May 21, 2015

Why insomnia is all made up. A Happy Hour Conversation with Jen Lucas

53 minutes

Why insomnia is all made up... with Jen Lucas

This week I'm exploring insomnia with Jen Lucas. Jen is a mental health educator, and she describes herself as recovering from many years of overactive seriousness! One of the ways that seriousness showed up in her life is dedicating years of her life to solving her insomnia. She now says 'insomnia is made up'! If you think that's a ridiculous statement then this is the show for you!

In this episode you'll learn:

Just because something seems real, it doesn't mean it is real - we can make so many things seem like a big serious struggle and devote a lot of energy to them, but that doesn't mean that there's anything going on other than a belief that we have.

When Jen saw that she'd made up a story about sleep - she became a lot less interested in creating any stories about it at all - either good or bad. This is true in so many other areas of life. Can you see where, completely innocently, you've created a story?

Techniques can create even more issues - Jen and I talked after the show about the various approaches that she's been recommended for good sleep such as using the correct lighting or not using devices before bed. She said that none of them worked (and in fact I know people who have ended up creating OCD around their sleep techniques) because it isn't those things that create our body's ability to sleep. Our body is designed to sleep all on its own! Just like it's designed to do so many other things very naturally and easily!

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