<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/799240025" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

Martin Reed:

Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that by changing how we respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it, we can move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life we want to live.

Martin Reed:

The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. The statements and opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

Martin Reed:

Okay. Jeanette, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.

Jeannette Stojcevski:

You’re welcome. Glad to be here.

Martin Reed:

I’m really looking forward to our conversation, so let’s just get started. I’d like to start right at the beginning. So can you tell us a little bit more about when your sleep problems first began and what you think may have caused those initial issues with sleep?

Jeannette Stojcevski:

Yeah, so my sleep problems, I never had problems sleeping in my teens, my 20s. I was a great sleeper, a really great sleeper. I brag about it. I needed to get my eight, nine hours. So I was always a little obsessive about it, but I was a great sleeper. And then right about 13 years ago, I was living in LA and I’m a personal trainer, so my job was pretty consistent as far as the schedule. But around 30, I moved to Hollywood. I wanted a change, I moved to a little city outside of Hollywood that I liked. And I commuted to work three days a week. And on the other two days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I worked from home, like an online job that kept me pretty busy, but I could start it at whatever time I wanted. So my insomnia started right around this time because looking back, I had a schedule when I was personal training before I had moved.

And then when I had gotten this online job, on those days, I would sleep in and I would generally go out maybe the night before and not know why I was having trouble waking up at, because I had early clients. So on the other days, I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning and I could no longer fall asleep on the nights before. And it was just because I believe my schedule was completely erratic. So some days I was waking up at 4:00 AM, other days 10:00 AM, 8:00 . So then my sleep just started to struggle from that point on, and I didn’t know why. I just thought, “Oh my gosh, what was going on with me? Why can’t I fall asleep anymore?” And that’s when the search started. That’s when I just started down the rabbit hole and it never stopped.

Martin Reed:

So why don’t you tell us a little bit more about that? Because whenever we are faced with a problem as human beings, we want to fix that problem, right?

Jeannette Stojcevski:

Yes.

Martin Reed:

But sleep is one of these outliers that tends not to respond well to effort, which we all know once we’ve gone through that journey and come out the other side. But when we are really trapped in that struggle, boy, we’ll do anything to get out of it. And that usually involves lots of experiments, lots of rituals, lots of efforts. So yeah, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your experience there.

Jeannette Stojcevski:

Sure. So just like so many other people, I immediately started researching, started going to the internet looking for things I could try. So it started with just the sleep hygiene. Keeping my room cold or blackout curtains, eye mask. I developed a lot of rituals. Then I started to do acupuncture. I’m living in LA, so there’s a plethora of holistic doctors. So I just started seeing just random healers, people that told me that something in my past life was contributing to the problem. I wrote all of them down. I did hypnosis, I spent a lot of money on hypnosis. I bought a machine, it’s called… I just tried so many crazy things. This thing that you put around your head, it’s called tDCS, some sort of stimulation for your brain, which I think can be actually dangerous. I tried sweat lodges, everything I could think of, crystals.

And then I started taking sleeping pills. That’s when I went down the path of, “Okay, I don’t know what else to do.” I started smoking marijuana and I started taking sleeping pills. But I had no idea what I was actually taking. I got them from a family member who was able to get them from Europe, and I did not know, and he didn’t know what I was taking either. So I eventually ran out because it wasn’t a prescription. So I eventually ran out, and now I’m dealing with, which I didn’t realize at the time how dangerous it was, I’m dealing with rebound insomnia. So it was even worse at that point where I didn’t sleep for days. I actually slept in my car one night. So I can’t even be in my apartment anymore, I’ve got to leave. So I went to my car and actually fell asleep that night, which was interesting.

And so after about five days of that, I stayed at a friend’s house and then I was able to sleep after that. I was able to get a good chunk of five, six hours. So I knew that I could sleep again, I knew my body was able to do this, but I still didn’t know why it was happening, so I sought out the help of a holistic doctor out there. And it was a wonderful experience, I started to sleep better, but I thought at that time it was because of the supplements. I thought, “Wow, I’m on this program, he balanced out whatever was going on with me, I’m good.” But in reality, looking back, I think my sleep got better at that time because I just started to, because I didn’t go out anymore, I wasn’t going out at night, so I wasn’t sleeping in as much. So I think everything regulated and I started sleeping better for a while.

And then it never really left me. I was always worried about it, I always thought about it, I obsessed about the way I looked like, “Is this affecting my appearance, is this affecting my workouts?” I just continue to worry about it, so that fear never left me. And then in December of 2020… Now I’m living in Michigan. I moved back to Michigan and I got COVID in December of 2020. And I got it pretty… I lost my smell, and so it was a pretty difficult time. I got a little depressed around that time. And my sleep suffered naturally, but of course… And I was having problems every so often before that. But it really, really suffered after I got COVID and I thought, “Oh no, this is different. This is the worst it’s ever been.”

And that’s when I started working with you and I got better. But then I think it was September of 2021 that I just started to get worse. I don’t know what the trigger was, it was just a night where I couldn’t fall back to sleep. That’s what it was. I woke up around three in the morning and then I couldn’t fall back to sleep after that. And then I was like, “Oh no, it is back.” But that’s never happened to me, usually I can get back to sleep. So I’m thinking it was worse than it has ever been, something must be wrong with me. And then I started going down another crazy rabbit hole.

I considered going to a rehab at that time like, “Do I need to go somewhere where somebody just has to take care of me for a while?” I considered going to