If you are starting a real insomnia recovery path, there is one thing you need to know upfront.

You did not get stuck in insomnia overnight.

So you are not going to get out of it overnight either.

That is not pessimism.

That is how the nervous system works.

Insomnia usually builds in layers.

First comes a stretch of poor sleep.

Then comes worry about what that means.

Then comes more effort to fix it.

Then comes more pressure.

Then comes more hyperarousal.

Night after night, your brain learns a new association.

Bed starts to feel like a threat.

Wakefulness starts to feel dangerous.

That loop gets reinforced over time.

So the recovery loop has to be reinforced over time, too.

Here is what this process requires.

Patience.

Persistence.

Willingness to feel some discomfort without scrambling to erase it.

A long-term mindset.

It also asks you to learn the difference between control and surrender.

You can influence sleep in the long run.

You cannot force sleep tonight.

That distinction is the heart of recovery.

This is not as easy as taking a pill.

But it is far more effective.

And far more empowering.

If you are already suffering from insomnia, that tradeoff is worth it.

​

​

You are probably wondering about a timeline.

That is completely normal.

Many people say something like this:

If I knew this would be gone in six months, I could relax.

I get it.

But there is no guaranteed timeline.

The pace varies from person to person.

Some people feel relief quickly (in as little as 8 weeks inside our program).

Often it comes from finally understanding what is happening.

Often it comes from stopping the worst sleep efforts.

Often it comes from feeling less alone and less broken.

Lasting change usually takes longer.

For many people, it takes a few months of consistent practice to feel a durable shift.

For people who have had insomnia for years and decades, it can take longer.

For people whose insomnia feels traumatic, it can take longer.

None of that means you are doing it wrong.

It just means your nervous system needs more repetitions to feel safe again.

​

​

Trying to predict the timeline often slows the timeline.

When you monitor progress too tightly, you create pressure.

Pressure creates anxiety.

Anxiety keeps the Sleep-Stopping Force high.

So the best practice is to loosen your grip on the calendar.

Make your intention to take it one day at a time.

Keep showing up.

Let the system work layer by layer.

​

​

Before you go further, we need to clear out two fear stories that keep insomnia alive.

Fear story number one.

I need eight hours.

You do not.

Human sleep needs vary widely.

Some people naturally need less than eight hours.

Some need more.

Most fall somewhere in the middle.

If you chase an arbitrary number, you create a trap.

You spend extra time in bed trying to force sleep.

You lie awake.

You start doubting your body.

You get more anxious.

Then insomnia deepens.

If your natural sleep need is lower, nothing is wrong with you.

You are not broken.

You are not failing.

You are just built that way.

A better standard is simple and practical.

How many hours leave you reasonably refreshed in the morning?

How many hours give you decent energy for most of the day?

That is your real sleep need.

Also remember this:

Normal sleepers do not feel amazing every single moment.

They wake up groggy...

If you’re like many people struggling with insomnia, you’ve probably heard of CBT-i.

Maybe you even tried it.

Or maybe you’ve been told it’s your best shot at fixing your sleep.

CBT-i (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) is often called the "gold standard" treatment.

And while it does help some people, many fall through the cracks.

Maybe you did too.

Let’s talk about why that happens.

And how the End Insomnia System takes a very different approach—one that works for people who feel like they’ve tried everything else.

—

Why CBT-i Doesn’t Work for Everyone

CBT-i has four main components:

1. Sleep education
2. Cognitive restructuring (aka thought challenging)
3. Relaxation training
4. Behavioral interventions like sleep restriction and stimulus control

Let’s break each one down.

—

1. Sleep Education

CBT-i aims to correct misconceptions about sleep.

This is helpful.

When you don’t understand why you can’t sleep, you get anxious.

And anxiety—as you know—is the thing that keeps you up.

So sleep education matters.

But here’s the problem:

CBT-i often includes a checklist of "sleep hygiene" tips.

Like:

• Make your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet
• Avoid blue light and caffeine
• Follow a bedtime routine
• Get morning light

These are reasonable suggestions.

But for people with insomnia, they quickly become Sleep Efforts.

You cling to them.

You try to do everything "right."

And when you still can’t sleep?

You feel even more broken.

The End Insomnia System takes a different view.

Yes, we teach how sleep works.

Yes, we support gentle sleep hygiene.

But we help you approach it flexibly.

No checklist.

No pressure.

And most importantly?

We focus on the real root of the problem:

Sleep anxiety.

—

2. Thought Challenging (Cognitive Restructuring)

CBT-i encourages you to identify your anxious thoughts and replace them with more accurate ones.

This can be helpful sometimes.

But there are two big issues:

First: Thought challenging can become a sleep effort.

If you’re lying in bed frantically trying to challenge every thought so you can relax and sleep, you’re back in the performance trap.

Second: Some thoughts are true.

You’re tired.

You might feel terrible tomorrow.

That’s valid.

And arguing with reality just makes you feel more stuck.

The End Insomnia System gives you a better way.

We don’t fight thoughts.

We teach you to relate to them differently.

To notice them.

To stop fueling them.

To stop reacting like they’re emergencies.

And we help you build real confidence, so those thoughts lose their power.

—

3. Relaxation Training

Some CBT-i therapists teach breathing techniques, muscle relaxation, or meditation.

These tools can be great—if you know how to use them.

But if you use them to make yourself sleep, they become sleep efforts.

Then you get frustrated when they "don’t work."

The End Insomnia System teaches nervous system regulation, too.

But we’re clear about the goal:

Not to make sleep happen.

But to build resilience.

To train your system to stop overreacting to nighttime wakefulness.

It’s not about short-term tricks.

It’s about long-term transformation.

—

4. Sleep Restriction & Stimulus Control

These are the most intense parts of CBT-i.

Sleep restriction means limiting your time in...

If you’ve ever thought:

“I did all the right things and I still couldn’t sleep…”

You’re not alone.

And you’re not doing anything wrong.

The truth is, most of the things people try to fix their sleep are sleep efforts in disguise.

And that’s why they don’t work.

Even worse?

They often backfire.

⸻

Let’s Look at a Few

1. Spending more time in bed

You’re exhausted.

So you get in bed early, hoping to squeeze in a little more rest.

Or you stay in bed longer in the morning to “make up for it.”

But that extra time in bed reduces your sleep drive.

Which makes you less sleepy the next night.

Which means you’re more likely to lie awake again.

2. Sleeping pills, cannabis, or alcohol

They might help you knock out short term.

But they mess with the natural architecture of sleep.

You don’t wake up feeling restored.

You just feel groggy.

And over time, they stop working as well.

You build a tolerance.

And worse, you start to believe you can’t sleep without them.

Which makes you even more anxious if you forget your pill or run out.

That belief is part of what’s keeping you stuck.

3. Nighttime relaxation exercises

Breathwork.

Meditation.

Visualizations.

These techniques can be helpful for many things.

But if you’re doing them to make sleep happen…

They become performance-based efforts.

You lie there thinking:

“Am I calm yet?”

“Why isn’t this working?”

And now the pressure is even higher.

4. Controlling your thoughts

Maybe you try to chase away every anxious thought.

Or you’ve learned to “challenge” them with logic.

That’s helpful during the day.

But at night, if your goal is to silence your thoughts so you can sleep…

That’s another effort.

And it puts you right back in the loop:

You think → You react → You analyze → You can’t sleep → You panic.

⸻

Now Let’s Talk About the Daytime

Sleep efforts don’t stop at night.

They often show up all day long.

Like:

• Taking hot baths at exactly the “right” time

• Avoiding blue light like it’s poison

• Drinking sleepytime teas

• Rigging your bedroom with blackout curtains and sound machines

• Exercising solely to “wear yourself out”

• Avoiding caffeine, people, plans, fun

All of these actions reinforce one idea:

Sleep is fragile.

And the more fragile you believe sleep is, the more anxious you become.

And the more anxious you become, the more your nervous system gets in the way.

That’s the Sleep-Stopping Force (i.e., sleep anxiety and hyperarousal) at work.

⸻

What About Screens?

There’s truth to the idea that blue light can slightly delay your body clock.

But people with healthy sleep still scroll before bed and sleep fine.

A 2014 study found that using an iPad for 4 hours before bed only delayed sleep by 10 minutes.

That’s not what’s keeping you up all night.

The root issue isn’t blue light.

It’s hyperarousal.

It’s sleep anxiety.

It’s your nervous system saying:

“Sleep isn’t safe.”

⸻

Micromanaging Bedroom Conditions

It’s natural to want a peaceful sleep space.

But when you believe your room has to be perfect—silent, cold, pitch black—just for sleep to happen…

You become dependent on your environment.

And once again, the message your brain receives is:

“Sleep is fragile. Dangerous,...

If you’re like most people with chronic insomnia, you’ve probably tried a lot of things to fix it.

• Pills
• Relaxation exercises
• Strict wind-down routines
• Endless adjustments to your bedroom setup

But despite your best efforts, you still can’t sleep.

That’s not your fault.

And it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It just means you’ve been stuck in a trap most people fall into.

Here’s what it is:

Most insomnia fixes are actually sleep efforts.

And sleep efforts are one of the core reasons insomnia persists.

⸻

What Are Sleep Efforts?

Sleep efforts are any actions you take to try to make sleep happen.

They come from a place of urgency and desperation.

You’re exhausted.

You’re anxious.

You want sleep to come—but it won’t.

So you try to force it.

You do something to fix it.

Because that’s what we’re taught to do in life.

See a problem, take action, fix it.

But that logic backfires with sleep.

Because sleep isn’t something you do.

It’s a passive biological process.

Just like digestion or your heartbeat.

It happens on its own—when the conditions are right.

And trying to make it happen just sends your body the wrong message.

⸻

Why Sleep Efforts Keep You Stuck

There are two big reasons sleep efforts fail—and actually make things worse.

1. They activate your nervous system.

When you treat being awake at night like a crisis you need to fix, your body hears:

“There’s a threat.”

And when your body thinks there’s a threat, it activates fight-or-flight.

That ramps up the Sleep-Stopping Force—your anxiety and hyperarousal.

And that stops sleep from happening, no matter how tired you are.

2. They reinforce fear.

When your efforts fail—which they almost always do—you feel even more anxious.

More out of control.

More desperate.

Which just ramps up the cycle again.

You try harder.

Sleep resists.

And on it goes.

⸻

Examples of Sleep Efforts

Here are a few common sleep efforts that might sound familiar:

• Elaborate bedtime routines

• Using breathwork or meditation specifically to induce sleep

• Micromanaging your bedroom environment

• Taking sleeping pills or supplements

• Changing your entire day around to “protect” your sleep

• Getting in bed early or sleeping in late to “catch up”

None of these are bad in themselves.

But if you’re doing them as a way to control sleep, they’re sleep efforts.

And they’re keeping you stuck.

⸻

So What Should You Do?

The first step is to recognize sleep efforts for what they are.

Desperate attempts to control an uncontrollable process.

They’re not evil.

They’re just misguided.

The next step?

Let go.

Not of sleep.

But of the efforts.

This might sound counterintuitive.

But it’s exactly how normal sleepers sleep.

They don’t try to sleep.

They just allow sleep to happen when it’s ready.

And your body can too—once the sleep-stopping force is lowered.

⸻

A Quick Experiment

Let’s test it.

Right now—or tonight when you go to bed—try this:

Lie down.

Close your eyes.

And tell yourself:

“Sleep. Now.”

Feel that?

Even with a strong desire to sleep, you can’t force it.

It’s just not how sleep works.

And that’s actually good news.

Because once you stop trying to force it, sleep gets a lot easier.

⸻

What Happens...

If you feel like you’ve tried everything to fix your sleep and nothing has worked, there’s a reason for that.

It’s not because you’re failing.

It’s not because your brain is broken.

It’s because most insomnia solutions ignore a very simple but crucial truth:

There are only two forces that control whether or not you sleep.

We refer to them as the Sleep-Starting Force and the Sleep-Stopping Force.

Understanding these two forces is the key to reversing chronic insomnia.

And once you know how they work, you’ll finally be able to stop trying to “force” sleep and start letting it happen naturally.

​

Force #1: The Sleep-Starting Force

This is what makes sleep happen.

It’s made up of two biological systems:

• Your sleep drive
• Your circadian rhythm

Your sleep drive is your body’s pressure to sleep.

It builds up the longer you stay awake.

And the only way to release it is by actually sleeping.

It’s kind of like hunger.

The longer you go without food, the stronger your urge to eat.

Eventually, the pressure is so strong that you have to eat.

Sleep works the same way.

You can’t go without sleep forever.

Your body will make it happen.

Then there’s your circadian rhythm—your internal body clock.

It tells your body when to feel awake and when to feel sleepy based on past patterns, light exposure, and time of day.

In the evening, your circadian rhythm aligns with your sleep drive, helping you feel sleepy.

This powerful combo is your Sleep-Starting Force.

It’s your body’s built-in system for regulating sleep.

And here’s the good news:

It cannot be broken.

Even if you have chronic insomnia, this system is still there in your body—waiting to help you.

So why doesn’t it feel like it works?

Force #2: The Sleep-Stopping Force

If the sleep-starting force is your body’s built-in mechanism to make you sleep, then the sleep-stopping force is what blocks it.

And this force is almost entirely psychological.

It’s made up of:

• Anxiety
• Hyperarousal
• And the nervous system’s threat response

When your brain perceives a threat, it activates the fight-or-flight response.

This was helpful when we were being chased by wild animals.

However, it becomes a problem when the “threat” is your fear of not sleeping.

Your body can’t tell the difference.

It just knows you feel under threat.

So it keeps you awake.

Because to your primal brain, it’s not safe to sleep when there’s danger nearby.

That’s why sleep is so hard when you’re anxious.

Even when your body is tired.

Even when you want nothing more than to rest.

The threat of insomnia becomes insomnia.

This creates a loop:

You fear not sleeping → your nervous system activates → you can’t sleep → that makes you more anxious → your nervous system activates again… and on it goes.

This is the Sleep-Stopping Force.

And it’s the real reason you can’t fall asleep—not because you’re doing something wrong.

So What Makes Sleep Happen Easily?

Here’s the formula you want:

High Sleep-Starting Force + Low Sleep-Stopping Force = effortless sleep

If your body is biologically ready to sleep and your nervous system is calm, sleep happens.

No...

If you’re struggling with chronic insomnia, it’s not because you haven’t tried hard enough.

It’s not because you’re broken.

And it’s not because you haven’t found the right sleep hygiene hack.

It’s because insomnia becomes conditioned over time—and this conditioning keeps your nervous system on high alert every night.

In this episode, I want to show you why that happens… and what to do about it.

​

The Heart of Chronic Insomnia: Sleep Anxiety and Hyperarousal

At its core, long-term insomnia is a psychological and physiological loop.

You begin to feel anxious about sleep.

That anxiety activates your nervous system.

Your body enters a fight-or-flight state.

And that physical hyperarousal blocks your ability to fall and stay asleep.

This happens even when you’re exhausted.

You might feel wired at bedtime.

You might toss and turn while your mind spins.

You might even jerk awake just as you’re drifting off.

These are all signs that your nervous system is on high alert.

So how does this keep going?

There are 3 common patterns that fuel insomnia over time:

• Unhelpful perceptions
• Unhelpful reactions
• Unhelpful behaviors

Unhelpful Perceptions

This includes misunderstandings about sleep and insomnia.

You might think:

“There’s something wrong with me.”

“My body just doesn’t know how to sleep.”

“I’ll never function again if I sleep badly tonight.”

You may also carry extreme fears about the long-term effects of insomnia.

These thoughts feel real—but they’re often based on misinformation.

As your mind catastrophizes, your body believes the threat is real.

Cue more stress.

Cue more hyperarousal.

Cue more sleeplessness.

Throughout this system, you’ll learn to shift your perceptions.

By understanding how sleep actually works and how insomnia is maintained, your fear naturally decreases.

When the fear drops, your nervous system begins to calm down.

Unhelpful Reactions

These are the emotional and cognitive patterns that keep your sleep anxiety alive.

You might feel emotionally volatile when you don’t sleep well.

You might spiral when you feel tired during the day.

You might try to force yourself to sleep.

Or berate yourself for not being able to.

These reactions keep you trapped.

With tools like mindfulness, acceptance, and self-compassion, you can learn how to reduce emotional overreactivity and soften your nervous system response.

Unhelpful Behaviors

This includes what you actually do in response to insomnia.

You might:

• Spend extra time in bed trying to make sleep happen
• Take long naps
• Cancel plans to “protect” your sleep
• Avoid life activities that used to bring you joy

These behaviors unintentionally reinforce your fear of insomnia.

They train your brain to believe sleep is fragile and must be “protected.”

But this pressure only makes things worse.

​

Conditioned Hyperarousal: Why Your Body Reacts Automatically

Here’s the kicker.

After enough nights of poor sleep and high anxiety, your nervous system starts associating nighttime with threat.

Even if you’re not consciously anxious, your body remembers.

This is known as conditioned hyperarousal.

You might feel sleepy at 9pm.

But the second your head hits the pillow, you’re wide awake.

You might even sleep fine one night, only to find yourself triggered the next.

That’s not your fault.

It’s a...

If you’ve ever wondered how your insomnia actually started and why it’s been so hard to fix… this email is for you.

Because insomnia develops in a fairly predictable way.

And the science explains why so many people end up stuck in it long after the original stressor is gone.

There are three ingredients that lead to chronic insomnia:

Risk factors, a triggering event, and then sleep anxiety.

Let’s walk through this.

Step 1: Risk factors make you vulnerable

These are things in your life that increase your chances of developing insomnia.

Examples include:

• A family history of insomnia
• Prior sleep difficulties
• Being female or getting older
• High sensitivity to feeling bad when you don’t sleep
• Perfectionism or Type A tendencies
• Anxiety, depression, or trauma history
• Health anxiety
• A strong need for control in life

If any of these sound familiar, you’re not alone.

They don’t cause insomnia directly.

But they do make you more likely to struggle when something stressful happens.

Step 2: A triggering event causes short-term sleep disruption

This is usually a stressful situation that temporarily disrupts your sleep.

It might be:

• Work pressure
• A loss or grief​
• A new baby
• Financial stress
• A health scare
• Big life changes
• Or even excitement

These events can make it harder to fall asleep or stay asleep for a while.

This is completely normal.

In most people, once the event passes, sleep returns to normal.

But for others… it doesn’t.

Step 3: Anxiety takes over

When the short-term disruption doesn’t resolve, a deeper pattern starts to form.

You begin to worry:

“What if I can’t sleep again tonight?”

“How will I function tomorrow?”

That worry feels real—and your body reacts like it’s in danger.

This triggers nervous system hyperarousal.

You enter fight-or-flight mode… in bed.

Your heart races.

Your muscles stay tense.

Your thoughts spiral.

You get sudden jerks as you’re falling asleep.

You wake up in the night, wired.

You constantly monitor how close you are to sleep.

Your body isn’t broken.

It’s just been trained to associate nighttime with danger.

This is why insomnia persists—even when the original stressor is long gone.

So, what’s really going on?

Insomnia is not a disease or a defect.

It’s a learned pattern of fear and nervous system activation around sleep.

And that’s actually good news.

Because what is learned can be unlearned.

Why this matters

Understanding that the root of insomnia is sleep anxiety and hyperarousal shifts everything.

It’s not about fixing your sleep directly.

It’s about calming your anxiety and retraining your nervous system to feel safe at night.

That’s what the End Insomnia System is built to do.

It’s not a set of sleep hacks.

It’s a full transformation that helps you:

• Rewire your response to insomnia
• Reverse hyperarousal
• And reduce the fear of not sleeping

So sleep starts happening naturally again.

One final note

This isn’t your fault.

Insomnia develops from a storm of life stress, personality traits, and your body doing its best to protect you.

But it’s also something you can work through.

And you don’t have to do it alone.

You’re not broken.

You’re not alone.

And you’re not stuck with...

I and 100s of others have used the End Insomnia System to recover from insomnia for good and sleep great again for life.

Have you ever had doubts that a new system that goes after the root cause of insomnia - hyperarousal - might not work for you?

If so, you’re not alone.

Many people struggling with insomnia feel skeptical at first.

And it’s understandable.

You’ve probably tried countless things that didn’t help or, worse, made things more frustrating.

But let’s explore some common doubts you might have and why they don’t mean the End Insomnia System can’t work for you.

Objection #1: “I have insomnia, but I’m not anxious.”

Maybe the word “anxiety” doesn’t feel like it fits.

That’s fine.

Instead, try focusing on what happens in your body at night when you can’t sleep.

Do you feel tired but wired?

Agitated?

Frustrated?

Is your heart pounding?

Are your muscles tense?

Are your thoughts racing?

That’s not just “normal restlessness.”

That’s a textbook fight-or-flight response.

Your nervous system is reacting to a perceived threat.

That reaction is anxiety - whether you feel mentally anxious or not.

You don’t need to identify as “an anxious person” to recognize your body is stuck in high-alert mode.

And that’s what’s interfering with your ability to fall and stay asleep.

Now ask yourself:

If you truly felt no fear about insomnia or its consequences, would your sleep still be an issue?

In almost every case, the answer is no.

​Objection #2: “I’ve been disappointed so many times. Why should I trust this system?”

Totally fair.

Most people reading this have tried everything - supplements, sleep hygiene, CBT-i, and walked away frustrated.

The difference here is that the End Insomnia System doesn’t focus on making sleep happen.

Instead, it helps you dismantle the anxiety that prevents sleep from happening naturally.

This system doesn’t offer a quick fix. There are none, trust me.

It provides a step-by-step process for unwinding the nervous system patterns that keep you stuck.

And while it takes time, the long-term results are real.

If you’re tired of surface-level fixes, this is a different approach entirely.

Objection #3: “Maybe I’m just broken.”

This one hurts the most - and it’s one of the most common.

You’ve had so many sleepless nights, you’ve started to believe something is deeply wrong.

You’ve probably googled endlessly.

You’ve read scary theories on Reddit.

You’ve convinced yourself that something inside your brain or body is irreparably damaged.

But here’s the truth:

You are not broken.

Your nervous system has been trained to associate night with threat.

And it’s doing what it’s supposed to do when there’s danger: keeping you alert and awake.

This is not a defect.

It’s conditioning.

And conditioning can be reversed.

​​

Objection #4: “My insomnia is too unique for anything to help.”

Maybe you fall asleep fine, but wake up at 3 a.m.

Or maybe your mind races the second your head hits the pillow.

Or maybe you feel calm at night, but still can’t sleep.

The manifestations of insomnia vary.

But the mechanism under the surface is almost always the same:

A nervous system stuck in threat mode.

A mind trained to over-monitor sleep.

A cycle of fear and struggle that’s gotten deeply ingrained.

This system addresses that cycle—no matter how your insomnia shows up.

Objection #5: “My psychology is too complex for this to work.”

You may...