By the end of my 5 brutal years of insomnia, I had a lot of sleep rules.

My hardest one was no liquids 4 hours before bed. I was thirsty the whole night. And I still told myself I was doing it right.

Now go and count the sleep rules of any normal sleeper you know. Probably zero. Normal sleepers have no routine. They just go to bed.

Bring out your inner rebel

Even when you start getting better, some of those rules stay with you. Sometimes you don't even notice them anymore.

Maybe you still skip certain foods in the evening. Maybe you go to the gym so you'll sleep better that night. Maybe there's a drink you stopped having, or a show you stopped watching, just in case.

Every one of those rules is there to protect you from a bad night. And every one of them tells your brain that a bad night is a real danger.

They don't help, for 3 reasons. They keep the insomnia identity going. They make your life smaller, so you feel like you're missing out. And they give you one more thing to worry about, because now you can break a rule and "ruin" the night.

So be a bit of a rebel. Use how fed up you are with insomnia, and break the rules it gave you.

When I started letting my own rules go, one at a time, I was scared every time. My sleep didn't fall apart. It got better.

Not every bad day is insomnia's fault

While you're breaking rules, check this one too.

When you've had insomnia for a while, it's easy to believe that if it was gone, life would be easy. No more stress. No more bad moods. No more hard days.

I get it. Life is easier without insomnia. But life has stress anyway. Work, family, money, worries about the future, things that happened in the past. Everybody has that, with or without insomnia.

And some of the stress you're putting on insomnia right now is probably coming from those other things.

When you believe sleep is the only thing standing between you and a perfect life, the pressure on every night gets huge. And that pressure keeps the alarm in your brain switched on.

So the next time you have a hard day, ask yourself one question. Would this be hard even if I'd slept great? A lot of the time, the answer is yes. And seeing that takes some of the pressure off tonight.

Insomnia doesn't take away everything good

The same way insomnia isn't behind every problem, it doesn't cancel every good thing in your life either.

When you're tired and stressed, it's hard to see past the night. Everything turns into sleep.

So once in a while, stop and think about what you still have. Your family. Your friends. Your work. The place you live. Food on the table. The fact that you're here.

It won't fix your mood. But it can take the edge off a rough day, and remind you that your life is bigger than last night.

Your challenge this week

Write down every sleep rule you still follow. All of them, even the small ones.

Then pick the one you're most scared to break, and break it this week. Have the glass of water. Watch the show. Skip the gym if you only go for your sleep.

Then watch what happens. Your sleep won't fall apart. And every rule you drop shows your brain there's less to protect. That's how the alarm comes down, and once it does, sleep comes back on its own.

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To peaceful sleep,

Ivo at End Insomnia

Why should you listen to me?

I recovered from insomnia after 5 brutal years of suffering. I've now coached 100s like you to end their insomnia for good, 100% naturally, by fixing the root cause: hyper-arousal.