What is a Sleep Coach?
Living with insomnia is grim. The quest for more sleep can be all-consuming and when you fail night after night, you become increasingly frustrated and anxious. Understandably, you seek help from the sources you have available i.e. your doctor (who will possibly give you two weeks of sleeping pills or some over-the-counter recommendations), your mum (who knows someone who knows someone whose daughter took ashwagandha root and sorted her sleep out overnight) and the internet (which will give you endless tips on how to ‘optimize’ your sleep without actually getting to the root of the problem). Maybe you find things that make a difference for a little while, but they never seem to work for long and soon enough you find yourself back at square one feeling even more hopeless and alone than before.
The problem is that it is very difficult to cure your own insomnia. This is because, by trying so hard to fix the problem, you are unwittingly exacerbating the situation. As self-help author Eckhart Tolle puts it ‘Imagine a chief of police trying to find an arsonist when the arsonist is the chief of police’. It is a very human instinct to look for solutions when confronted with an issue like not being able to sleep, but insomnia thrives on such solution-oriented thinking and trying to manage and control matters is a bit like trying to put out a fire with a can of petrol – it invariably makes thing worse.
A good sleep coach can help you interrupt this negative spiral and get things back on track through education, one-to-one support and an actionable plan for the nights ahead. A sleep coach will . . .
listen to what is going on for you with empathy and genuine interest (unlike your partner/flat mates/friends/parents who have started to glaze over when you mention your insomnia);
explain the fundamentals of sleep as well as expose the many misconceptions that circulate on the internet (the ‘eight hour’ myth, for example);
identify the behaviours and beliefs that might be getting in the way of your sleep despite your best intentions;
provide a tailor-made set of instructions to help you find your way back to more peaceful nights;
be on hand to offer support when you need it, usually during a series of sessions over the course of a few weeks or months, but also on email in between one-to-one appointments.
I became a sleep coach after my own debilitating insomnia triggered a mid-life career change, and now I help people from all over the world to get better sleep. I do this by taking a very bespoke approach to the problem; this means that I draw on various disciplines and adapt my advice for each client depending on their personal experience. For example, my recommendations will be different if you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, if you have had insomnia for twenty years or two months, if you take sleeping pills or you don’t etc. In my experience, this individualised approach is much more effective than following a set of ‘one-size-fits-all’ instructions that focus on the insomnia rather than the insomniac.
Unlike some of the more prescriptive recovery programmes such as CBT-I, my methods are gentle, adaptable and easy to incorporate without too much effort. In fact, clients often find that I ask them to do less than they are currently doing! And if things get hard, I am there to support them in Zoom or face-to-face sessions and on email. Feeling less alone in this struggle can be one of the most beneficial outcomes of working with a coach.
So, as a sleep coach, I offer a genuinely sympathetic ear, a different perspective on your sleep issues, practical advice that really works and motivation to help you beat insomnia for good. Because, with the right help, you can and will find your way out of this and get back to living your life to the full.