. I was crying. I was super emotional. Physically-wise, I was able to function normally. I could even go work out, to be honest, but the only thing stopping me from that was that my mind wouldn’t stop running around the thought if I will be able to sleep that night or not, or how I didn’t sleep the last night.
My whole day was dominated by the sleep thing because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Regardlessly of what was going on in my life, even if maybe I won lottery, I couldn’t probably be even enjoying that because I would be still thinking about how I am not able to sleep that night. That was manipulating my whole way of thinking. I felt like I couldn’t be really enjoying the activities I used to enjoy as well anymore. And to be honest, I think the worst part of it was the loneliness that came along with it. The feeling of being alone and the feeling of your family members and friends not having a smallest clue about what you’re going through because they have never experienced insomnia.
I know they have been trying to help me and comfort me, but they had no idea about what I was going through. My mom would usually tell me, “Okay, don’t worry. If you didn’t go sleep that night, you would probably go sleep the next night.” And I’m like, “But you don’t get it. I wasn’t sleeping for three days, what if I die?” No one could actually understand me. No one could relate to it, because none of my friends ever experienced insomnia, none of my family members ever experienced insomnia, so the feeling of loneliness that no one actually understands you, that was also a very big part of how I felt during the day, if that makes sense?
Martin Reed:
Yeah, it makes complete sense, and I’m sure it’s going to make complete sense everyone listening to this as well. You mentioned that physically, you felt like I could probably still work out or still do activities that I had planned or that are important to me, but at the same time, your mind is like, well, can you still do that? Do you have energy to do it? Are you going to enjoy it? Are you going to be able to focus on it? How did you actually end up responding? Did you still do things that you had planned or did you start to withdraw from those kind of activities because of all this mental chatter that was going on?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah. Of course, before I met you and your content, I would definitely withdraw from everything. I would stop doing what I liked. I would stop even leaving house because I felt like absolute waste, and I just refrain to do anything. I just did the bare minimum all day. And by the way, I couldn’t really focus on anything else other than thinking if I will sleep today. At the same time, because I was so obsessed about the sleep thing, and I’m very emotional and expressive person so I would usually say to people very sincerely what is in my mind instead of actually keeping that inside me. So I would tell all my family and friends about how I feel and about what I’m going through, and then I noticed people started to withdraw from me as well because I couldn’t stop talking about just one thing and they were fed up with this, which I do understand right now.
But at that time, it was also very disappointing for me because I felt like they didn’t want to hang out with me anymore because all I could talk about was sleep, and the lack of sleep. I started to lose friends at this point. Of course, not family, but my family would also be kind of… I felt as though I shouldn’t really talk to them about this anymore because they didn’t express this explicitly, but I felt like they’re also fed up and helpless because I would usually talk, call my mom and cry over the phone how I can’t sleep, but she couldn’t do anything. She was just like, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t know how to help you.” So, that was quite serious at that time. Before I actually met you and your content, I was completely lost with this.
Martin Reed:
Did you find that by taking that approach you did actually start to feel better? Or did you feel about the same? Or did it tend to make things more difficult? What was your actual experience like? What were the results of withdrawing and doing less?
Maria Koziol:
The results of actually withdrawing and doing less, I would just be stuck in the bubble of thinking about sleep. I would spend all my day in bed and freak out at the thought of the moment when I will have to go to bed. And I remember, whenever it was becoming darker outside, I would freak out completely because that means it’s the nighttime, so this is my nightmare time. This is where I will be suffering for the next seven, eight hours while everybody else will be asleep. Basically all my days would be staying in bed, working from bed as well on my laptop because I do have this possibility to work remotely. However, I wouldn’t even go for a walk. I wouldn’t do anything. It almost felt like I was stuck in a bubble and not do anything, and just await this nightmare coming in the evening.
Martin Reed:
When you picked up on this idea that we talk about a lot on these podcast episodes of trying to still do some of the stuff that matters, what were your thoughts on that? Were you thinking, no, that just sounds impossible? Or were you thinking, I’m going to give it a try? What was your response to that idea and how did you go about changing to start reintroducing daily activities back into your life?
Maria Koziol:
I think if I had heard it from a very random person, like my friend, like, “Hey, go enjoy your activities and still try to enjoy your life anyway,” I would think this person has no idea what they’re talking about. This is absolutely stupid and I’m not going to do it. They don’t know what risk is involved. But when I heard it from you, of course I studied your content before and you were a very reassuring and convincing person for me, also with a very, very huge knowledge about the topic and certified as well, so you were very convincing for me. So when I heard it from you, I thought, if he’s saying that, I need to try it, because it did sound a little bit, hmm, I’m not sure if it’ll work for me, but I still wanted to give it a try. That was my approach when I heard it from you. Probably might have been different if I heard it from someone super random, like my friend or someone who I met on the street.
Martin Reed:
And what was that process like for you? Did you take little baby steps, maybe start by getting outside each day, or did you just dive right in and try to do everything as though insomnia didn’t exist? I’m curious to what your approach was.
Maria Koziol:
As far as I recall, I think that was more like baby steps. I started with going out for a walk, going to the shop instead of ordering a delivery, just walking a dog out. And then it came to the point when after two weeks, I was actually meeting my friends out in the restaurant, which was inconceivable for me at the very beginning because after the night of not sleeping, I was like, that’s not possible. That’s not possible to meet anyone. That’s absolutely not happening.
And then I actually saw that it is possible. Okay, you won’t be your best form, you won’t be all shiny and glamorous, but friends wouldn’t even notice. To be honest, when I showed up without the night of sleep, no one would even notice that I wasn’t sleeping. No one even said anything. I looked normal and I kind of behaved normal as well. At this point I started to realize that if they didn’t notice that, I think it’s actually worth going out. No one will notice that anyway, so let’s just continue doing that. That’s basically how it went, I think from the baby steps up until the huge steps.
Martin Reed:
Did you find that it was really hard at first to get yourself outside, going for walks, being in social situations again? Or did you find that straight from day one, for example, as soon as you started to do stuff like that, you noticed that this was kind of an approach that was maybe more helpful, compared to doing less stuff?
Maria Koziol:
The very beginnings, it felt awkward, but I knew I was doing this to improve my situation so I did really have a lot of hope related to it. It did feel a bit awkward and difficult at the very beginning, but it got easier and easier over time. Logically if you see something is working, you trust it even more and you go into it deeper, so that was how it looked like for me, if that makes sense?
Martin Reed:
Absolutely. Were you finding that your brain was generating all different stories about this or thoughts that maybe weren’t very helpful? Maybe it was telling you things like, so you went for a walk today, that might have felt good today, but are you going to be able to do it tomorrow? Is this going to work? You can’t do this. Maybe let’s stay at home. Did you find lots of thoughts and stories like that turning up?
Maria Koziol:
Definitely. Yeah, exactly. I’m even surprised you’re saying this as though you were reading my mind at the time. I would always question myself after… There would be positive thoughts and two seconds after, these little demonic thoughts that are like, fine, you can do it today, what about tomorrow? You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not good for your health. So definitely, I did have a lot of these thoughts. It was super, super difficult to overcome them. It was a constant battle in my head. It was about questioning my actions all the time in my head. Yeah, definitely.
Martin Reed:
I think it’s interesting that you feel like I just accessed your brain there and pulled out those stories, even though we haven’t talked about this before this episode, and just because that’s how the human brain is wired. It generates thoughts like that, stories like that. Ironically, as it’s doing its job of trying to look out for us, it’s trying so hard, it’s being a little bit unhelpful and getting in the way. And it can be a little bit like these maybe two little mini brains, one on each shoulder. One is kind of reassuring, and yes, you can do this, and the other one’s like, are you sure you can do this? Maybe you can do it now, but what about tomorrow?
And so we are kind of caught in the middle of that. But I think where it can be so helpful, the process you described, even if it is baby steps, just kind of reintroducing stuff, doing stuff again, especially things that are important to us and meaningful to us, is we can prove to ourselves that even when our brain is doing whatever it wants to do, helpful thoughts, unhelpful thoughts, true thoughts, false thoughts, whatever it’s doing, whatever it’s churning out, we can still control the body. We can still choose how we respond to those thoughts.
So even if the brain says, you cannot go for a walk today, you’re too tired. Physically, we can still stand up, put our shoes on and go out of the door. That’s another reason why I think it’s helpful to start getting active again, is because we recognize and reinforce this idea that no matter what our brain is telling us, we still get to choose to respond. And every time we respond in a way that’s helpful or workable, we’re reminding ourselves of that. And maybe we are less likely to get tangled up in trying to battle with our mind because after all, do we need to battle with our mind when we are constantly reminding ourselves that we can respond however we like, regardless of what the mind is doing?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, absolutely.
Martin Reed:
Just rewinding a little bit, you talked about when the sleep disruption first turned up, one way you tried to deal with it, which is completely understandable, is to do less because you just feel, this is overtaking my life, I don’t have the energy to do anything. I don’t look right, I’m going to make mistakes, all of that difficult stuff. What other things had you tried in an attempt to improve your sleep to get things back on track, that now you’re able to look back, maybe weren’t effective or weren’t quite so helpful?
Maria Koziol:
The first thing I can list were medications. There was a lot of medications that only worsened my state at the very end. I was taking Zolpidem at some point, even SSRI. Then once sleeping pills stopped working because I was very quickly addicted to them… When I think about it back two years ago, it’s just so dreadful to think when I saw this pack of pills, I was running to them just to take it, like I couldn’t wait for the moment to take these pills. And never in my life I thought I could be addicted to something, and then it turns out I’m so easily addicted to these pills. So I got freaked out and I called my psychiatrist and I told them, “Hey, can we get off these pills? I’m just frightened about how it might end up because I feel like I’m super addicted. And by the way, they’re not working anymore because my tolerance went up. I started off with half of the pill and now I need to take two, which is not even an allowed dose, I think.”
My psychiatrist, they started to prescribe me even weirder things like antipsychotic medication that was used for treatment of schizophrenia, for example. I think it was called quetiapine, something like that. It was an absolute disaster. I was going for holidays and then my whole suitcase will be filled up with different types of antipsychotic medication, sleeping pills. I felt as though I just walked out of a psychiatric ward. It was a absolutely terrible experience and it lasted for a couple months that I was taking the pills. None of these pills actually worked. With the sleeping pills, they helped me fall asleep initially, of course, but afterwards, I would just need more and more to fall asleep. If I stopped taking them, I was in an even worse place that I was before starting to take them.
That was not a solution to the problem, not at all, and I kind of blamed the psychiatrist for that as well because they knew that they shouldn’t have been prescribing me this as a long-term solution. And even though they knew it perfectly because it’s an obvious fact, it’s a short-term solution for insomnia, not a long-term, they kept prescribing me this all the time. Whenever I asked, no questions, just give her the pills, get her off my phone and give her the pills. So it wasn’t working anymore, and not to mention that I started to feel super, super depressed the day after. And then I started reading articles about how Zolpidem is linked to creating depression. There were even cases studied of people that committed suicide and didn’t struggle with any mental health issues before taking Zolpidem. I think it’s very important to mention that because it’s never going to do any good.
Pills are never the solution for insomnia. I think it would never do any good, long-term. Short-term, yes, they’re working, but it’s just for a limited period of time and then you would need more. You would get addicted. You would develop other things like depression maybe as a side effect, which I started to develop, because I was also scared that they might have influenced my brain chemistry long-term somehow. Some medication, psychiatrist, I would usually call different psychiatrists like three times a week. It was a very helpless cry for help, and I never felt as though they would really listen to me. I just felt as though they take notes, prescribe something, and you would never hear from them again. When I tried to outreach to them, I remember they prescribed me this SSRI, I’m not sure what was that exactly? I can’t recall now.
But they prescribed me the SSRI and then I took it, and it was like five milligrams. How I felt, I can’t even describe it. I was super scared about how I’m feeling so I immediately called the doctor and I was trying to get in touch with him like, “Hey, please help me. I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going on with my body. I feel as though my receptors are not working.” I couldn’t even read an email. I was taking my pen and going with my pen to my fridge. It felt absolutely odd, so I tried to call them. They didn’t pick up, or they said to me, “Okay, you can schedule an appointment in a week. I can’t give you anything right now.” So there was no support from them. I felt as though they would just prescribe me pills and didn’t care what happened to me afterwards. So, that were the things that I’ve tried and they only had a detrimental impact on my mental health.
Martin Reed:
I’m curious to know, all the doctors that you spoke to, did anyone suggest alternatives to medication or offer you any advice as to how you might be able to deal with this without taking medication, or even make some changes while taking medication that might also prove to be helpful? Or were you just only offered medication as the only option that was available to you?
Maria Koziol:
Yeah. Most of them would actually only prescribe me pills without mentioning any other recourse. Some of them were pointing out at the CBT-I therapy. Some of them were like, “Here are the pills, but make sure you actually sign up for the therapy because this is a long-term solution.” So yeah, some of them did, but I feel like most of them were just prescribing pills without mentioning anything else.
Martin Reed:
When you heard about CBT-I, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, was that something that you’d heard of before? Is it something you explored or looked into? Were you able to research anything about that?
Maria Koziol:
Not specifically for insomnia. I knew that kind of therapy existed. However, I would more link that to depression, for example, and not really to insomnia. I’ve never heard of treating insomnia with that before, to be honest, so that was new to me. But at the time, I already actually met you and your content. I had you, so I didn’t really have to have any other help because it was helping to have your content to read and listen to you every day.
Martin Reed:
Let’s talk a little bit now about what happened next on your journey, the new approach that you explored. What were some changes that you made that you are now able to look back on and think that this was really what helped me start moving away from struggling with insomnia and started to create better conditions for sleep, reduce the influence it had over my life? Where did that start? You’ve already mentioned starting to do more things, be more active during the day. What other behavioral changes, new habits or old habits did you bring back that you’ve found to be particularly helpful?
Maria Koziol:
I remember after I’ve seen your video where you were talking about how we are never going to lose the ability to sleep, that was a milestone in my process because for some reason, that was so simple but it sounded so reassuring for me and convincing that I just trusted you 100%. And from the day I saw that video, I would usually also replay it in the next days as well. But from this moment, I just thought, he’s right, it’s true. I shouldn’t be freaking out about this, and you also provided some kind of evidence or lack of evidence that chronic insomnia can cause any health problems. There was no evidence of that as well. I feel like from this point, it all started to change. First of all, I stopped obsessing about whether I’m going to go to sleep tonight or not.
The method I have used, I would describe it as facing the fear or facing the pain. Previously, before I heard your video about what I just said, I would usually freak out when the night was coming, the bedtime was coming. I would run away from the fear. And the thing with fear is that when you run away from it, it gets bigger and bigger and holds you like a monster, but when you face it, it shrinks. So I know it may sound very odd to someone who didn’t apply this, but I applied this method in my life when it comes to insomnia and panic attacks, and it really works. It really works. When you face the fear, it just shrinks, and over time, it actually disappears. And the same applies to insomnia.
There’s something I read recently in a book, and it said, it stuck in my head, it said that pain and fear is not absolute, and your experience of fear and pain changes relative to how you react to it. And I think it’s perfect to describe the attitude we should have to insomnia. That is a great things to say, I’m not sure if you will agree with me, but this simple method I think has actually cured me. Your reaction to insomnia is something that essentially is the most important thing. It is all about how you react to this. And then once I understood it, of course, it wasn’t like, oh, I just started applying this method that I was cured the other day. No, of course not. It took time. It took quite a lot of time to apply it 100%.
But over time, I really stopped fearing the lack of sleep, stopped fearing the nighttime. Even though I wasn’t sure if I’m going to fall asleep, I would remind myself of the video you posted and I was like, okay, cool. Well, I won’t die anyway. I won’t sleep, but that’s it. I won’t die. Nothing bad will happen. I will live. Nothing bad will happen. And then I was able to change my thoughts over this. Of course, the bad thoughts would always pop up again. They would always try to devaluate what I was just saying to me. It takes time, of course. It’s not going to be overnight change, but it really works. It really works. When you maybe stop fearing insomnia, it’ll eventually vanish, evaporate because it will have no force over you. It will just lose its forces.
About the behavioral changes, what I mentioned so far, I started going out more, doing more activities, but I really started to not care anymore about sleep. I was like, well, I might not fall asleep this day, but it will not kill me. I will live, I not die, and there’s no proof someone ever died from lack of sleep. That was the same with my panic attacks. That was the same treatment that I used, and I was able to overcome them as well. I was like, okay, cool. I’ll have a panic attack, but there’s just a sensation. Nothing is actually physically happening in my body. It’s just a sensation of your thoughts and what’s going on in your head. There’s not nothing endangering your life at this point. So I think that was super relieving, this knowledge that the less you care, that the less powerful insomnia will become. I would say that was maybe my behavioral approach.
Martin Reed:
Do you remember the title of the book that you just shared that quote from? Just think people might be interested.
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, of course. That book wasn’t about insomnia, by the way, but I feel like it’s kind of connected to the way of how you might treat insomnia and anxiety and panic attacks, so it’s great. It’s called The Tools and the author is Phil Stutz. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing his surname in a correct way, but the book is called The Tools. You can buy it on Amazon.
Martin Reed:
Going back to this idea of facing the fear, if someone’s listening to this and they think, I think this is something that I want to try. I want to face this fear. I want to face this fear of insomnia. I want to face the fear of what tonight might bring. How do we actually go about facing that fear? If you were to give someone a list of actions to take that might help them face the fear, what might that look like? How do we implement that in practice, do you think?
Maria Koziol:
I know it’s super difficult. It’s very, very difficult even describe or maybe implement at the very beginning, but I promise you it’s doable. What I would usually do is… Let’s try to imagine that you won’t fall asleep again tonight. Try to imagine that you’re laying in bed for four or five hours, everyone else is asleep, but you’re struggling and the next day is just waiting in a few hours. You’ll need to live through the next day, but you didn’t have any sleep. Imagine you’re in that situation and let this thought be in your body, flow through your body and just say to yourself, bring it on, I want to experience this. I want to experience the worst that can happen. Bring it on. I’m ready. And you know what? When I said it to myself, I would feel like I actually get less anxious, and then I felt like a bit more powerful.
I would stop thinking about it. I’m like, I’m going to continue right now with my day. I’m going to go relax, watch TV. Then if I’m going to go to bed and the sleep doesn’t happen, I’m ready for it. I’m 100% ready for it, and I’m not going to be freaked out. I know it’s super difficult for people that are suffering with insomnia because they feel as though they’re dying, that they’re so desperate. I know where you are. I promise you, I’ve been there. It’s absolutely dreadful, but there’s hope. There’s always a way out, and you can do that. You can’t die from it, I promise you. There’s no way you can die from it. Nothing can happen to you. I’m sorry, I don’t really have instruction on how to actually apply this. It’s so difficult. I think it’s the battle that you need to have with your thoughts.
Martin Reed:
I think really what you described is moving away from the struggle, so moving away from trying to make sleep happen, trying to remove certain thoughts and feelings from your brain, but taking an approach where you’re acknowledging everything that you are thinking, everything that you are feeling, and you’re becoming maybe more of an observer instead of someone that’s trying to fight it. Or at the very least, you’re kind of removing the dam that you might be trying to build to stop all of that stuff arriving. But what happens when we build a dam? It all accumulates behind that brick wall and eventually it all comes overflowing anyway. I think what you’ve described is moving away from that struggle, just allowing this difficult stuff to exist, especially if your experience anyway tells you that you can’t really get rid of it, and just allowing it to flow through you, as difficult as that might be.
Maria Koziol:
I know, exactly, but it’s actually really working. It was the same for my panic attacks. When I first heard this method, I was like, I’m not sure if it’s going to work but let’s try it. When I had a panic attack and when I would try to calm down, it would only get worse, always. And then once I remember, I was on the airplane and that was a very long flight, like 11 hours, 12 hours, I had a huge panic attack on the plane. That was so frightening to the point that I was actually about to exit the plane, like at the boarding, I was about to actually tell the flight attendant, “Sorry, I think I’m not going because I can’t… I have a panic attack.”
But I said to myself, you’re going to get through this. It happened to you a lot of times. It’s not going to kill you, it never killed you. And then the panic attack came, and instead of trying to calm down as I would usually do, like oh my God, I need to calm down. Everybody will notice. Oh my God, nobody can notice that. I just felt as though this is normal. You’re just having a panic attack. Feel it, bring it on. I want to feel it even more. Just try to feel it with all of your body. Let it let this feeling flow through you and it will actually calm down after a while, after three, two minutes. And the same was with my insomnia. Let’s say that it was bedtime and it was like midnight, then 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, I’m still not sleeping. Normally, at the very beginning, I would freak out.
I would be watching my clock all the time and just getting crazy, whereas after applying this method of not avoiding the fear and just facing it, I was rather laying in bed and thinking, well, that’s okay. Eventually I’m probably going to fall asleep, even if it’s microdose. I’m just going to watch a movie right now. There’s nothing bad happening. I’m just going to watch a movie and let the bad feeling flow through my body. I’m not sleeping well. Okay, what can I do about this? Nothing. This is how I try to explain this to myself. And you need to remember, the bad thoughts will always pop up. Even sometimes they will try to devaluate what you are thinking, and they will try to push you away from your path, but those are just thoughts. Those are just thoughts. They will always pop up. It’s just thoughts. I think that would be my advice.
Martin Reed:
There’s just so much great stuff there. I’m curious to hear, I think you already mentioned this, but even taking this approach of facing the fear, allowing the difficult thoughts and feelings to show up, allowing the possibility of insomnia to show up, it’s not like, I’m going to do this and then all of a sudden all these difficult thoughts permanently disappear, and all of a sudden you’re having great nights of sleep again. I’m curious to know what the process or the timeline was like for you? Was this something that you found that you had to practice for days, weeks, or even months in order to notice that it was helping? I’m just curious to hear what timeline from your own experience?
Maria Koziol:
To be honest, that was when I started using this method. The behavioral change, that was quick. That was like a few days and I was back on track with my sleeping. I was like, wow, I slept seven hours. Wow, it really worked. But then when I had a bad night after a few days, I would have a rebound of anxiety like, ah, you see, it’s actually not working. So my bad thoughts would tell me, ha ha, you are so confident, but you’re never out of this. You’ll be stuck with insomnia for the rest of your life, and there’s no cure for you. I would have a rebound sometimes, but then I would again apply the method of what we were talking about just now, and then it would again improve for a few days, where I would have a rebound as well and then I would apply this and that would improve as well. So I would say that it took me… To fully recover from insomnia, is that what you’re asking for? Or just right after applying the method?
Martin Reed:
I would say, maybe where you got to a point where you felt, I’m free of it, I’m independent. I can live my life independently of how I sleep. I’m not so much tangled up in the struggle. It’s not something that has a big influence over my life anymore.
Maria Koziol:
I feel like that would be maybe a month or so when I got this confidence about, I’m actually able to recover from insomnia. But at this point, I was sure that it would at some point come back, but then I had the tools to defend myself and to approach it in a right way. I think the very, very big lesson for me was something that you’ve been talking about a lot in your podcast and in your content on YouTube, that the most important thing is actually your approach to the sleep and your approach to insomnia, and how you react to it will essentially influence how it will develop.
So, that was something that was super big lesson for me, the attitude. When I started having insomnia, when it happened in my life, my attitude was anxious fighting. I was super confused. I was freaked out. I was battling the thoughts all the time. I was trying to fight the fact that I’m not sleeping, forcing myself to fall asleep, which is impossible to do it. With pills, it’s possible, but there’s no way you can force yourself to sleep. So my initial approach to that, my reaction to insomnia was completely fighting with that. And then when I changed to accepting it and just acknowledging it, it was shrinking more and more, and eventually it disappeared.
Martin Reed:
I like that way you said that it felt like it was shrinking and shrinking, because one of my favorite analogies about the insomnia struggle is we have this big scary thing called insomnia, and we want to fix it, we want to get rid of it, so we want to study it to figure it out so we can get rid of it. So we might pick up a magnifying glass, and we’ve got the insomnia here, and we are just staring at the insomnia through this magnifying glass. And of course, when we look through a magnifying glass, that thing is really big. And when we are focused just on looking through the magnifying glass, we don’t see anything else around us. All we see is that thing that we’re staring at. I think when we start to move away from the struggle, it’s like instead of prodding and poking at this thing under the magnifying glass, what we’re actually doing is putting the magnifying glass down. So the insomnia might still be there, but now because we put the magnifying glass down, our field of view is so much bigger.
We can now see the world around us. We might be better able to engage in the world around us, and we free up our attention to do more of the things that matter rather than everything being consumed by what we see through that magnifying glass. I just think that aligned with what you were saying, where it kind of shrunk. That’s just what reminded me of that. When we’re able to recognize that this thing is here, maybe I can’t directly get rid of it, but what I can do is dilute it by adding other things to my life, doing good stuff. It starts to lose its influence, so it feels like it gets smaller. And even when it’s present, if something loses its influence over us, maybe then it becomes less of a problem that we feel we need to address. And when it comes to sleep and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it, the less engaged we are with trying to control that stuff, the more it’s able to take care of itself and get back on track by itself.
Maria Koziol:
Definitely. It’s so true because I felt like I just disempowered insomnia by taking away the importance of it. At some point, I just started to ignore it, like the screaming of insomnia, just ignored it and I felt like it devaluated the whole thing and then it becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, and eventually actually disappeared.
Martin Reed:
One thing you touched upon was that you’re not using sleeping pills anymore. I’m curious to hear what your process was to moving away from them, because sometimes it feels like they’re the only thing that we have available to us, that maybe we need them, otherwise no sleep is going to happen. Or we need to always have them as an option, just in case. What was that process like for you in terms of moving away from them and not even having them available anymore?
Maria Koziol:
I feel like it lasted very long until I actually was able to stop taking them. That lasted for months, maybe half a year. By that time, I already developed addiction to the sleeping pills. The moment I threw them all away, I remember even flushing them off in the toilet because what happened is that I really started to… I’m very sensitive person in terms of emotional intelligence, so I can very easily recognize when what I’m feeling is being influenced by external object or is it my own feeling. And then after taking those pills the next day, I would feel as though I was on drugs, I was depressed, the feeling of depression. I can’t recognize… I used to have my sad moments. Of course, everybody has them. Some maybe depressive thoughts a little bit, but those thoughts were different.
This was feeling as though I started to have depression. It was like everything was so vain. I felt like I would like to start crying, and it was so strange for me. I never felt that way before, so I immediately linked this to the sleeping pills because I knew this wasn’t mine. I never had this feeling before. At this point, I was so scared. I was super scared about my mental health at this point and I said to myself, okay, this is the point where I need to say goodbye to the sleeping pills. However difficult this is going to be, I can’t do this anymore because it started to have a super detrimental impact on my mind and I couldn’t allow it anymore. I just felt like, no, it can’t happen. I can’t deal with depression on top of that, it can’t happen. So, that was my trigger, the point where I decided goodbye, sleeping pills. I can’t.
Martin Reed:
Maria, I’m really grateful for you coming on and giving up your time to share your experience. I know that a lot of people are going to find your experience really helpful, hopefully as well, hopeful, and just giving people the possibility and the reassurance that we can get out of this struggle no matter how difficult things feel. But I do have one last question for you, which is one that I ask everyone that comes on, and it’s this, if someone with chronic insomnia is listening and they feel as though they’ve tried everything, that they’re beyond help, that they’ll never be able to stop struggling with insomnia, what would you say to them?
Maria Koziol:
I came from the point where once I even almost overdosed on sleeping pills and I drank alcohol as well. That was when I was on holidays. I think I was just so hopeless and so desperate and all the things you can imagine how I felt.It wasn’t just for clarity, it wasn’t like it was a suicidal thing. I didn’t want to do it. It’s just that I would do anything to fall asleep, so I just had a bunch of pills and I took like five or six pills at once and I drank a bottle of wine before, anything to fall asleep. I just wanted to fall asleep.
I’m very lucky and grateful that I’m still here today, but you see at what point in my life I came from, what point I was in. That was absolutely a nightmare and I almost killed myself. Where I am now, I don’t have insomnia anymore. I can sleep without any pills, without nothing. So, just wanted to say it as a word of hope for anybody that could be listening to that because it doesn’t matter what state you are in right now, maybe you’re taking a lot of pills daily as well, you are able to get out of it. There’s always hope. You can always do it. And definitely, you’re going to recover from insomnia.
Remember that you are not alone and there’s millions of people experiencing the same thing, even though you don’t see them around you, but they are there. There’s a lot of people suffering from the same thing you are suffering right now. And as difficult as it might seem right now, I promise you, you will recover.
And you need to change your approach to insomnia and try to disempower insomnia. I know how confusing it sounds, but I promise you will be fine and there’s a way out, and you will 100% recover. I’m 100% sure about that, because I was at the same point as you and maybe even worse, so there’s hope.
Martin Reed:
All right. Well, that’s great. Thanks again, Maria, for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Maria Koziol:
Yeah, no worries. Thank you so much, Martin, as well.
Martin Reed:
Thanks for listening to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. If you’re ready to move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life you want to live, I would love to help. You can get started right now by enrolling in my online course or you can book my phone coaching package. My online course runs for six weeks. It will help you make changes that can create better conditions for sleep, it will help you identify and get rid of any behaviors that might be making sleep more difficult, and it will help you respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it in a more workable way. You can work through the course in two ways. You can choose the self-coaching option and work through it by yourself with the support of an online forum that is available only to clients.
Martin Reed:
Or, you can choose to add one-on-one email coaching and work through the course with me by your side. With the one-on-one coaching option, you get unlimited email access to me for eight weeks, starting from the day you enroll. Any time you have a question or concern, any time you are unsure about anything, any time you want to focus on the challenges you face or any difficulties that show up, you can email me and I will be there to coach and support you. You can get the course and start right now at insomniacoach.com.
Martin Reed:
With the phone coaching package, we start with a one-hour call (voice only or video — your choice) and come up with an initial two-week plan that will help you create better conditions for sleep and practice moving away from struggling with insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it. You get unlimited email access to me for two weeks after the call and a half-hour follow-up call at the end of the two weeks. You can book the phone coaching package at insomniacoach.com/phone.
Martin Reed:
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 can sleep.
Mentioned in this episode: The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels
I want you to be the next insomnia success story I share! If you're ready to stop struggling with sleep and get your life back from insomnia, you can start my insomnia coaching course at insomniacoach.com.
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