An alternative to talk therapy for people struggling with chronic sleep problems
Therapists and counselors are dedicated, compassionate professionals doing some of the hardest emotional work there is. They provide critical services to people struggling with personal, relational, and mental health issues. Therapeutic work administered by licensed, trained professionals is absolutely necessary in today’s world where we are constantly hearing news about increasing rates of anxiety, depression, addiction, and other mental health disorders.
However, despite a societal shift towards accepting therapy, particularly talk therapy as a beneficial and necessary way to approach personal problem solving, and despite the known benefits of talk therapy, there are people like me who dig their heels in when someone suggests going to a therapist about any issue.
I don’t believe that I’m the only one out there who is resistant to talk therapy. We all have our own specific reasons. Some reasons may include being a very private person, difficulty understanding one’s own self, difficulty articulating personal traumas or emotional life events, embarrassment, fear of potentially contradicting oneself, fear of being labeled as “unstable” or “broken”, resistance to letting another human witness their vulnerability, or they simply don’t think talk therapy will help them.
However, for some chronic insomniacs, unresolved fears, stress patterns, or suppressed emotions may play a significant role in perpetuating the insomnia, precisely the thing that therapists are trained to help clients navigate. And indeed, talk therapy might be very beneficial to someone suffering from chronic insomnia as a stand-alone condition or for whom chronic insomnia occurs comorbidly with diagnoses of anxiety and/or depression*.
However, there are those of us that simply find talk therapy off-putting. It is something that I personally am highly unlikely to explore. If you are like me, and therapy is not something you wish to seek out, I encourage you to consider therapeutic writing, or simply journaling.
Journaling is an accessible and cheap alternative to talk therapy. It provides a pathway to release built-up pressure that has accumulated over the course of a lifetime due to very human reasons. This built-up pressure can be a result of unprocessed experiences, early conditioning, chronic stress, subtly reinforced emotional patterns, or avoidance tendencies. Journaling is a way to release emotional steam, or similarly, a way to ladle off some emotional pressure that keeps the nervous system revved up and hyperaroused. Writing can a be means of emotional catharsis.
Moreover, studies have shown that writing can change neural activation patterns and processing, which is the way that neuroplastic change can happen over time**. As such, journaling can help uncover thoughts, emotions, and patterns that may not be immediately obvious in daily life. It is a way to look inward, rather than outward for wisdom and advice. You become the author of your own story. Journaling is not just about recording thoughts; it’s about transforming them. When you transfer fears, doubts, and emotions from your mind to paper, you create distance from them and that changes how they’re processed. Your internal chaos becomes external and you create a healthy distance from your thoughts. Each time you write down your thoughts you are creating a map to your authentic self. Patterns can emerge that were invisible when they were trapped in your head. You can form new perspectives on old problems. Journaling isn’t just therapeutic, it’s transformative. It is a doorway to profound personal evolution.
Healing chronic insomnia often requires more than sleep tips and supplements. Sometimes it requires creating enough internal safety for the nervous system to finally let go. Therapeutic writing may be one gentle way to begin that process. The Rest ReSET is a journaling practice aimed to do exactly that. It is way for you to be totally honest without an audience. When journaling by oneself, there is no one reacting or evaluating you so it can be easier to be brutally honest, even about thoughts or feelings you might filter in front of a therapist. There is no pressure to make sense, so thoughts can come out raw and unedited. In fact, stream-of-consciousness writing is an especially good way to tap into emotions that are hard to articulate out loud. Many people find they discover what they feel as they write. Even if the writing is sloppy, grammatically incorrect, and doesn’t make sense, the fact that you are writing it down, even if it is messy, lets your mind slowly release the tension behind what you are writing about.
Finally, journaling provides a sense of control and self-trust. It can build your inner authority, especially if you feel misunderstood by others. With only yourself as the audience, there is no fear of being judged or misinterpreted which can make it easier to explore vulnerable or even contradictory feelings.
If you are looking for a gentle approach toward addressing your chronic problems with sleep, please consider learning about the Rest ReSET program. It is a journaling practice that will help your nervous system purge negative thoughts, emotions, and fears that may be at the root of your chronic insomnia.
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*Buysse DJ, Angst J, Gamma A, Ajdacic V, Eich D, Rossler W. Prevalence, course, and comorbidity of insomnia and depression in young adults. Sleep. 2008 Apr; 31(4): 473-80. Doi: 10.1093/sleep/31.4.473. PMID: 18457234; PMCID: PM2279748
**DiMenichi, B.C., Ceceli, A.O., Bhanji, J. P., & Tricomi, E. (2019). Effects of expressive writing on neural processing during learning. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13, 389. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00389
