Understanding Insomnia with IFS Coaching
How does IFS Coaching help with insomnia?
Before I found IFS coaching work, I used to lie awake every night, fruitlessly trying to fall asleep. Medication didn’t really work for me, and I didn’t want to rely on it to sleep. I tried so many recommendations… sound machines, earplugs, warm milk before bed, cutting caffeine and alcohol out completely, avoiding blue light, etc. Some of them helped some of the nights, but nothing really changed the fundamental issue. I remember being so tired, feeling so heavy and weighted in my body. I remember being so frustrated! My body clearly needed sleep – why wasn’t it doing it??
It turns out there were actually a lot of good reasons. They ran the gamut for me, but mostly centered around long-held neural wiring that was signaling my body that it wasn’t safe to go to sleep and a perpetually dysregulated nervous system. Last year was the first year I no longer identified as an insomniac, and it’s because I use IFS to put myself to sleep every night.
I found out what I needed by using IFS to get in touch with my subconscious mind, creating a field guide to my neural wiring around sleep. Slowly, over time, I was able to change that wiring.
What are some common parts of us with concerns about sleep?
In IFS coaching, we get to know parts (or sub-personalities) of ourselves. Many of these parts have feelings, thoughts, and behaviors specifically about sleep. See if you identify with any of the parts below:
Pre-planning parts: These parts keep us awake by trying to plan out everything for the next day/week/month/year ahead. Their intention is to help us “do well” in the future, but their effect is often to keep us from getting enough sleep to make that a reality.
Fantasizing parts: These parts keep us awake by throwing us into idealized, beautiful, exciting versions of the future. Fantasizing is a type of dissociation - a protective mechanism that helps us “escape” the present when it is unsafe. Many of us use it as children when we don’t feel safe - but we don’t rewire that when it actually is safe to be present.
Ruminating parts: These parts get stuck thinking about something that happened in our day (or the past in general). They wish something had happened differently, and may replay the scenario over and over, analyzing it and fixating on it. This can be another type of dissociating part - like the opposite of the fantasizing part.
Frustrated parts: These parts of us are angry that we aren’t asleep yet. They keep us awake with their feelings of frustration. Feelings of frustration around trouble sleeping are incredibly understandable! Getting to know these parts, validating their frustration, and seeing what they need to let it go can make a big difference in sleep.
Timekeeping parts: These parts of us keep track of metrics around sleep. They may be obsessive with sleep tracking and have thoughts like “If I fall asleep now, I’ll get X hours of sleep.” Having “good data” is great - right up until the data is in the way of the sleep: the thing you’re collecting the data to serve.
Hypervigilant parts: These parts of us notice sounds and changes in our environment that mean “something” is happening. They can lead to sudden wakefulness even when almost asleep (like a soldier who is instantly awake and on guard). This happens to many people who didn’t feel safe sleeping while growing up. Often, these parts need updating - they need to understand that it’s safe to sleep now.
FOMO parts: These parts tell us that we’re missing out by sleeping. They want to read that last chapter, watch that last episode. They tell us that night is “our time.” These parts are often tied to survival in a capitalist society that means many of us spend our days working on things that don’t fulfill us, saving little time and energy for things that do.
Distracting parts: These parts help us soothe the frustration and pain of not being able to sleep by telling us to just give up and read/do some work instead. Sometimes, this makes sense - even when you no longer identify as an insomniac, there are nights you will struggle to sleep and may get up and do something else instead. The nuance is important here - have you really tried to fall asleep or are you bypassing the moment where you try to fall asleep because it is uncomfortable.
High-anxiety parts: These parts imagine scary scenarios that might be happening right now that need to be “checked for” - like a needing to go see where a pet is, text a partner who is out of town, or look in on a sleeping child. This makes a lot of sense if you’ve had experiences of being overly responsible in the past - feeling that “bad things” will happen if you aren’t paying attention.
Can you think of any other parts that come up around sleep for you?
Empathizing with and soothing the fears of our parts with IFS Coaching
When we are able to see the parts of us that keep us from sleeping clearly, we understand why they’re doing it. IFS coaching teaches that all parts have good intentions - they might just be stuck using an old strategy that no longer makes sense for our current context.
As I’ve said previously, IFS is a process of getting to know what these parts need from us to fall asleep. These parts hold their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors – and many of them get “stuck” in the past when it comes to our basic needs: sleep, food, shelter, and connection to other humans. When we do IFS work, with an IFS practitioner or on our own, we go through a process of exploring and understanding various parts and working to develop a relationship with them. These parts of us hold critical information about why we are stuck.
For example, one of my parts used to be obsessive about future planning. This was extremely protective when I was a child because I was not in a safe environment, and this part’s job was to plan my future enough to both get me out and distract me from how bad things were. As an adult, once I had “gotten out”, that part continued to be stuck in the past – thinking that it still needed to do its job of aggressively planning out all future scenarios. It would keep me awake while trying to fall asleep at night with all of the thinking about how I was going to handle the day or week ahead - rather than just trusting if I got some sleep, I’d be able to handle it all just fine.
Using IFS every night to fall asleep has become a habit. Despite the fact that it’s been consistently better for over a year, I am still amazed every time by how well it works. It is so much easier to fall asleep and I rarely dread or avoid going to bed.
If you are not sleeping (and you have ruled out medical issues), there is still a really good reason why – and your parts know what it is. IFS Coaching work will get you the relief from exhaustion that you desperately need to be present in your life.
If you’d like to learn more, I invite you to apply for free sleep coaching here. You may also want to learn more about my IFS for Insomnia course here.