Insomnia Coach® Podcast

Insomnia Coach® Podcast


How Jessica transformed her relationship with sleep by challenging her sleep-related thoughts and changing her sleep-related behaviors (#22)

September 21, 2020

Listen to the podcast episode (audio only)

When Jessica moved back to her hometown with her husband and two children she began to struggle with sleep. She soon found herself spending a lot of time researching sleep and experimented with different supplements and techniques to improve her sleep.

When none of these things worked, Jessica found herself becoming increasingly obsessed with sleep and started to really worry about how she'd function if her sleep didn't improve — after all, she was a stay-at-home mom with two small children!

Jessica started to believe that she'd lost the ability to sleep and was losing hope — until she learned more about how insomnia develops and realized that her insomnia wasn't unique or unusual.

When Jessica recognized many of the common thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption in her own experience with insomnia, she started to feel a sense of hope. This allowed her to start exploring and challenging her beliefs about sleep while implementing behaviors that build sleep drive, strengthen the body clock, and reduce sleep-related worry and anxiety.

Today, Jessica rarely thinks about sleep and it no longer controls her life. She is able to do all the things she once put off because of concern about how they might affect her sleep and this has given her a whole new outlook on life.

Jessica transformed her relationship with sleep by challenging her sleep-related thoughts and implementing helpful sleep-related behaviors. If Jessica can do it, you can, too!

Click here for a full transcript of this episode.Click here to hide the transcript.
Martin Reed:
Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that nobody needs to live with chronic insomnia and that evidence-based cognitive and behavioral techniques can help you enjoy better sleep for the rest of your life.

Martin Reed:
The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. The statements and opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC. All content is provided "as is" and without warranties, either express or implied.

Martin Reed:
Okay, Jessica, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.

Jessica Brondyke:
Yeah, thanks for asking me to join you.

Martin Reed:
Absolutely, I always like to just start right at the very beginning with everyone that I talk to so I'm going to do the same for you. When did your sleep problems first begin and what do you think caused your initial issues with sleep?

Jessica Brondyke:
Okay, it was almost four years ago now, so back in 2016, my husband and I moved back to our hometown from Georgia. And that was just a huge transition for us in our life, we had two small kids, sold a house, we're looking to buy a house. He was totally changing jobs, we left a community that we... It was just a lot of stress and change. I was also nursing my youngest daughter at that time, and she was not sleeping very well during the night. And I mean, I had never really thought about it, but all of a sudden when she would wake up and I would put her back to sleep, I wasn't able to go back to sleep then. And so then the next day I would just feel terrible and immediately I just began worrying about it and researching like, "What can I do?