Anxiety-fueled thoughts are one of the main drivers of insomnia.

As night approaches, anxious thoughts tend to ramp up.

Then they often return with a vengeance in the middle of the night.

For many, it can feel like walking on eggshells inside your mind, fearful that one catastrophic thought will kick off a chain reaction that ruins the entire night.

It’s a frustrating and lonely place to be.

But there’s good news:

How you relate to your thoughts can radically change how much anxiety and distress they cause.

And that means you can reduce the dirty pain that insomnia adds to your life.

Two main techniques can help:

1. Challenging your thoughts
2. Changing your relationship to them

Let’s start with the first.

Challenging your thoughts doesn’t mean arguing with yourself all night.

It means:

• Becoming aware of a stressful thought
• Noticing when it may not be grounded in reality
• Exploring alternative, more balanced ways of seeing things

Let’s take an example.

You’re lying in bed and think:

“I’ll never get through tomorrow if I don’t sleep now.”

Pause.

Can you remember a time you barely slept and still made it through the day?

Even better, can you remember a time you thought you’d crash—but by evening realized the day wasn’t nearly as bad as you feared?

Now, another example:

“If I don’t sleep tonight, I’ll get too anxious to sleep tomorrow, and soon I’ll never sleep again.”

Thoughts like this are truly not grounded in reality.

Remind yourself of the sleep drive:

The longer you go without sleep, the more your body pushes for it.

You will sleep eventually. Your body is wired for it.

And insomnia?

It can feel miserable, but it’s not fatal. (Seriously.)

1. What’s happening?

• Describe the situation.

2. What’s your interpretation?

• Identify the thought you’re challenging.

3. How do you feel?

• Name the emotion and rate its intensity (1–10).

4. Now challenge the thought:

• Are there other possible interpretations?
• Is the thought accurate, based on what you’ve learned about sleep?
• What’s the actual likelihood of the worst-case scenario?
• If it did happen, how would you cope?

5. Re-evaluate:

• Do your emotions shift when you see it differently?

You don’t have to go through all of these questions every time.

Just catching yourself in the middle of a dramatic thought and asking, “Is that 100% true?” can be enough to ground you.

There are limits.

Sometimes, challenging your thoughts won’t be enough to feel better—especially if the anxiety is based on something plausible (like feeling tired tomorrow).

And sometimes, we turn thought-challenging into a desperate attempt to control our anxiety, which keeps us locked in the struggle.

That’s why we need another tool: changing your relationship with thoughts.

We’ll cover that next time—and it might be the most freeing shift you ever make.

To peaceful sleep,

Ivo at End Insomnia

Why should you listen to me?

I recovered from insomnia after 5 brutal years of suffering. I also wrote a book about it. I've now coached many on how to end their insomnia for good in 8 weeks.

1. Looking for a deep dive into the End Insomnia System? Start with the

If you’ve struggled with insomnia, you know this isn’t just about feeling tired.

It’s about the suffering that comes with not sleeping.

The fear.

The frustration.

The feeling that you’re broken.

The dread of the next night.

The anxiety about tomorrow.

It can feel like a never-ending spiral. But there’s a way out.

It starts with understanding the difference between clean pain and dirty pain.

Clean vs. Dirty Pain

This idea comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and it’s a game-changer.

• Clean pain is the natural discomfort that comes from difficult life experiences—like fatigue from a bad night, sadness, or disappointment.
• Dirty pain is the suffering we add on top of that experience with our reactions.

For example:

• Feeling tired = clean pain
• Telling yourself “I’ll never feel normal again” = dirty pain
• Feeling anxious = clean pain
• Berating yourself for being anxious = dirty pain

Dirty pain keeps you stuck.

It’s the loop of overthinking, catastrophizing, self-judgment, and avoidance.

It’s the extra suffering we create by resisting reality instead of accepting it.

The more you engage with dirty pain, the more revved up your nervous system becomes—and the harder it is to sleep.

But when you recognize it, you can shift.

You can choose to feel the clean pain—and skip the extra suffering.

Drop the Rope

Imagine you’re in a fierce game of tug-of-war with the “Insomnia Monster.”

You’re pulling with all your strength, trying not to fall into the pit.

You think:

“If I just try hard enough, I’ll win. I’ll finally sleep.”

But no matter how hard you pull, the monster pulls harder.

You’re exhausted, terrified, and it feels like you’re losing ground.

Here’s the twist:

You don’t have to win.

You can drop the rope.

When you stop fighting, the monster may still be there—but the struggle changes.

You’re no longer draining your energy in a battle you can’t win.

You’re reclaiming peace, one moment at a time.

You Can Choose a New Relationship with Insomnia

You don’t need to accept insomnia forever.

You don’t need to love being tired.

But you can learn to stop fighting every moment of it.

Mindful acceptance is how you find relief.

Not just when your sleep improves, but starting now.

Even while things are still messy.

Here’s the truth:

You won’t always feel calm.

You won’t always get it “right.”

But every time you shift from resistance to acceptance, you take a step toward peace.

And every step makes sleep easier.

So the next time you’re lying awake, ask yourself:

Can I stop fighting this moment, just for now?

Then see what happens.

You’re doing better than you think

To peaceful sleep,

Ivo at End Insomnia

Why should you listen to me?

I recovered from insomnia after 5 brutal years of suffering. I also wrote a book about it. I’ve now coached many on how to end their insomnia for good in 8 weeks.

Looking for a deep dive into the End Insomnia System? Start with the End Insomnia book on Amazon.

If you are committed to ending insomnia for good in 8 weeks, 100% naturally,

You might be doing all the “right” things to improve your sleep…

But if your mind is stuck in the same place—anxious, tense, and desperate to sleep—you’re unknowingly making it harder to rest.

Here’s a simple but powerful mindset shift:

Sleeping well starts with caring less about sleeping well.

It sounds strange at first.

Why would caring less help?

Because when we’re desperate to sleep, we activate stress and hyperarousal in our nervous system—the very thing that keeps us awake.

So what does “caring less” actually mean?

It doesn’t mean giving up.

It means reducing your emotional reactivity to poor sleep.

It means accepting what’s happening in the moment instead of fighting it.

You can train your nervous system to do this.

That’s where mindful acceptance comes in.

What Is Mindful Acceptance?

Mindful acceptance combines two essential skills:

1. Mindfulness
2. Acceptance

Let’s break them down.

1. Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the ability to notice what’s happening in the present moment without judgment.

It’s the opposite of being on autopilot.

It helps you escape the storm of thoughts and worries and recognize what’s real, right now.

Jon Kabat-Zinn—who helped bring mindfulness into medicine—calls it:

“Paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

Mindfulness teaches you how to:

• Step back from your anxious thoughts
• Recognize your patterns
• Stop reacting automatically
• Slow down and observe
• Stay grounded—even when things feel uncomfortable

In daily life, this means noticing your thoughts without believing every one of them.

It means seeing your feelings without getting swept away.

That’s a superpower when it comes to sleep.

Because when insomnia strikes, autopilot looks like this:

“Oh no, not again.”

“I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow.”

“Why can’t I just sleep like a normal person?”

That mental loop fuels stress, and stress blocks sleep.

But with mindfulness, you recognize those thoughts for what they are: thoughts.

Not truths.

Not threats.

2. Acceptance

Here’s where mindfulness becomes transformative.

When you notice what’s happening, you can choose to accept it.

That means:

• Letting a thought or feeling be there, even if it’s uncomfortable
• Not trying to fix, fight, or escape your experience
• Allowing yourself to be human—even when it’s hard

This is what mindful acceptance looks like in practice:

“I’m feeling anxious about not sleeping. I notice it. I’m not going to wrestle with it. It’s allowed to be here.”

Acceptance gives you space.

It’s not passive. It’s powerful.

When you stop struggling with what you can’t control (like falling asleep on command), you take your nervous system out of fight-or-flight mode.

That creates the conditions where sleep becomes more likely—not through effort, but through ease.

Next time, I’ll share how this plays out in real life—especially when it comes to the pain insomnia creates (and how to reduce it).

Until then, here’s something to sit with:

What if you stopped trying so hard to feel okay…

And gave yourself permission to be okay, even when things aren’t perfect?

To peaceful sleep,

Ivo at End Insomnia

Why should you listen to me?

I recovered from insomnia after 5 brutal years of suffering.

I also wrote a book about it.

I’ve now coached many on how to end their insomnia for good in 8 weeks.

Looking for a deep dive into the End Insomnia System? Start with...