If you’ve been struggling to sleep for a while, you’ve probably tried lots of different things to try to figure it out. 


In this episode, I share the most common traps that even the smartest people fall into during their sleep journey. 


But don’t worry, because if you have fallen into these traps, I also share in this episode how you can get yourself out of them.


You are meant to sleep well, and this episode will show you how. 


Resources



Episode Transcript


Have you tried everything from natural to pharmaceutical just to get a good night's rest? Join me, Martha Lewis, certified sleep expert and functional health coach. As I unpack what's really keeping you up at night and how to change it, this is the Sleep Detective podcast and I'm going to show you how to sleep well so you can enjoy your life.


Hello and welcome. Today I want to talk about the five big traps you want to avoid if you have chronic insomnia. So if you've been struggling to sleep for a while and you felt desperate at times trying to figure it out so that you can sleep better, you've probably tried lots of different things. So these are the most common traps I see even the smartest people fall into during their journey. And this isn't your fault, right? These are the mainstream options that you've been told about for insomnia.


If you Google how to sleep better or how to get over insomnia, this is what you're going to be told to do. But I'm going to tell you why these things aren't actually helpful. So trap number one is sleep hygiene. So again, if you Google how to sleep better, you're going to read the same generic advice over and over again. Follow a bedtime routine. Don't watch screens before bed. Meditate all the things. I had someone message me recently and write, I roll my eyes every time someone says not to look at your phone or to meditate before bed, right? We've been told these things a million times, you've probably tried them and they aren't enough to help. Now, I'm not saying that these things are important, and this advice can help someone who has an occasional problem sleeping, but it's not going to help if you have chronic insomnia.


And the reason it doesn't help because the reason why you aren't sleeping is because your body is out of balance, not because you're scrolling on your phone before bed. All right? Trap number two is guessing at supplements. So you've probably tried magnesium and melatonin and CBD and this sleep formula and that sleep supplement. There are hundreds out there and they all promise to give you a good night's rest. Now, if you're deficient in magnesium or melatonin, then supplementing with those things might help, but they aren't a cure for chronic sleep issues because there's more going on than just magnesium or melatonin deficiency. So magnesium isn't enough if you also need calcium, sodium, and potassium and melatonin isn't enough. If your cortisol is high at night and your sex hormones are out of balance and your gut isn't healthy and your liver isn't detoxing, so that's why those things haven't worked for you yet.


Trap number three is taking a sleeping pill. So you probably don't want to take a drug to sleep, right? But that seems to be the only fix. If you go to your doctor, that's what they're going to prescribe. And maybe you've tried a few different drugs and none of them really help. And the truth is sleeping pills are really just a bandaid. They aren't addressing the root cause of why you aren't sleeping normally. They don't produce natural sleep. They can be addictive. They have side effects. One of the side effects is insomnia actually for a lot of these sleep muds, which is crazy. So I want you to know that there's another way you don't have to resort to medication. Now, trap number four is doing a sleep study. And again, if you've talked to your doctor about not sleeping, this is probably what they're going to recommend.


But a sleep study is primarily looking for sleep apnea and apnea and insomnia are two different things, right? So apnea means that you stop breathing during the night and a lot of times you don't even know it. And so yes, if you have that, that is something that you want to address because that is affecting your health. But insomnia is when you have trouble falling asleep, or let's say you do wake up from apnea, but then it takes you an hour or two to fall back to sleep, or you're waking up at four in the morning for the day, even though you'd rather be sleeping till six or seven. So unfortunately, a sleep study isn't looking for why you have insomnia. And so many of my clients have eagerly waited months for a sleep study. They were told that that's the answer. And after the study they were told they didn't sleep much, which they already knew.


The problem is the sleep study doesn't show why you didn't sleep much, and that's what we need to know to be able to fix it right now. Trap number five is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia or CBTI. Now, this is great for addressing the mental part of not sleeping, and it's definitely a step in the process, but if you, like many of my clients have done CBTI and it didn't totally fix your sleep issues, it's because there are imbalances in your body that are keeping you awake. So sleep restriction, which sounds awful, and bedtime routines and all of that aren't going to help if you have a parasite or liver detox issues or neurotransmitter deficiencies that are causing your insomnia. So what is the answer then? The way to overcome insomnia permanently is to find and fix what's actually causing you to be awake at night.


So in the Insomnia Insight Program, I use assessments and functional lab tests to find all the different imbalances in your body that are keeping you from sleeping well so that nothing is missed. I'm looking at hormones, at cortisol, at liver function, at gut health, especially for pathogens and leaky gut, for neurotransmitter deficiencies, for mineral imbalances, for toxins like heavy metals and mold, there are so many reasons why you aren't able to sleep normally, and every person's what I call the puzzle. Everyone has different pieces to their puzzle as to what's causing that, but by the time you have a symptom such as not being able to sleep normally, multiple systems in your body are out of balance. And so again, even if melatonin is low or magnesium is low, there's more going on than just that. So we need to find all the things that are out of balance.


Then I give you a straightforward plan, including only three simple diet and lifestyle changes that will make the biggest difference in your sleep and your health. And I recommend supplements to take temporarily, usually for about three months to help your body get back in balance so it can sleep. Normally in the Insomnia Insight Program, you'll also get six months of support as you implement your plan. So there are weekly group coaching calls and daily chat messaging so you stay committed to your plan and then you'll finally be able to solve your sleep issues once and for all. Now, you'll also have access to brief but powerful trainings as soon as you sign up. These are about sleep, health mindset, diet, blood sugar, everything related to sleep. And so you can get started on those right away and not waste any more time and energy researching about what you should do to sleep better.


You'll also get a Sleep Better Jumpstart plan. So this means that as soon as you sign up and fill out the intake forms, I'm going to tell you the three most important three things to start doing immediately so you know exactly what to do to get better from an expert looking at your individual case. So this will be the first time someone is looking at your sleep and health and life altogether and telling you what to do that's going to make a difference. So you can sign up for the Insomnia Insight Program now so you can know what's causing your sleep issues and have a comprehensive plan to fix them in just 30 days from now. So you can stop guessing at supplements, trying CBTI, waiting for a sleep study or resorting to drugs to sleep. I want you to know that your body is meant to sleep well.

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