: brain on simmer.

Cognitive behavioral therapy; ah yes, a therapeutic approach I often hear at least 4-5 times within an hour of class. CBT, a superb approach to “fixing” an individual; I prefer “talk therapy”, but hey, whatever gets the job done right? Although I prefer just me talking and somebody else listening, today I started CBT-insomnia therapy; a new approach that my “fixers” (I’d like to call my therapists that, sounds more realistic) are using to treat my insomnia. When my fixer started to tell me about this approach last week, I giggled; I giggled because I didn’t think there was much difference in any of the approaches that I am using, because insomnia to me isn’t something a behavior can just change, it has to do with the brain; mainly thoughts. My behavior isn’t stopping me from sleep, my brain is. But, after a whole 5 minutes really thinking about this approach, I decided to give in, and start my first CBT-insomnia session today.
How did it go you ask?...I have answers to my over questioned question of “what is REALLY stopping me from sleeping??”

My insomnia always begins with me falling asleep. I have been reading the same sentence for the past 30 minutes, the writing is getting very small, and I can feel my eyes shutting; they are getting so heavy; heavy like I am carrying dumbbells on my eyelids. All of sudden, my mind is stopped, for about a minute there is no thoughts, then, I am in awake mode again; my brain is rapidly moving with an ocean of thoughts. I am so disappointed that I can’t sleep; my eyelids are so heavy and my body is numb. I was so close, yet so far to a peaceful slumber and a mind full of sweet dreams. Bu as usual, my eyes are wide open and I am ready to take on the boredom. I am terrified of how tired I will be tomorrow, and the days to come.

Why did my brain wake itself up? I was looking forward to my potential slumber. I have never realized how my conscious goal, to fall asleep, causes me not to fall asleep; because my unconscious perverse brain checks up on me continually every so often to see if I am achieving my goal of falling asleep; therefore wakes me up, a lot. Its kind of like when you set your alarm before you go to sleep for an important meeting; and you continuously wake up every hour to check your clock because you know you have to wake up for something important; your unconscious brain is so aware of that worry you have of not waking up, that it will wake you up; it’s like your unconscious brain never goes to sleep; which I find so odd, but it kind of makes perfect sense. I go to bed worrying every night; worrying if I am going to be able to ever fall asleep, if I am going to drag ass the next day because I didn’t get any sleep or if I do get 2 hours of sleep, if I will have a problem getting out of bed; my mind is so aware of this worry that my brain really never stops. I wish I could explain this concept more, but it’s kind of hard to explain. But for some reason, the unexplainable is usually explainable. Isn’t that how it always goes? Every event that happens in your life is usually because you made it that way (unless it’s an illness you can’t control), but for some reason you are unsure why it happened, but can justify how. That is how I feel about this topic; I can’t explain why I can’t fall asleep, but I can justify the reason, or how come, it’s happening. There is a no difference between why and how, to me at least (I am sure some of you may argue, but opinions aren’t necessary). Why refers to what is the reason I am doing something and how come refers to why I am doing it. It seems as though why and how come fall behind each other; “I am doing this because I don’t want that”. Easy. Simple. I am not sleeping because my brain is telling me not too or I am not sleeping because I am a gal who really doesn’t want tomorrow to come? Which one is it? I would go with the first one. I am in full control of my thoughts to which are making my actions, of not sleeping, hard to come by. The action of falling asleep is not taking place because I am not letting my brain settle. So here it goes, I am letting my brain settle to a simmer and eventually my thoughts will evaporate.