How to overcome insomnia and sleep better

About a third of adults in Western countries have 'sleep problems' at least once per week (The Guardian, 2024). Up to 10% qualify for a formal insomnia diagnosis. Chronic insomnia is defined as a sleep problem on three nights per week or more, for three months or more. From my psychotherapy practice, I know that a large proportion of clients have difficulty in getting to sleep, or in staying asleep.

The obvious things: caffeine, alcohol, late meals, an uncomfortable bed, noise, too much light in the bedroom and physical pain. All can contribute to sleeplessness. Smartphone/internet use can also lead to sleeplessness. This needs qualification.

Almost everyone, in the developed world at least, has a smartphone. Walk down any busy street and you will see a host of people using their phones, right in front of you. To say that they are addictive is, I believe, an understatement. And wherever there is addiction – without exception – there is psychological pain.

I need only dip into professional experience to find instances of people using their phones as a means of combatting psychological distress. In terms of addictive patterns, we’ve been here before. Alcohol, sex, gambling, and food can all provide pleasure or sustenance, but can also lead to distress when used in an addictive fashion. Do you wish that you could spend a little less time on your phone? Do you worry that you may be addicted to it? (If the answers are yes, you are not alone).

I realise that urging you not to use your phone so often (even to try phone-free days) is futile. Behavioural change such as this needs to be self-inspired. But, as we are talking insomnia, I’ll simply say: If you do wake at four in the morning, try not to turn to your phone.

Avoid using your phone for at least an hour before you go to bed, (two hours, if possible). Try really hard to avoid using your phone once you are in bed and attempting to fall asleep. Because insomnia is specifically linked to smartphone use immediately before, or during, bedtime (Science Daily, 2024).

If you do find yourself awake at four a.m., try simply to be. Lie still and breathe. If this only lasts for three minutes, before you start stressing, don’t give up. Keep practising. Like anything worthwhile, mindfulness takes time. Keep telling yourself that you do not need to problem-solve in the early hours of the morning. If you are (temporarily) unable to sleep, at least allow yourself some rest.

Alongside addictive phone use, I would cite changes in the structure of our families as factors, contributing deeply to the current climate of insomnia.

Thousands of years ago, people tended to sleep (and live) in social groups of around 15-20 members (Discover Magazine, 2021). Some so-called “primitive” societies still do live in such groups, (in parts of Tanzania and Bolivia, for example). We may feel like individuals, and indeed each one of us is unique. However, we are herd animals, too. I can only imagine the comfort of lying there, listening, as one by one my particular herd fall asleep, breathing deeply and evenly, beside a shared campfire. “Group sleeping can impact when animals <including humans> sleep, how long they sleep for, and how deeply they sleep.” (Science Daily, 2024).

In countries such as Britain and the USA, not only do we not sleep in groups but more and more of us are sleeping alone, either through necessity or, increasingly, through choice.

This is what French writer, Michel Houellebecq, calls “atomization”. Our society is shedding the obligation for us to construct heteronormative, nuclear families, or to follow heteronormative mating practices. Allowed such freedom, many of us are choosing to sleep alone, in our own special spaces – whether or not, we have a sexual partner.

Perhaps sleeplessness is part payment for our increased and ever-increasing demand for individual freedom.

W.H Auden published a (Pulitzer Prize-winning) poem in 1947 called, “The Age of Anxiety”. And this historical characteristic has only intensified over the last eighty years. One common theme I have identified is that people find it difficult, or near impossible, to (as they put it) “switch off” their minds, at four in the morning. So, if you wake up and use the toilet at this time, you then find yourself stressing about the upcoming day, rather than settling back into sleep.

I will (gently) urge mindfulness and meditation, again. Four a.m. is not the time to be casting yourself forwards, mentally, into the oncoming day. To reiterate: if you can’t sleep, at least try to rest. Focus upon one, simple, soothing, thing:

Your own breathing, for example. A sound, such as Ohm, whether voiced, or silently “heard”, can also work wonders. A simple, repeated idea – Calm.. calm.. calm.. can also help to dissolve that anxiety. Or, perhaps focus upon nothingness. Silent, peaceful, timeless nothingness. Find a comfortable position in bed, stay as still as possible. Simply be. (Don’t give up. Keep practising this).

If, at this point, you’re beginning to think, “He doesn’t know all the worries I have, how busy I am, the stuff I simply have to do,” please ask yourself the following question:

In the early hours, is it a good idea to be wondering whether you can fit a visit to the gym in, before your first meeting of the day? Is it really worth checking your emails, again? Or, is getting some rest, perhaps even some more sleep, a more sensible option?

Finally, some insight from twelve years as a psychotherapist: Quite a few people are afraid to fall asleep, or to stay sleeping. One reason for this is within Sigmund Freud’s 1899 masterpiece, “The Interpretation of Dreams”. In this work, he calls dreams, “the royal road to the unconscious mind.” (It is what is lurking in the unconsciousness that, generally, brings people into psychotherapy in the first place).

At a distance of one hundred years, we are able to see flaws and failings in Freud’s approach to therapy. However, some of his suggestions, and some of his solutions, to the problems and pains in our lives are undeniably brilliant.

In short, I am certain that many of us – myself included, at times – wake in the early hours because our unconscious minds are turning over painful truths – about ourselves, those around us, and the world we inhabit. So painful, in fact, that the guiding part is unwilling to allow us to fall, peacefully back to sleep once more. In short, we feel afraid of sleeping.

Though insomnia may be painful, the content of our dreams – the content of the unconsciousness – is more painful still. This being the case, successful psychotherapy is the solution. Successful psychotherapy involves bringing these painful truths out of the unconscious and into the conscious mind. Here, you will discover, that their negative potency diminishes.

That’s why successful psychotherapy can ultimately feel so good. At this point, we are all likely to get a much better night’s sleep, too.