“I lay awake for hours each night trying to fall asleep. It feels as if I have forgotten how to fall asleep. And even when I do sleep, I wake up multiple times in the middle of the night.” A client of mine expressed this distress in her first session. This kind of difficulty in falling asleep, staying asleep, or not feeling tired and sleepy even after hours of work is medically termed as ‘insomnia’.

We have all experienced the occasional lack of sleep. The resulting drowsiness, irritable mood, and unsteady concentration might not seem a big deal to us at the moment, but imagine the same thing happening night after night for days, months, or even years. The accumulated effect can take over everything we think, feel, and do. The same was true for this client of mine. These sleepless nights had become a regular part of her life. And while it began as a single problem, it had slowly invaded everything in her life—from the efficiency of her work to her personal life.

Horrible as it may sound, insomnia is a fairly common problem, with the underlying cause varying from person to person. For some, it may be a result of something easy to pinpoint, like increased stress, high caffeine intake, irregular sleep schedule, poor sleep habits (we all are familiar with some late-night phone scrolling), or just an uncomfortable bed. For people in this category, simply finding the cause, removing it, and improving their sleep habits could eliminate insomnia from their life.

For others like my client, however, the cause could be something underlying in their physical or mental health conditions like sleep apnea, hormonal imbalance, anxiety, depression, psychosis, etc that results in insomnia. In such cases, working on the underlying causes should go alongside the treatment of insomnia.

I will explain the few simple tactics that helped my client overcome her insomnia and may be useful to you as well.

Setting a consistent bedtime and waketime was the first thing that helped my client. Her habit of sleeping at different times each day disrupted her body’s biological clock. This type of irregular sleep habits seems to be true for most people with insomnia. Having a set time for a minimum of seven hours of sleep helps reset the biological clock.

She also used her bed for other activities, such as using electronic devices, working, or just lounging around. Strictly restricting being on the bed for any activities other than sleep helped her mind associate the bed as a space for rest. Once this association is made, the mind and body become more relaxed and calm whenever you actually get on the bed. Lying in bed when one is awake can become a habit that leads to poor sleep. So as contradictory as it may sound, reducing the time my client spent in bed was helpful for her to combat insomnia eventually.

In addition to these, she also implemented a few lifestyle changes to create good sleep hygiene. Unhealthy habits such as smoking or drinking too much alcohol, caffeine intake late in the day, heavy meals right before going to bed, or not getting regular exercise all interfere with sleep. Cutting back on these substances and regular exercise in the morning can be the simple yet effective solution that many people overlook.

Interestingly, the most effective method for my client was the simple act of slowly counting in reverse from 100 to 1. If the mind is too active and thoughts keep popping up before sleep, simply counting backwards from a hundred at a slow pace can help reduce the thoughts that are interrupting the sleep.

Lastly, an interesting fact about sleep is it will not befall the ones who desperately wait for it. If one keeps thinking and worrying about sleep, it will just keep them more alert and awake. Letting go of this worry can help relax and make it easier to fall asleep.

(The methods mentioned above might help alleviate your insomnia to some degree, but they are not a substitution for seeking professional help. To work on the actual cause and other symptoms associated with your insomnia, please seek professional consultation from a physician and mental health professionals.)