If you haven’t read Part 1 of this 3 part series where I talk about the issues in your body that cause insomnia, click here to check it out.


The next key factor in your ability (or inability) to sleep is your MIND.


For some people it is a big part of why they can’t sleep, and for others it’s more minor, but I’ve seen with working over 100 clients that the mind plays a role to some extent for everyone.


If you’ve struggled to sleep for any period of time, there is some anxiety or worry about sleep building, and some negative self talk.


“The mind is everything, what you think you become.” The Buddha


I saw this in my own life, as I struggled to sleep, I began to talk about it all the time. I complained to my family, friends, and co-workers. It became an obsession. My thoughts about sleep were so negative, and it began to affect me.


I have insomnia. I’m not a good sleeper. 


How often have you said these things about yourself? 


And your brain wants to prove you right. So if you are always saying “I can’t sleep,” it’s no surprise that your brain will struggle to let you sleep.


This usually isn’t the only reason you can’t sleep. But if you are identifying strongly as a person who can’t sleep, then it will take longer to change that story, even if you’re addressing the physical reasons why you can't sleep.


So I recommend you, as I did, take one of the first crucial steps to deal with this.


Stop talking about your sleep struggles.


Not thinking about it is a bit harder, but if we can stop telling everyone about it, we stop declaring it constantly, which is a valuable first step.


To take my mental game to the next level, I began to connect with life coaches and learn about life coaching. Life coaching involves managing your thoughts and gaining emotional health.


Life is a roller coaster. It goes up and down and all around. And what I have learned is our experience of life does not have to be on that extreme roller coaster. Our emotions can be on a more mellow ride as we respond to the events of life.


So what are the keys to managing your mind to help you sleep?


Don’t make one bad night a big deal.


When you have a bad night of sleep, what is your response? So many people start telling themselves anxious stories about how their next day is ruined or they’ll make one bad night mean that they will never sleep again. 


This spiraling out every time we can’t sleep contributes to more anxiety and stress and will hurt sleep further and for longer.


So instead, don't panic! Don’t make one bad moment or night mean everything is ruined. This is part of becoming more emotionally healthy.


Understanding emotional health will positively impact the rest of your life as well. When we can tune into bad feelings during bad moments and know nothing has gone wrong, we can begin to be more intentional about what we are creating.


This work is an important part of working with a coach at the Complete Sleep Solution. We work with clients to rewire their brains to change their relationship with sleep. We help clients learn to change their thoughts.


We help with sleep anxiety.


We teach tools to calm your nervous system to help you get out of “fight or flight.” 


We offer tools to reduce stress.


We teach tools to address trauma if it’s impacting your sleep.


We can also help you evaluate if something else in your life is needing a change. Often there is something else in our life that is creating stress and anxiety which contributes to our sleep issues. 


I recently experienced this in my own life. I was preparing to speak at a conference, and at the same time I was going through a lot of transition in my business. I had lost an employee and I was training a new coach and onboarding a new VA. 


For three nights in a row, I slept horribly! This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me anymore, so it was really unusual.


I was talking to my husband about how stressed I was about the conference, and he asked, “Do you have to do it? Can you cancel?” 


I really resisted this idea, because having integrity and following through on my commitments is important to me. 


But when I explored the idea further with my life coach she offered that there is integrity to your commitments, but there is also integrity to yourself. She had me write out all the reasons I should speak and all the reasons I shouldn’t. 


This helped me see clearly that what was really the best choice for me was to cancel. So I let them know I wouldn’t be able to speak at the conference. I canceled my plane tickets and hotel, and I slept for nine and a half hours that night!


My body not sleeping had been telling me something in my life was off. I am thankful I was able to hear that call.


Sometimes your insomnia is a sign that there is something going on in your life that needs to change.


Your mind doesn’t need to keep sabotaging your sleep.


Take it from my former client Maura, who a couple of months into working together took a trip to Ireland. She emailed me after her trip and she said, “I returned from my trip to Ireland yesterday. I was so nervous about sleeping in various hotels in a different time zone. I did great and slept really well each night. I slept between seven and 8 hours. My anxiety about sleep is so much better.”


We were working on her physical issues as well, but we had also been working on her stress and anxiety about sleep, and that made a difference really quickly.