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This week as I was working on my online course to help people who are suffering with sleep problems, I came across some information that was really distressing. While doing some research, I came across a popular self-help book about curing sleep problems and it said in essence, if the exercises (they gave) did not work it’s because the reader was not doing them correctly. Seems to me like that was putting more stress on people who were trying to get help. So many people who can’t sleep are already blaming themselves, they don’t need something else to feel bad about.
I want to dispute this disturbing information, I felt like calling the author and saying how dare you say that if the person reading the book wasn’t getting relief, it was because they weren’t doing it right. Wow, talk about putting the blame in the wrong place, saying that somehow it was the readers fault, and couldn’t possibly be the fault of the information in the book or some other reason. That just burned me up.
Although I do agree that sometimes, what an author is writing and what the reader is “hearing” may not match, but blaming the reader is hardly fair.
After over 25 years helping people with insomnia, panic, anxiety and even Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Migraines, I have found most people will do almost anything to get rid of the problem they are facing. So I’m going to believe that a person who buys a book to get help with getting a good night sleep is going to do the exercises and will read in an open-minded state.
I hope that this type of blame has not happened in your life. If you have been beating yourself up, or if you have been feeling like you’ve done your best without results, it may be possible that the problem isn’t that you’re doing things incorrectly. It might be that either the book isn’t right for you or that there are underlying issues that need to be resolved before the exercises will work for you.
I have seen this happen in my own practice. I just finished 10 sessions of therapy with a client who came in to see me after suffering with 15 years of sleep problems. He had tried just about everything and still, as soon as his head hit the pillow, no matter how tired he was, it seemed like his eyes would just pop open and he wouldn’t be able to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. We started with some of the “sleep” exercises that have worked for many of my clients, but in addition we began to look for underlying roots of this problem. I can assure you I didn’t blame him, we searched for, and the found the underlying issues. And low-and-behold, after releasing some old stuffed emotions we were able to quickly re-program his sleep habits. He felt his entire life changed, in just 10 sessions. Although it was his sleep issues that caused him to seek my help,he also got major benefits from taking care of the issues lying at the root of the problem. The benefits of new found confidence extended out into other areas of his life as well.
Everyone works in their own optimal time frame, what can take one person 10 sessions might take another person only 4, or another 20 sessions. The number of sessions it takes is determined by not only how deeply rooted the problem is but also by each person nature. It’s not a competition, when the change happen it can feels like it took place in an instant. The fact that lasting relief is possible should give you new hope. So if you are still having a problem with sleep, it just might be that are other issues keeping you from succeeding in your quest.