Ep 35. Understand Sleep Efforts to Unlock Effortless Sleep

When you have insomnia, sleep can feel like a nightly battleground.

The harder we try to fix it, the more elusive it becomes. Insomnia is driven by the very efforts we make to escape it.

So many people, (myself included), get caught in a cycle of trying everything—different teas, blackout curtains, sleep apps—only to find that these efforts just contribute to the problem.

It’s incredibly frustrating.

You might feel completely alone in this, but I assure you, you’re not. Many people share this struggle. The good news is there’s a way out.

Tune in and learn:

•  What effortlessness truly means
•  Why I’m fascinated with the flow state
•  Everything you need to know about sleep efforts
•  The role of the Law of Reversed Effort
•  Why sleep efforts reinforce the problem they’re meant to solve
•  Why intention is the only thing that matters

By understanding the concept of effortlessness, we can break free from the cycle of never-ending sleep efforts and let our bodies do what they’re naturally designed to do.

Which is… sleep 🧡

Enjoy!

Mentioned Resources:

Related Episode: Redefining Insomnia: My 3 Core Philosophies

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Full Transcription Below

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About Beth Kendall MA, FNTP:

For decades, Beth struggled with the relentless grip of insomnia. After finally understanding insomnia from a mind-body perspective, she changed her relationship with sleep, and completely recovered. Liberated from the constant worry of not sleeping, she’s on a mission to help others recover as well. Her transformative program Mind. Body. Sleep.™ has been a beacon of light for hundreds of others seeking solace from sleepless nights.

 

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Transform Your Sleep with One Simple Secret

Hello everyone, and welcome back the podcast. I’m going to dive in right away because we’ve got a lot to talk about. This is actually going to be a very foundational episode that will build on one of the core philosophies I shared way back in Episode 1 which is titled Redefining Insomnia, so if you want to go back and listen to that, it could be a helpful sidekick to this episode.

 

So let me break down the direction of our topic on effortlessness.

 

First, I’m going to cover the concept of effortlessness as a whole because this is something that fascinates me more and more as time goes on, and with that, I’m going to share a principle around effortlessness to help illustrate what I’m going to talk about next, which is sleep efforts. Sleep efforts are an integral part of the insomnia experience because without them, we wouldn’t have insomnia. So we’re going to cover what they are, why they matter, what you need to know going forward. Lastly, I’m going to share my wish for you and how effortlessness ties into the greater mission of the work I currently do in the world.

 

What is Effortlessness?

So, what is effortlessness? Well, if you were to look it up in the dictionary, effortlessness is defined as: requiring no physical or mental exertion. Well, that sounds pretty good to me. And likely captures what many of you listening are probably seeking with your sleep. And this goes along with my core philosophy which is that sleep, by nature, is a passive process — it’s something that happens versus something we do.

 

The Law of Reversed Effort

Now there is something called The Law of Reversed Effort. This law says that the harder we try to achieve an outcome, the less likely we are to achieve that outcome. And I don’t think there is anything that represents this law better than sleep. And this is not to be confused with another well-known theory which is called the Law of least effort, which also very much applies to sleep because it’s based on the fact that nature will always take the path of least resistance. And of course, as a holistic sleep coach, I view the human species as a part of the natural world, so this applies to us as well.

 

Sleep as a Natural Process

 

Grass doesn’t try to grow, right?  It just grows. Fish don’t try to swim, they just swim. It’s the same with sleep — it’s an biological function that doesn’t really require much of anything from us beyond its opposite which is wakefulness. So as long as you’ve been awake for a long enough period of time, you have checked the only box you need for sleep.

 

Okay, so getting back to the law of reversed effect (so many laws and theories). In recent years, I’ve considered this principle quite a lot from a creative development standpoint because I’m fascinated with how it ties into the concept of flow, or the flow state. And you’ve probably heard me talk about how sleep comes in the flow, right? It comes when we’re not trying to force it or control it.

 

Real-Life Examples of Flow

 

But the concept of flow can be tied to life in so many ways. I’ve had a few flow state experiences– writing my free course was one of them. I sat down to write my free course which is a pretty lengthy course with 9 emails, and it came out without much effort from me at all. Which honestly was pretty bizarre because that definitely is not always the case. But you see this with artists and musicians as well, well really anything in life, but when the movement, or the music comes through the person, it’s like there’s a greater intelligence playing a part in the experience. A couple of few weeks ago I talked about this Michael Jackson Thriller documentary I watched, and he said that he felt bad even taking credit for that album because whatever he put into it came through him versus from him.

 

In the flow state, our actions become fluent. The painter becomes the painting. The musician becomes the music. But the law of reversed effort can be experienced in the simplest of ways. How often is it hard to think of the word you want to say and it doesn’t come to you no matter how hard you try. But then when you get back into the flow of life, and there’s no more effort put into trying to remember the word, it’s suddenly available to you out of the blue. And then of course you have to text your friend or Mom and say, oh, I thought of that word, by the way. But it’s precisely because you weren’t trying.  

 

Sleep Efforts

 

So, let’s move into our next topic of the day which is the topic of sleep efforts. So what is a sleep effort. A sleep effort is anything we do with the intention of producing or protecting sleep.

 

Okay, so this can be things you add to sleep: eyeshades, meditations, valerian root tea, black out shades, night-time rituals, breathing exercises, a noisemaker, a night-time bath, blue-blocker glasses, I think you get the picture.

 

Or, this can be things you take away or remove to sleep. So things like: stopping coffee or wine, removing screens at night, not taking trips anymore, kicking the animals, or your partner out of bed, not committing to things.

 

Sometimes I refer to sleep efforts as safety behaviors because it can also be things like staying in bed for long periods of time hoping to get some sleep, or sleeping on the couch to get some sleep.  

 

So, why do these sleep efforts matter? What’s the big deal if I drink sleepy time tea and love my noisemaker?

 

The Impact of Sleep Efforts

 

Well, the truth is, sleep efforts don’t really matter as much as the intention driving them.

 

So let’s quickly explore the path to sleep efforts from the insomnia perspective.

 

Typically, there is some sort of initial event that disrupts our sleep, right. Our sleep gets rattled in some way, and a little seed of doubt gets planted in the mind about our own ability to sleep. As a result of that, our relationship with sleep starts to change. Sleep goes from being a natural biological function that you probably never thought too much about, to a problem that needs to be conqured and solved.

 

Outsourcing Worry

 

So, this is when the efforting usually begins. Maybe you start with something simple like taking melatonin or cutting out coffee. And then God forbid those measures actually work because that’s when we start pegging our sleep onto outside influences. But then when those initial external measures stop working, then we start adding more and more things into the mix until over time, we develop a belief system centered on the idea that sleep is achieved through sources outside ourselves and we’re always looking for the next magical thing that’s going to help us sleep.

 

But here’s the thing you guys, and hopefully one of the big takeaways from this podcast…

 

The Real Source of Sleep

 

It is always your own body that generates sleep. It can seem very convincing that it’s all of these other things doing the job, and they may help temporarily. But that’s more because we’re outsourcing our worry onto the thing and it’s in the absence of struggle and worry, that sleep has the space to come. We think, “oh, thank heavens I don’t have to worry about not sleeping anymore, this new supplement has got me.”  So, then of course, we sleep, and it’s a wonderful relief. But then if hyperarousal gets high again, we think the thing has stopped “working” when it’s really just the root cause of insomnia coming through. And this is how we stay on the hamster wheel of fixing sleep that isn’t really fixing anything.

 

So, understanding sleep efforts is important because they can reinforce the fear of not sleeping and teach the brain that we’ve got to do all of these things in order to sleep.

 

Okay, what does that mean going forward? Do we have to get rid of all of these sleep efforts in order to recover?

 

And the answer to that is no, you do not. A lot of people come into my program and when they understand this part of things clearly, they’re just done with all of the sleep efforts, okay.  They never really wanted to be doing all the rituals and rules and maybe they never did these things prior to insomnia, so it’s just a big huge relief to let them go and they feel completely liberated. Other people aren’t quite ready to give up sleep efforts and that is also very okay. Remember, suffering is not required to recover from insomnia. You guys have already been through enough, you don’t need to worry about stopping any sleep efforts unless you want to.

 

There are however a couple of things I want to offer going forward that I think will be helpful on the recovery path.

 

Fear of Sleep Efforts

 

What I see happen sometimes with this understanding of sleep efforts is that the fear of not sleeping can turn into a fear of doing a sleep effort. So we start to think sleep hinges on whether we’re engaging in a sleep effort or not. Now remember, the only thing you need for sleep is sleep drive, okay. That’s the only requirement and most of the people I know with insomnia have plenty of sleep drive so you’re good.

But we can be so deep into the fixing orientation that we get a little tangled up with this sleep effort understanding because maybe there’s this sense that we’re going to be docked some sleep or punished in some way if we do a sleep effort but that is not the case. You don’t need to do anything to deserve sleep, you can just have it exactly as you just by virtue of being human.

 

Once you understand that sleep efforts aren’t the thing that makes you sleep, it doesn’t really matter so much if you do them or not. And honestly, just being aware of a sleep effort already takes away a lot of the power away from the sleep effort. And there is usually a period where you hold these two truths simultaneously. Meaning you consciously know that the sleep effort isn’t really what makes you sleep, but subconsciously your faith is still in the sleep effort.

 

This, too, is okay, my friends. It’s called making the placebo effect work FOR you which is one of my all-time favorite subjects. I should do a podcast on just that.

 

Understanding Intention

 

The other thing I wanted to mention about sleep efforts is that a lot of times people ask me, “well, how do I know if this is a sleep effort or not?” This is where we roll back and look at our intention. What is the intention behind the intervention? Is it to produce sleep, or is it something you truly enjoy? Sometimes a sleep effort is simply self-care. Is it something you would do if you didn’t have insomnia? Is it something you did before you had insomnia? Would you be upset if it didn’t quote “work?”

 

These are all questions you can ask to determine if what you’re doing is a sleep effort or not. And sometimes there is some mixed intention behind this, meaning, “yes, I adore my Epsom salt baths every night AND I would also be quite happy if they led to a better sleep.” Which is perfectly understandable.

 

I still use what could be considered sleep efforts in my life. I have a black out shade, sometimes I use a noisemaker, I lock my cats out of the room, but I also know that if I had to go without these things, my body would adapt. I don’t feel the same dependence and anxiety about using them that I felt when I had insomnia. They feel far more optional versus an absolute requirement.

 

So all that to say that you don’t have to get rid of sleep efforts unless you want to and your intuition can be an excellent guidance system in terms of letting you know when that time is.

 

Okay, so how to wrap this episode up… what is the secret to effortless sleep? The secret to effortless sleep, my loves, is there is no secret. That IS the ultimate secret.

 

Ask any “good” sleeper what they do to sleep so well, and they simply will not be able to comprehend the question. Because sleep comes in the flow. The true challenge occurs when the conscious mind starts to interfere with a beautifully unconscious process which is how I think of insomnia. We move from an effortless orientation with sleep to a fix-it orientation with sleep. We forget that sleep is simple — there’s nothing you need to do or be.

 

Thanks for listening today, I’m Beth Kendall and you’ve been TUNING into the Mind. Body. Sleep. podcast, be well…