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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:

Hi, Nick. Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today.

Nick Hobbs:

Hi, Martin. It’s really lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Martin Reed:

Absolutely. I can’t wait to get onto our discussion, so let’s just get started right away. When did your sleep problems first begin, and what do you think caused those initial issues with sleep?

Nick Hobbs:

It’s lovely when you got hindsight, isn’t it? I can look back and around about the year 2000, I moved states, and started to live in a new city, and a new situation. And at the time, I would’ve told you that I was anxious about starting a new job. And, but looking back, I can see that it wasn’t partly situational crisis of just uncertainty, unknowing. But actually when I look back, that was a big life change as well. That was a big shift in direction. And I guess how I would answer that question now would be that well, partly it’s to do with in daily stress reaching a certain level, where on which I wasn’t really dealing with. But the other side of that was a sense of not being sure whether I was heading in the right direction with the decision that I’d made about moving to another place.

Nick Hobbs:

So that’s a slightly bigger picture concern or uncertainty. And I think the other thing was that having done the course with you, looking back, it’s a really interesting question, because it shows me that I actually didn’t know a lot about what to do when my sleep was being disturbed by the things that happened to us in our life. Does that make sense?

Martin Reed:

Yeah.

Nick Hobbs:

So I can see now that I didn’t have a great ability to respond to the needs that I had at the time.

Martin Reed:

So talking about that response, because I think most of us can recognize, there are always going to be some times in our life when we have some difficult nights, especially if there’s a big life change going on, or if something unusual or stressful happens in our lives. And normally sleep will just get right back on track as soon as we’ve adapted, or as soon as that event is behind us. But often, as you’ve experienced yourself, those sleep problems can stick around. So looking back, what was it you think that kept those sleep issues around? Why didn’t they just sort themselves out after that life change that you just described had occurred?

Nick Hobbs:

Partly, I think they resolved in about 2007. So I’d say there was a bit of a seven year period there where the sleep was a really unknown prospect for me, where I just lost confidence. So it’s partly about losing confidence in my ability to do something, which had never really been a preoccupation of mine up until that time. And so the changes kept coming throughout that period. I relocated again several times in that period, so that constant trying to define… And this is a period of young adulthood. And so that in itself was maybe partly about a life cycle issue that it just took time to find my way, and my place in the world. But I think more than anything, because a lot of people have to find their way in the world.

Nick Hobbs:

Not everyone is having sleep issues. So to me, then I look back and I go, “Well, actually, lack of confidence was a huge one.” And just lack of insight about what it is that keeps things going. So I just developed really, probably quite, unhelpful ways of responding to the way my brain. We talk about in your course, you talk about operant conditioning, and you talk about the way that our brain is wired to foresee threats and dangers, and to highlight those, and bring those to your attention. So I really didn’t have a very good way of responding to that. I felt really trapped by those thoughts. When they appeared, they just took over. That was the agenda, and I didn’t have, really, any ways to unhook from that.

Nick Hobbs:

And then I thought I could control my thoughts and my feelings. I thought that was the way to go. Try and distract myself from the things that were going on inside of me. And so therefore, inevitably, of course, nothing seemed to get resolved. It seems pretty straightforward now, doesn’t it? When you say it like that, but at the time, I just remember being so confused by the whole process. And therefore, it just kept rolling and taking on its own life. And then anxiety becomes then anxiety about anxiety, and it’s the hall of mirrors, isn’t it? You get this bigger response. Oh my God, I got these feelings of anxiety.

Nick Hobbs:

I start to associate bedtime with this sense of uncertainty and lack of confidence. And then from there, it builds to a thought process that kicks in where you start to just become hyper alert, but not necessarily attentive to the thought processes that are keeping that going. You’re not able to going to necessarily notice what’s happening, just in it. It’s very confusing space to be. It’s a bit of a labyrinth, isn’t it? It’s probably a good word for it, really.

Martin Reed:

Yeah. I completely agree with you. But when you were trapped in that struggle, what were those nights like? Was there a typical night or would you have trouble just first falling asleep? Or was it staying asleep? Or it’s just every night different… But it’s always a struggle?

Nick Hobbs:

Yeah. Look, it was a war of attrition. I think you can keep going and going, and it’s amazing how far you can go without sleep really, how far you can push yourself. But of course, then you collapse into this sleep. It takes over eventually. But it’s a good word for it, struggle, because it was. It really felt like those nights just ended up being a struggle. First, it would start off with a benign acceptance that, maybe it’ll come, maybe it won’t. And then you hear a partner sleeping or you start to get envious. You kick off, your mind starts running along these paths. Well, why is it not me? And what is it about me?

Nick Hobbs:

You get a bit preoccupied, very much preoccupied and self-centric. I think that those interior thought processes, it would be very much about not getting to sleep, and then ramping up, and then not sleeping, and then becoming, “Oh, well, the time. The one thing I don’t want to hear is the birds before the sun rises. The one thing I don’t want to see is the sun.” And of course, that’s exactly what would happen. The birds would come and they would become, instead of sweet sounding harbingers of a beautiful new day, they became this awesome specter of the drudgery that I’d have to force myself through the next day. So I just became very cued to those things, and quite demoralized and dispirited.

Nick Hobbs:

So by dawn, I was exhausted. I had mentally fought my way and tried to control myself. I’d be angry, full of se