The Most Honest Answers I Give To My Chronic Insomnia Clients | CBT-I for Insomnia

If you’ve Googled things like “why can’t I sleep even though I’m tired?” or “is CBT-I supposed to feel this hard?” — this is for you. I’m not here to sell a magic number of hours. I’m here to explain what actually helps people get out of the insomnia loop, based on years of lived experience and work with insomnia clients.

1. Why you can’t logic your way into sleep

If thinking could fix sleep, most of my clients would already be sleep geniuses. But it doesn’t work that way. The more you try to “figure it out,” the more stuck you get.

Sleep isn’t a thinking process. It’s a biological rhythm. Of course, stress and emotions matter, but sleep responds better to rhythm, repetition, and trus -not control. The harder you try, the more pressure you create. And pressure is what keeps the system tense.

One of the first things we often do is reduce how much you think about sleep. That might mean putting away sleep trackers, checking stats less often, or taking a break from reading about sleep altogether.

You can’t control sleep directly, just like you can’t speed up digestion by thinking about it. You can only create the right conditions. That’s what CBT-I helps with: shifting from control to consistency.

2. It's not sleeplessness that we fear

This is something most people don’t expect. They’re not just scared of not sleeping - that's sleep anxiety. They’re usually scared of being tired the next day or their long-term health. The fear shows up as questions like:

• How will I be productive?

• How will I manage work or parenting?

• What if I have a meeting or something important tomorrow?

• What if I start losing memory?

These thoughts sound logical, but they create pressure. And that pressure adds a second layer on top of the tiredness — a mental and emotional layer that makes everything worse.

Your body is already tired. But now you’re adding another weight — anxiety about how you’ll feel, how you’ll perform, what the day will be like. That kind of pressure just makes things worse.

Here’s what often happens: your brain treats this fear like a threat. It kicks in your stress response, releasing adrenaline and cortisol. But when the threat is only in your head, there’s nothing to fight or fix. The only way out is calming the response itself.

In CBT-I we work on noticing tiredness without turning it into a crisis. Tiredness is uncomfortable, yes. But it’s not dangerous. It’s the panic around it that makes everything worse.

3. Why sleep hygiene won’t fix chronic insomnia - How CBT-I for Insomnia Goes Deeper

Things like avoiding screens before bed, keeping your room cool, or drinking tea are very good practices. But if your sleep system has already been dysregulated for months or years, they won’t fix it. They’re surface-level. Chronic insomnia needs a deeper reset.

If your sleep has been out of sync for a long time, it usually needs a structured plan — one that changes how your brain and body relate to sleep. That’s what CBT-I does.

There are three main areas we work on:

• Sleep drive — how much pressure your body builds to sleep. If that pressure is weak or all over the place, sleep will be too. We help rebuild it.

• Circadian rhythm — your internal clock. If your sleep pattern is random, your brain doesn’t know when to sleep. That rhythm needs to be trained again.

• Associations — what your brain has learned about the bed. If your bed now feels like a place of stress, not rest, it stops being a sleep cue. Often, it’s both — your body expects to sleep and be awake there. That mix keeps you stuck. It has to be re-learned.

Sleep hygiene can help support this, but it can’t fix those deeper problems on its own.

4. Why even bad sleepers can recover — if they stop doing what doesn’t work

A lot of people keep doing the same things — even if they’re not helping. They keep switching supplements, tracking every little detail, trying new routines every week. Some even stop living their normal lives: quitting physical activity, stop going to events or meeting their social circle. But all of that often just keeps them stuck.

The more you focus on fixing sleep directly, the more pressure you create. And that pressure makes things worse. Sometimes letting go is harder than doing more — but it’s also the thing that works. I really recommend letting go of the hyperfocus on sleep and the effort to control it. I was guilty of it myself, so I know it’s a big ask. But instead of managing it all alone, consider finding a professional who can guide you through your recovery process.

I wish I had access to CBT for insomnia earlier. If I did, I probably would’ve recovered in a year, not five. That’s a lot of time lost. Energy I didn’t have. Things I missed. I don’t say that to scare anyone. I say it because sometimes getting help saves you years. It’s not weakness — it’s smart.

5. CBT-I feels worse before it works — and that’s normal

CBT-I is basically structured discomfort. And so it’s not for everyone. It works by temporarily stressing the sleep system in order to reset it. Like sleep restriction — it can make you feel more tired for a while (sometimes weeks). But that’s part of how the system rebalances.

At this point, many clients tell me things like “I feel worse,” “This isn’t working,” or “I was better off before.” But for me, these are often clear signs that the process is starting to work. The body is adjusting, and things are starting to move. But results are not there yet, so of course it feels discouraging.

Real improvement — where sleep gets deeper, where it starts feeling more automatic — often shows up around week 4 or 5. And it’s so worth it. But only if you stick with the process long enough.

The clients who stick with it — despite the discomfort or the ups and downs — are the ones who are most likely to recover. They show up even when it’s not working, even when it feels pointless. That’s what resets the system: stability, not perfection.

The mental part can be the thing that helps or the thing that ruins the process. That’s why it’s important to know this in advance. If you expect things to feel better right away, you’ll panic and quit. But if you expect some turbulence — you’ll be more likely to stay on track.

It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about staying steady long enough for your nervous system to remember how to sleep again.

Final Thoughts

I don’t believe in promising 8 hours of magical sleep. Nor that it’s an easy ride towards healthier sleep. But I do believe in teaching people how to work with their system, not against it. That’s how you get out of the loop — and stay out.

If you’re still in it, I just want you to know: it’s not your fault, and it doesn’t have to stay this way. When you’re ready, the right kind of support makes a big difference. You don’t have to figure it out alone.