The Sleep Solution

Many people who believe they “don’t sleep” are actually sleeping more than they realize. Light sleep and brief awakenings can feel like being awake, creating a gap between perceived and actual sleep time.

The test: if you feel reasonably functional the next day, you slept more than you think. True sleep deprivation makes functioning nearly impossible.

The anxiety about insomnia often causes more harm than the actual sleep loss.

Vigilance and sleepiness are separate neural systems, not opposites on a single spectrum.

Sleepiness is a homeostatic pressure that builds the longer you’re awake. Vigilance is an alerting response triggered by stimuli — novelty, stress, checking your phone, getting frustrated in bed.

“I’m not tired anymore” often means vigilance temporarily kicked in. The underlying sleep pressure is still there. Wait it out.

Insomnia is difficulty sleeping when and how you want to. Sleep deprivation is actually getting very little sleep. They’re conflated constantly, but they’re fundamentally different.

True sleep deprivation (like lab studies where subjects are kept awake) causes severe impairment. Most people with insomnia are still getting meaningful sleep — the distress and preoccupation around sleep is often the core problem, not the sleep itself.

Importing scary research about sleep deprivation into your insomnia amplifies anxiety, which makes sleep harder, which increases anxiety.

Building an identity around being “a bad sleeper” creates a self-reinforcing cycle:

1. Experience some sleep difficulty
2. Absorb alarming media about sleep deprivation consequences
3. Develop anxiety and hypervigilance around sleep
4. Anxiety disrupts sleep further
5. Adopt “insomniac” identity as explanation
6. Identity reinforces belief that good sleep isn’t possible
7. Return to step 3

Breaking it requires separating what you’re experiencing from who you are.