Ep 38. Sleeping with a Bed Partner Again

When you have insomnia, even minor sleep disruptions feel GIGANTIC in the mind. 

I could hear a pin drop two rooms over. 

The reason? A complete mystery to me. 

I had no idea.

Which only made my brain freak-out WORSE. 

There had to be something seriously wrong with me. 

But I have good news…

If you’re someone who notices everything; every noise, every movement, every single sleep disruptor known to man...

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.

Nothing at all. 

You just have a super amazing brain. 

It loves you lots and lots and wants to protect you from anything that could mess with your sleep. 

That’s why sleeping next to someone else feels so impossible in your brain. 

Your mind is CONVINCED this is a terrible idea. 

But you know what? 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Tune into this episode where I walk you through a 3-step process that will guide your brain towards sleeping with a partner again. 

Enjoy! 🧡

Mentioned Resources: 

Episode 1: Redefining Insomnia
Episode 18: Insomnia and the Perceived Danger Connection
Episode 30: The #1 Tool for Insomnia Recovery

Connect with Beth Kendall:

👉 Instagram

Work with Beth Kendall:

👉 Start the Free Insomnia Course

👉 Learn About the Mentorship

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.

 

DISCLAIMER: The podcasts available on this website have been produced for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. The contents of this podcast do not constitute medical or professional advice. No person listening to and/or viewing any podcast from this website should act or refrain from acting on the basis of the content of a podcast without first seeking appropriate professional advice and/or counseling, nor shall the information be used as a substitute for professional advice and/or counseling. The Mind. Body. Sleep. Podcast expressly disclaims any and all liability relating to any actions taken or not taken based on any or all contents of this site as there are no assurance as to any particular outcome.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

 

Overcoming the Challenges of Insomnia

 

Hello everyone, great to be back with you on this beautiful September day in 2024. If you’re new here, welcome, I’m so glad you found your way to the podcast. My name is Beth, I’m a sleep coach for people with insomnia. And through the mind. body. sleep. mentorship, I approach insomnia not just as a physical issue, but as a manifestation of hyperarousal which stems from a fear of not being able to sleep. So, it's more about understanding how hyperarousal can manifest physically when we’re caught in a conditioned cycle of fear around not sleeping.

 

A Common Struggle: The Fear of Sleeping with Someone Else

 

Today, I’m diving deeper into a topic that usually comes up later in the healing process which is: how to sleep with a bed partner again. This conversation came up recently in the mentorship and there was a lot of interest around it so I thought it would be a good topic to share here on the podcast. And certainly, I went through this situation myself, many, many, times, so I understand ALL the ups and downs of it from the emotions to the logistics, so let’s talk about it.

 

What I’m going to do, with her permission, is share this person’s question because sometimes that’s the best way to answer what probably many of you are wondering as well. And I’ve changed a few words just for readability, but here’s what Megan wrote:

 

“I need help moving past a current struggle. I’ve definitely seen success and improvements in my sleep; however, I’m still struggling to share a bed with my husband. It’s been hard to distinguish if sleeping in the guest room is a sleep effort to protect my sleep, or if the sleep disruptions I experience like (different sleep schedules, night wakings, heavy breathing) are valid reasons that sleep always feels worse when I sleep with him. I sleep with him on the weekends when our sleep schedules are more aligned, and it seems like it’s always poor and restless sleep. Which has made me think it will just be forever impossible to share a bed with him without feeling like a zombie.





But when recently out of town, I successfully shared a bed with him for 3 consecutive nights (not perfect, but good enough). And I was so surprised because that hadn’t happened in a long time! This has got me thinking that it might be a sleep effort or control issue after all. I would really like to continue recovering to the point that I can share a bed with my husband and have more flexibility and confidence in my sleep across different environments.

 

How would you suggest I think about this? I’m generally happy with my sleep WHEN I’m in complete control of my environment. But it feels like I lose confidence when unknown variables are introduced, or when I’m anticipating disruptions.”

 

Such a great question.

 

The Emotional Weight of Sleeping Separately 

 

Okay, so let’s first talk about the whole idea of needing to sleep in a separate place when you’re going through insomnia because this was an incredibly difficult thing for me to go through at the time. And I had a lot of guilt and shame about not being able to sleep in the same bed as the person I cared about. I really felt like I was letting my person down because I knew they just really wanted to sleep with me, and I really wanted to sleep with them but honestly, I just wanted to be able to sleep at all. So, all of it really added another layer of pressure to the whole situation.

 

And I knew they didn’t really understand what I was going through, or why my brain would go into full activation at the prospect of sharing a bed because I didn’t understand it myself and I just basically felt like a failure for not being able to do something as simple as share bed with another person.

 

So, I really get this.

 

Understanding Hyperarousal: Why Sleeping Together Is so Hard

 

And this whole time, you’re not really understanding that your brain has developed a hypersensitivity to anything related to sleep. And it’s particularly confusing because it’s not reflective of your true desires, you really do want to sleep with your person, or your dog, or whatever life circumstance comes along — you just don’t realize that your brain is interpreting all of this as a major threat to your safety, which is why sleeping with someone else feels SO incredibly difficult. 

 

Let’s break down this question piece by piece because there’s a lot here and I think what we apply to this situation can be applied to many other situations during insomnia as well. And again, I’m going to go a little deeper with the foundations in this episode, so if you’re new, or it isn’t making a lot of sense, I would recommend going back and listening to Ep 1 which is called Redefining Insomnia. Episode 18, which is called Insomnia and the Perceived Danger Connection. And probably Episode 30 which is called The Number #1 Most Powerful Tool to Recover from Insomnia. And I’ll link those up in the shownotes.

 

It’s pretty common when you’re on this path, to see better sleep in predictable environments first. And this makes a lot of sense because like Megan said, there’s more controllability in these situations, and less variables that the brain could perceive as a threat.

 

And it’s kind of nice when this happens because we get some evidence that we do still know how to sleep, even if it is just at home or in certain environments.

 

The Three-Step Process

 

Now, when we get ready to face a challenge or welcome the next stone on the path, in this case it’s rejoining a bed partner, our brains love to think we need to do something different or reinvent the wheel. But it’s really just the same process over and over that I teach in the mentorship. So let me walk you through that three-step process:

 

1. Understanding the "What" and the "Why"

The first step is understanding the "what" and the "why." Where is the brain coming from and why would it react so strongly to the prospect of sleeping with another person. Now remember, with insomnia, the brain has developed some fear around all things sleep, so ANY change, even a positive one, can feel like a threat to its sense of survival. Its role is to protect you and monitor for anything that fits its current definition of danger, so when something comes along that’s going to rock the status quo, it responds by sounding the alarm bell and creating hyperarousal because it wants to discourage this new behavior any way it can.

 

Which just means you have a working brain.

 

Now, one of the interesting things about Megan’s experience was the out-of-town sleep she had with her husband, which was pretty good for 3 consecutive nights. I suspect there was no other option but the one bed which actually ended up working in her favor because it eliminated the brains propensity to want to analyze all the different options for this scenario, right? When there are options, our brains automatically start doing a cost-benefit analysis of every possible scenario, and we spend a lot of time and energy trying to make the “right” choice. All of which can create hyperarousal. So, less options means less analysis, which can be a good thing when it comes to sleep.

 

And you know, I've heard this many times where people are in a situation where they can't accommodate insomnia and that's what ultimately proves to them that they CAN sleep and do things they didn't think they could do. Because there was no other option.

 

I think this was a part of Sasha Stephens story who wrote the Effortless Sleep Method where she was a vacation overseas and she was on one of those tours with a tight schedule, and she was so focused on the vacation that it took her focus off of sleep which of course is when it comes best. So that was a big turning point for her in her recovery.

 

Okay, so the first step in the process is understanding the what and the why, which leads me to the second step.

 

2. Respond in Helpful Ways

 

The second step is responding in helpful ways. This is our chance to teach the brain something new and REcondition the automatic response that’s firing off whenever we implement a change. And this is sooooo much easier to do when you understand where the brain is coming from in the first place, right? We have to understand the why to let go of the why. Because it makes sense why some hyperarousal might show up — it’s not this big mystery where you feel like you just have this really bizarre brain that isn’t operating like other people.

 

So we can UPDATE the programming and create different associations by responding in new ways. And that’s the main focus of the mentorship, which is centered on the four pillars of safety.

 

Trust that your body DOES know how to sleep in different places. Your ability to sleep doesn’t change from room to room, it’s the minds perception of what it means to be sleeping next to someone else that can create some hyperarousal. As you continue in your process and realize that it truly is safe to rejoin a bed partner if that’s what you wish, and there’s no actual danger in this scenario, the heightened sensitivity will start to come down over time.

 

Acceptance that whatever shows up is just working itself out. We’re peeling back the layers of the onion and if some sleep anxiety shows up, it’s okay, it doesn’t mean that anything has gone wrong, it just means that was the layer that was ready to be acknowledged.

 

Being mindful and not projecting into the future. One bad night of sleep doesn’t mean that every night will be bad, it just means that some hyperarousal showed up because it was sensing some danger, but every night is a new night and another opportunity for sleep.

 

And self-compassion that we don't need to go about this perfectly. There can be some flexibility in the process and there are no grades. If we approach these challenges like they’re a battle, well then that’s what the brain gears up for. But if we can give ourselves some grace, be curious about what the brains are up to, and allow the process to unfold in whatever way it needs to, then we’re stepping out of the battle and that naturally leads to less hyperarousal and better sleep.

 

3. Live Your Life

 

The final step in this 3-step process is just living your life. Everything you learn here on the podcast, or in the mentorship, will naturally integrate through the journey of life. When you’re going through insomnia, there’s a strong internal drive to apply logic and intellect to this very passive process of sleep. We’re all naturally good problem-solvers, so we like to search for that one magical piece of information that will give us back our sleep.

 

But the thing is, we never really lose the ability in the first place. We just start overcomplicating this naturally simple process so that it becomes an effort. And that effort becomes a habit. And that habit eventually becomes a belief system.

 

A lot of times people will ask me what the best approach is to re-joining a bed partner

 

Best Approach: Fast or Slow?

 

Do we just rip off the band-aid and be done with it, or do we go at a more leisurely pace that feels doable. And you know, there really is no right or wrong way to do this. It’s much more about understanding where the brain is coming from and being able to recognize that what it’s perceiving as a threat, isn’t truly dangerous.

 

And one last thing I’d like to offer in terms of separate bedrooms that I wish I would have taken into consideration all those years ago when I was feeling so bad about it is that it’s okay if you DO just want to sleep in separate bedrooms. There’s no hard, fast rule about this and many happy couples sleep in separate bedrooms for lots of reasons outside of insomnia and it’s not an issue.

 

That’s all for today, my friends. Wishing you all the beauty and wonder in your lives. Until next time, I’m Beth Kendall, and you’ve been listening to the Mind. Body. Sleep. podcast. Take care.