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When I decided I wanted to achieve a persistent sense of inner peace and serenity in my life, I knew that combating my severe and chronic sleep issues would be one of the first things I’d have to solve. I’ve experienced insomnia ever since I was a child, and I’ve tried to combat it multiple times over the years. However, nothing’s worked until now.

After more than a decade of insomnia, I’m finally beginning to find things that help me fall asleep faster and overall sleep better. If you’ve ever experienced insomnia and sleeplessness, I’m sure you can understand how thrilled I am. So in this post, I want to share everything I’ve been doing in case someone out there is struggling as bad I was for years.

What is insomnia?

Put shortly, insomnia is synonymous with sleeplessness; It’s a sleep disorder that makes it hard to fall asleep and/or stay asleep. Most people will experience short-term insomnia from time to time, but insomnia can become chronic as well due to several causes. These include medications, allergies, underlying conditions (e.g. gastro-intestinal issues or mental health conditions), or as in my case, having taught yourself bad sleeping habits.

My background with insomnia and sleep problems

As mentioned, I had a hard time falling asleep even as a child and as I got older the problems only increased. Due to insomnia, I ended up taking most of my high school education online, and I had to prolong my time at university as well. So, I’ve really experienced how debilitating sleep problems can be and how much they can affect one’s quality of life and overall ability to function.

About a month ago, the insomnia peaked for me, and I felt absolutely awful for a few weeks due to the sleep deprivation. I ended up going to my doctor, hoping to get a prescription for sleeping pills which I’d otherwise been opposed to do until then. But I’d finally had enough, and I felt like I could no longer function on next to no sleep. I’d recently started my private practice as well, so the sleeplessness now felt like a bigger problem than ever. However, doctors in Denmark aren’t happy to prescribe sleep medication, so I went home, discouraged, having to find another solution to combat my problems.

A few days before, my supervisor had suggested cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, also known as CBT-I, but since I had already had a few classes at university on CBT-I and felt like I had tried all the things CBT-I had to offer, I felt skeptical.

Being left with next to no options however, I sat out to find for a self-help book about CBT-I. That’s when I stumbled upon ‘The Insomnia Workbook’ by Stephanie Silberman which has honestly become my lifesaver. I truly cannot recommend this book enough if you’re battling insomnia. It’s one of the only things that’s worked for me in over a decade, and I now use it to help those of my clients who are struggling with insomnia as well.

Most of the steps I’ve taken this past month to cure my own insomnia are inspired by Silberman’s book while others are not. I’ve already gone from sleeping anywhere from 0-4 hours a night to now consistently getting around 6 hours of sleep a night. Now, I still have some work to do, but this is a HUGE improvement for me, and I feel so much better now than I did a month ago. So, let’s take a look at what I’ve been doing:

The steps I’ve taken to cure my insomnia

#1: Redefining perfect sleep
One of the ways I’d developed an unhealthy relationship with sleep was by stressing out about it. I would constantly worry about not having slept enough, how many times I woke up during the night, how tired I felt etc.

Realizing that a perfect night’s sleep is rare for most people, and also, isn’t necessary has helped me relieve some of that stress.

It’s assumed that some thousand years ago, humans would naturally wake up a few times during the night to scan the environment for threats. Waking up multiple times has been an evolutionary advantage, and not something to stress out about.


#2: No stimulating activities for at least an hour before bedtime
This means no screen-time and relaxing (or, if you prefer, boring) activities only. So no, you can’t listen to that true-crime podcast either.

The reason for this is that anything that intrigues or activates our brains close to bedtime will overrule its’ sleep signals and keep us awake. The stimuli we receive through screens, both in terms of light and whatever’s happening on the screen, will do the same thing.

So, put shortly, to fall asleep we need to eliminate anything that’ll overrule the brain’s sleep signals (which, by the way, includes stressing out about our sleep problems).

For me, I found it hard to put my phone away for an entire hour before bedtime at first, but after a week or so, I realized that it actually made a difference in terms of how I felt when I went to bed. Instead of using my phone, I now try to spend the hour before bed reading.


#3: Dimming the lights at least an hour before bedtime
The reason why we need to dim the lights at least one hour before bedtime is that electrical lights interfere with our circadian rhythm, which is basically our brain’s ability to differentiate between night and day. Strong lights in the evening can cheat our brains into thinking it’s daytime, which in turn will stop our brains from producing the sleep hormone (called melatonin) that helps us fall asleep.


#4: Not going to bed before I’m completely exhausted
When facing insomnia and sleep issues, we’ll do pretty much anything to get a good night’s sleep. This might include going to bed early to give ourselves more time to fall and stay asleep. However, this tends to backfire.

The explanation is that the more time you spend in bed not sleeping, the more your brain will associate your bed with just that: Not sleeping. When trying to cure insomnia, we need to retrain our brains into associating our beds with sleep, and sleep only.

So for me, once bedtime gets closer, I try to do something that’s relaxing and non-stimulating, such as reading, until I can barely keep my eyes open. This has been a very important step for my own progress, because I used to spend sooo much time in bed being awake.  

#5: Not looking at the clock
Okay, so I did this before as well, but for everyone who checks the clock when they can’t sleep or when they wake in the night: Don’t do it!! It will only stress you out, and once unsettling emotions are activated, they will overrule your brain’s sleep signals.


#6: Taking supplements
My partner is currently training for a career in health services, so in one his classes they were taught about the connection between diet and sleep. They were taught that a certain amino acid, tryptophan, seems to be important for the body’s ability to produce melatonin (the sleep hormone) and serotonin (an important feel-good chemical that seems to be crucial for the gut’s functioning as well).
I did my own research and found this study that confirms these links and gives an overview on which foods we can eat to improve our sleep.

I try to eat a varied, healthy diet, but I still have some improvements to make. So in the meantime, I’ve started taking a melatonin and a tryptophan supplement about an hour before bedtime, which I’m pretty sure helps me fall asleep faster.


#7: Keeping my bed a worry-free zone
I used to spend most evenings in bed planning, worrying, and trying to solve all of my problems. I didn’t even realize how much this bad habit probably affected my inability to fall asleep.

I now try to be very mindful of keeping my bed a worry-free zone. I do this by writing a to do-list before going to bed, which helps me not to worry about forgetting something important. Additionally, I try to actively remind myself of how my bed is now a worry-free zone once I catch myself starting to worry or trying to solve problems in bed.

Studies have confirmed that journaling and/or writing to do-lists before bed help people fall asleep faster, so I would definitely recommend you make this a habit if you have trouble falling asleep.

#8: Practicing deep breathing
Deep breathing is extremely difficult for me, and I often notice throughout the day that my breath is shallow. But deep breathing helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (the body’s “rest and digest”-mechanism) and thereby relax, which is very helpful when trying to get a good night’s sleep.

You can find a ton of breathing exercises online, so I recommend you explore what’s out there and find a breathing exercise or two that you’re comfortable with.
The one I like the most is abdominal breathing, where you basically put one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest and see if you can breathe into your stomach and pelvis without your chest lifting too much. You then focus on slow exhales.

If you find deep breathing difficult like I do, you need to practice this a lot before getting good at it, so be gentle with yourself and keep going. The few times I’ve mastered it, it’s felt amazing, and it should get easier with practice.


#9: Identifying sleep disturbances
And last but not least, I’ve started to really take notice of anything that’s disturbing my sleep. Through this, I’ve found that I definitely should not eat larger meals or consume sugar close to bedtime.

You might need to fill out a sleep journal for a few weeks before you can identify things that keeps you awake. Filling out a sleep journal will provide you with a lot of useful data on where you can intervene to improve your sleep. I found sleep journal template right here that you can print out (for free ofc!).


These are the things that’s improved my sleep so far, and I hope they can help someone out there who’s struggling with insomnia as I’ve been struggling. I had to become religious about following these steps but it’s paid off, so I highly recommend you try to follow these steps as well and stick with them for a while to see if any of them can help you.