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*I wrote this blog before my mom's unexpected death. Even with the absolute pain, grief, and exhaustion of losing my mom much too young, I'm still 100% cured from insomnia. I say this because this advice works and should give you hope.*  I’m not generally a skeptic. I usually believe the best in people and that experts know what they are talking about. That is until I had insomnia and went down a nearly two year path of sleep anxiety. Doctors and therapists made it worse. My skepticism made it better… Doctors were quick to prescribe me medicine, often the wrong kind treating the wrong problem, or spout off the importance of sleep hygiene. Therapists rarely had more than deep breathing and meditation techniques in their toolkit. Luckily, I learned so much about sleep after doing some digging through the internet, and my insomnia slowly got better. But some nights I would climb into bed and those all too familiar anxious feelings would creep up, and my brain would remember my insomnia, making the anxiety worse. I would do deep breathing exercises or run to a different bedroom only to have myself popping a pill an hour later. I was doing better comparatively to a year ago. I knew the path to healing wasn’t linear, but still I had some skepticism. First of all, thanks to the sleep experts I found, I no longer feared not sleeping like I used to, but why would one anxious thought when I went to fall asleep lead to nearly all out panic? First of all, I felt like I was merely coping albeit coping better but still coping. Second of all, I had spent the majority of my life without sleep anxiety. Was I just supposed to accept that I had anxiety now and my breathing exercises were what were to get me through the panic? If I once lived without anxiety couldn’t I live without it again? I didn’t want to just cope. I wanted to be panic free. So I searched. And I found Michael Norman, former research scientist and founder of PanicFree.TV who specializes in anxiety and panic help. His philosophy and research, largely similar to the sleep experts I found, addressed the reason why I was still getting panicked at night. His content has helped tremendously and makes so much sense, and he implores his audience to share it with everyone they know because he addressed that often doctors and therapists can’t keep up with the research and that’s why their advice might be outdated and unhelpful. Here are 5 Powerful Lessons I Learned from My Skepticism on Sleep Anxiety… 1. Panic is a False AlarmMichael Norman says it concisely and bluntly. Panic is not an illness. It is not a chemical imbalance although a lot of doctors would lead you to believe otherwise. In fact, the chemical imbalance metaphor is harmful to patients. It creates an unnecessary stigma, self-blame, and pessimism about the future. Overall, it’s harder for patients to get better. In the midst of my sleep anxiety, I truly believed that something was wrong with my brain and that this new reality might just be my life. It was truly a depressing thought. According to Norman, “It’s biochemically impossible for a panic attack to continue indefinitely. Panic always ends, no matter what you do.” To understand this, we must first look at the Smoke Detector Principle coined by Psychology Professor, Randolph Nesse, from Arizona State University. Thinking about your home, I can safely assume that you would rather have your smoke alarm go off when you burn something on the stove occasionally but never miss a real fire than a smoke alarm that FAILS to go off and stays silent during a fire. Like smoke alarms, our brains and fear systems are meant to be overprotective to keep you safe. And like smoke alarms, our brains will, too, have false alarms that are just as loud and scary as when you’re actually in danger (i.e. getting in a car crash or getting attacked). “A panic attack is ‘JUST’ a terrifying, overwhelming, overprotective MISTAKE. A mistake that, ironically, is motivated by our brain’s #1 priority in life — to keep you safe. The only REAL problem, and it’s a big one, is that it’s a terrifying mistake. It’s a mistake that can leave us feeling exposed and vulnerable, and make our world feel very unsafe,” says Norman. But the good news is that, just like how our brains learned what to fear, they can learn how to no longer fear and correct the panic mistake. 2. The Panic Pattern is Behind Every False AlarmThe panic pattern is paradoxical. For it to get triggered, it doesn’t require any real danger and instead requires your brain to make a mistake. Here’s how it happens…
That’s exactly what happened to me.
Therefore the obvious way to end panic is to stop the panic pattern. If the brain doesn’t confuse anxiety-related body sensations as dangerous, then you can’t have a panic attack and the pattern ends. And, just like I thought, panic free doesn’t mean that you cope better with panic attacks because coping means you still have them. Panic free means no more panic attacks and no more crippling anxiety. 3. Fighting or Fleeing to Stay Safe Only Makes Things WorseIn the throes of insomnia and sleep anxiety, I would do anything from take and carry around anxiety pills for bedtime, “run away” to sleep in a different bed, call my mom in the middle of the night to have her reassure me that I was safe, and attempt a variety of breathing exercises. Then I would flit around on social media and the internet to find the next magical cure to help me. While some of these solutions worked temporarily, they were never a long term cure. A band-aid, at best, over a gigantic gaping wound. By trying to fight or flee the situation, I was only reinforcing my brain that I was in actual danger. While deep breathing exercises throughout the day have their time and place, constantly doing deep breathing exercises throughout the day to avoid anxiety will do the opposite. I found a life of constantly trying to avoid anxiety to be exhausting. Going from bed to bed, debating whether I should take a pill, feeling guilty for waking my mom, trying to distract my anxious thoughts, and logically challenging my anxious thoughts were all so stressful. When a smoke alarm goes off because we burn a piece of toast, we don’t start screaming and running away or smashing the alarm system. We might open a few windows and fan the alarm with a towel, but we don’t put up a huge fight or flee the scene. Why? Because there is no real danger. The same is true for our panic. There is no real danger there. Every time we try to fight or flight our anxiety, we are reinforcing our brain that there is danger. So what do we need to do? You guessed it…. 4. We Need to Take Away the FearIn my very specific case of insomnia, Dr. Daniel Erichsen, sleep physician and coach, author, and founder of the Sleep Coach School says in order to take away the fear of being awake at night you have to teach your brain that it’s okay to be awake. Therefore, if you find yourself unable to fall asleep and anxious, instead of trying to do deep breathing or meditation to fall asleep, do something you enjoy. I might read a book or watch TV. Easier said than done, trust me, I know. But the more I tried to go to a different bed because that bed is bound to help me fall asleep, etc, etc, the more I reinforced the idea that there was an actual fear and danger. Michael Norman actually suggests this: Since trying to fight against a Panic False Alarm tends to fuel The Panic Pattern and makes it worse, if someone has a “panic attack” I don’t ask them to relax. Instead, I ask them to VOLUNTARILY make the False Alarm a LOT bigger. I ask them to voluntarily give me the biggest “panic attack” they’ve ever had. What happens universally is that they can’t. Paradoxically, it relaxes them. It's totally counterintuitive, but trying to VOLUNTARILY increase a False Alarm is an effective way to end it — and there are multiple scientific trials showing this really does work WHEN used as part of a larger, systematic approach. He also uses the metaphor of a broken compass. If you’re lost in the woods and have a map and broken compass (North is South and South is North..), you’d continue to remain lost because you didn’t know the compass was broken. HOWEVER, if you were lost in the woods with a map and a broken compass, BUT knew the compass was broken, you’d find the right path. Why? Because you would just do the opposite of what the broken compass tells you to do. The same is true for panic and anxiety. Your brain will try to do everything in its power to convince you the logical thing to do is xyz. Do the opposite. Norman knows that this can be hard, so he implores us to go slowly. If you are not ready to go straight from doing to not doing, try to plant seeds. He says that the FIRST thing we want you to do EACH MORNING before you start the day, is to plant a very tiny seed, inside your mind, by asking yourself this question: “What would I have to do, or not do, today… if I VOLUNTARILY wanted to worsen my situation with panic?” Your answers would probably fall into one of these categories:
He wants you to become aware of all that you try to do in order to stay safe but actually is worsening your panic. Then, he wants you to write down when you are having a panic false alarm the answers to these questions: What did you just think or say to myself that made you feel anxious or panicky? And What’s my “Panic Compass” telling me to do? How is it telling me to stay safe? (e.g. Is it telling me to escape, to fight, to call a friend for assistance, etc.?). For example, at some point here were some of mine…
By doing these exercises, you’re learning what exactly it is that you fear and ultimately how to rewire your brain not to fear them anymore. 5. Confront Your Anxiety In Order to End it For GoodThe last step to helping you truly become panic free is to go out into the world and actually confront your anxiety. Sounds completely insane but it works. You are going to chase and seek out what makes you anxious. Norman recommends a couple strategies to help you with this.
For me, I can safely say that I’m truly panic free. I can show up everyday and live my best life. As Michael Norman says, “You bear the wounds of all the battles you avoided.” You no longer have to seek out the next magical remedy. You just need a little bit of courage to reach out and touch the panic ghosts. And then you will be truly set free. ***Please consider leaving a tip, so you can get more blogs like this*** Buy me a coffee if this blog was helpful. And if you're a parent, check out my parenting guide Now What? Mindful Parenting Checklists for Life’s Hard Moments.
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