Anxiety About Not Getting Sleep?

About not sleeping, I can tell you that was the biggest thing for me is I started having poorer and poorer sleep. And then because I was anxious about it and fixated on it, the sleep got worse and worse and worse. So if you're struggling with anxiety about your sleep or anxiety not sleeping, then this is the video for you. In this video, you're going to learn three important things. Number one is I'm going to share with you the truth of what will happen to you if you don't sleep. Number two is how your sleep hygiene might actually be backfiring. And then number three of how the art of not caring actually works. I'm Dr. Nicole and I'm an anxiety freedom warrior. And my passion is to help you get your life back from anxiety so that you can live the life that you were put on this earth to live. If you want to learn more about our free resources and to get involved to get your life back, then check out our website@drnicolecane.com and then also there's a really cool product that I used when my anxiety was at its worst that I'm going to share with you today. So if you need some calm on command, then I have an answer for you. So just stay tuned at the end and I'll tell you what my secret supplement was. Okay, so let's start talking about that vicious cycle between not sleeping and then anxiety about not sleeping. So our nervous systems, when we go into a state of fight, flight, freeze, flight on, or flop, we have a cascade of responses that are pretty similar when we feel really excited or when we feel scared and when we want to run and when we want to fight and when we just want to flop down and just give up. Our body is producing stress hormone. Stress hormone gives us that feeling like our heart is racing, our body temperature may rise. You may feel that your body is shaking, or there's something called hypnotic jerking. And this is a sensation where as you're trying to fall asleep, that your body may jerk or spasm. Another hormone that your body releases when it's under stress is it's called epinephrine or norepinephrine, otherwise known as adrenaline. And when cortisol and adrenaline are in a cascade together that produces feelings that make it really difficult for you to fall asleep. And so then we feel like we want to control that, and we get anxious and upset about not sleeping, and we try to strategize ways to make ourselves sleep. And unfortunately, I could tell you from my personal experience and working with hundreds of individuals that that doesn't work and it often backfires. So if I tell you that in the next few seconds as I'm talking, I don't want you to think of unicorns. Don't think of a unicorn in your mind. Don't imagine the white horse with the horn. I don't want you to think about it. And this is where you are right now. You're not thinking about unicorns. You're not imagining paintings of unicorns. You're not thinking of unicorn toys or unicorn movies. You're going to think about something else. Okay. In those seconds as I was talking about what you were not supposed to be thinking about, I imagine that if you're anything like me, you were probably thinking about unicorns, right? So it's a similar phenomenon to sleep. The more that we think about sleep, the more that we strategize about sleep, the more YouTube videos we watch about sleep, the more strategies that we try to employ to make us sleep, the worse our sleep often gets because we're focusing on that which we are actually afraid of, triggered by and being activated by, thus making you have more of those stress hormones, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, and the less sleep you're going to get. And so the truth is, is that if you don't sleep, the question we all ask, we all want to know is, well, what's going to happen to me? And according to the research, very little going to happen to you if you don't sleep. In fact, lots of people go for years sleeping two hours or less a night, and they're perfectly functional. And of course, there is research that talking about how sleep is really healing, it's good for your memory. But really, fundamentally, if you're struggling with insomnia, the worst thing that's happening is you probably don't have a lot of energy and you're stressed out about it. And the stress about the lack of sleep is what's going to cause the most damage. So the first thing that I want you to know is that if you don't sleep, it's totally okay, and that your body can handle it. So what we need to do is to let go of the need to make ourselves sleep, let go of the need to control our sleep, and, and just accept, right now my body doesn't feel like sleeping. An example of this is the difference between if you get a bad night of sleep or you don't sleep one night because you're stressed about a deadline or a circumstance versus somebody who's maybe having a manic episode and their body is ramped up in a very similar way. And some of these individuals may go literally days to weeks without a wink of sleep, but their experience of it is very different. These individuals feel excited or agitated and energized without sleep. And the biological process is similar. If you're not sleeping, the way that you're targeting that in your mind, giving meaning to it is the main difference. So the first thing I want you to do is just don't care. And I know that's a huge ask. And I remember when I was told that, I was like, of course I care. I. I hate not sleeping. The rest of the world is sleeping. Sleeping is important, right? And the answer is yes. Just like your body will breathe when it needs to breathe, your body will sleep when it needs to sleep. And it may not be when you want it to happen or the amount that you want it to happen, but your body will not stay awake until it just gives up and you die. That won't happen. What will happen is that you will get more and more anxious and frazzled unless you make the choice to, to just let go of caring. So what I want you to do is to release the need to sleep. If it's 2am and you're watching this video, tell yourself like, fine, I don't care. We're not going to sleep. I'm going to find something else to do. And this goes into number two, which is how my sleep hygiene protocol may actually be backfiring. And so we talk in medicine all about sleep hygiene. We talk about turning the lights down. We talk about turning your screens off. We talk about drinking nice, calming, relaxing teas. We talk about not working in your bed. There's lots of things. You can find hundreds of articles about sleep hygiene. But the problem with sleep hygiene is that it puts requirements and pressure from the thing that you're doing to the expectation that I need to sleep as a result of this. So it's another way that we try to control our bodies. And when we're getting into that state of I need to control this, and, and I have an expectation. If our body doesn't meet our expectation of that due to the negotiation of doing these things, then we have a response of being anxious, feeling more out of control, and then that creates a greater and greater spiral. So what sleep experts are actually talking about doing is the CBTI or the cognitive behavioral therapists who specialize in insomnia are doing. Some are talking about throwing the sleep hygiene out the window and literally just don't care. Just do what you want. Then when sleep comes, sleep will come. It's kind of like if you have a teenager living in your house and you want them to clean their room. The more you nag them about cleaning their room, the less likely they're going to be willing and happy to do it. So we talked about the truth of what will happen to you if you don't sleep. We talked about how your sleep hygiene may be backfiring. And then the third is the art of not caring. The less that you can care, the less anxious you're going to be, the less you're going to need to control it, and the more that your body will start to go into its natural rhythm. So I want you to focus on not caring, releasing the need to control. This is a really hard thing to do, right? Harder to do than to say. And that's what the whole first chapter of the act method is all about, is the acknowledgement chapter. And we get into, I feel this way. This is why I feel this way. I acknowledge and honor that. And then we move into radical acceptance is where we don't try to fix or change it, we just simply accept it. It is what it is. In some of my previous videos, I've explained this in more detail, like the bird on the upper wire and the bird on the lower wire. And I want to encourage you to try to be the upper wire bird. The difference between the birds are how much they care, how much emotional stock they're putting into it, how angsty they are. The lower bird is closer to the street where there's all sorts of drama and chaos and stress and strife. And the lower bird is jumping and jerking and responding to every single thing that happens. And that bird is arguably quite upset and stressed and probably not sleeping right. The upper bird is observing everything from a position of detachment, respecting, knowing, acknowledging and releasing. And so when it comes to insomnia and anxiety, if you're in that vicious state, I want you to start pushing yourself towards a position of releasing the need to control it. So watch this video research CBT I and then I also promised you that I do have a supplement that sometimes we just need to create a bridge between where we are right now and where we want to be. And my favorite go to supplement is called Calm on Command. And this is a combination of things that are going to work in the quick, short term. It takes about 15 minutes. I really like the way that it helps me feel so that I can just wind down and relax. And then there are botanicals that are contained in the product that will actually help to heal the brain and body. These are called neuromodulators and so they help to reduce those stress hormones we were talking about over time, increase your sense of well being and help to promote happy, healthy sleep. I'm Dr. Nicole. Today we've been talking all about the anxiety, insomnia, vicious spiral. If you resonate at all with this, click the like button and maybe even share so that other people who may be struggling with sleep can check out this information. It also helps me know that what we're doing is valuable for you. If you have other questions about sleep or if you want to learn more, then send us a DM or leave a comment. And then also make sure to check out our Calm on Command bundle. I'll make sure to put the link in the show notes. You could also find it by going to Dr. Nicole Cain, clicking on the shop and then finding Calm on Command and we can get that sent to you right away. I look forward to connecting with you guys next time and I hope that you have wonderful sleep or that you stop caring about sleep. All right, I'll talk to you later. So much love. Bye.