Ever since I overcame my insomnia, I believe that it's possible for you to do the same.

My sleep got worse and worse without me even noticing it

Not everyone's insomnia struggles start with a 'significant' life event like you might have read in articles about sleep problems or insomnia. Knowing what I know now, I'm sure the signs were there but of course, when we're busy with living life these signs aren't always very obvious.

In my mid-twenties, I was already living in London after relocating from Hungary for a gap year to begin with. Time flies when you're having fun - they say - and our twenties are definitely the years when we push our boundaries, stay out late, and say yes to way too many commitments. I wouldn't have had it any other way but it certainly gave me a huge wake-up call when I 'suddenly' wasn't able to sleep well at night. 

It crept up on me and only really realised something was wrong when I started waking up with nose bleeds in the middle of the night. But even then I didn't think too much of it and thought there must be a simple reason. It only hit me when one night - and I still clearly remember - waking up right around 3 am as usual with yet another nosebleed but this time it didn't want to stop. I remember leaning over the bathroom sink, thinking 'surely it should have stopped by now' and feeling a bit dizzy.

This time it seem to take forever for things to settle, and by that time I was so worked up about it, completely wide awake and wired, that I tossed and turned in bed until it was time to drag myself out of bed for work.

The GP (medical doctor) I saw ran some tests, concluded that there was nothing wrong with me and offered some sleeping tablets

I remember walking out of the follow-up appointment and feeling even more confused, how come there was nothing wrong with me?

Surely, something must have shown up when I've been having so many nights of hardly any sleep, waking up tired and even exhausted on some mornings. But I guess he must be right, so I got on with it and carried on the way I was. Not surprisingly, my problems didn't stop there.

I started dreading going to bed, asked friends for sleep advice, and experimented with the general tips that I could get my hands on. From drinking a few glasses of wine to 'relax' which made me drowsy but woke me for a toilet break later, to a hot bath before going to bed which overheated me like crazy, all the way to reading in bed which only just made me stay up even later. I've tried and tried and tried. I even had to resort to going to Starbucks every morning for my 'usual' tall vanilla latte with extra milk and sugar just to even wake up properly, whereas previously I always had lots of energy and was quite active.

But real change only came when I stopped experimenting with random one-off things and took my insomnia problems seriously and owned up to how I was contributing to the problem I ended up with. You see, at that time I was still pushing through, I didn't admit that my lifestyle and how I treated my body and my mind had to change if I wanted to live a better, more restful and more energised life again.

The last straw was developing various health issues as my insomnia progressed to its worse

So many clients I worked with in the past spent years struggling with insomnia before finally seeking help. In my case, the reason I started addressing things perhaps sooner was because I started developing more obvious health issues.

Of course in hindsight, these were really not surprising at all. My food cravings were all over the place, overeating late at night mostly because I skipped a meal from the caffeine or sugar 'high' in the day. I wasn't eating very healthily either, often grabbing a sandwich or a pack of something just to give me a burst of energy. I would drink too much coffee and not realise that I was actually caffeine intolerant, leading to feeling incredibly tired after drinking one. Water... what water? And because I was tired most mornings, I would compensate by working more, often without breaks leading to overthinking or stress.

I developed full own psoriasis that covered my abdomen and spread fast. I almost consistently had heartburn and/or simply a knot in my stomach. I wasn't able to lose weight even though I was going to the gym regularly. My face would break out in painful acne. And my digestive system was all over the place, without sharing too many details with that one...

Let's just say I wasn't a happy twenty-something.

Enough was enough! I wanted to change, and I wanted to sleep well again.

It was time to retrain my body and my mind to develop great quality sleep again

My journey back to sleeping well consistently at night again was not without its own challenges.

Back then there were no sleep coaches around, most of the things I found were things I already experimented with before. So I came to the conclusion that I had to think of this as a personal project and learn the real reasons why my sleep was not improving. 

I came across NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and started learning about the power of the mind and how we can change behaviour. Alongside this, I dived into learning about nutrition to help myself eat well so I can have more energy. I studied anatomy and physiology and ended up training in reflexology firstly out of curiosity about how our body works. I wanted to understand how my own body works so I can learn to work with it better and recover from all the health issues I was experiencing. I attended public medical lectures on various topics and started exploring medical books about insomnia. In my opinion, I was way too young to have so many issues and surely there was a way for my body to heal.

Bit by bit, I committed to one change at a time and monitored the outcomes (good and bad ones) so that I can make sure that I knew what worked and what didn't. This is how I learnt, quite quickly, what it takes to actually change a habit - and it's not 30 days really...

Bit by bit, I became self-aware of what was causing the issues I was experiencing. The reasons I wasn't able to fall asleep easily or why I was waking up several times a night, why couldn't seem to wake up naturally, or what caused me not to have so much energy. 

One step at a time, I retrained my body to rest and my mind to calm leading to improved sleep. I helped my body to heal by eating and drinking better. I learnt which types of exercise help me to get fitter instead of exhausting me so my blood sugar drops and I feel dizzy.

One step at a time, I changed my mindset about a lot of different things when it came to sleep, health and leading a balanced and fulfilling life.

Through all the different experiments, practical steps, mindset and behavioural changes, I finally overcame my insomnia and slept consistently well every night. It was a great personal success and I was really proud of all the work I've put in to help myself become healthy again. It wasn't easy but it was well worth it! 

When friends and acquaintances saw the change in me, they started to approach me for advice. And that is how I started working with people. 

Then in 2014, I published the methodology called The Sleep Deep Method®. As they say, the rest is history...

My curiosity about what it takes to overcome insomnia and sleep problems has continued ever since

After publishing The Sleep Deep Method® I knew that I wanted to continue studying and learning more about sleep.

I was fascinated by all the different things that influence our sleep physically, mentally and emotionally. There wasn't a sleep coaching course I could join back then, and a lot of the courses I found were either way too medical and scientific or incredibly general. I already knew a lot more than what some of those course curriculums offered.

Still today, the lack of combined principles is rare to find. A 6 session more therapy-based approach doesn't even stretch the surface for more complex insomnia cases... Without addressing the practicality and the retraining part of sleep, I believe no amount of talking about it will fully help clients. The sleep industry is shortchanging people by marketing things that seem to suggest that they are a 'fix for all', leaving clients with more doubt and frustration because they just don't know why they can't sleep well consistently. But I'd prefer not to go into all my frustrations with the sleep industry!

Over the last few years, I dived more deeply into sleep science and sleep diagnostics. I became a member of the Royal Society of Medicine and regularly attend lectures on various topics related to sleep and health. In 2019 I completed the Edinburgh Sleep Science Course accredited by the Royal Society of Physicians. It was a truly eye-opening week of my life. The range of topics we looked at in relation to sleep was only really scratching the surface of the complexity of sleep disorders, sleep problems and insomnia. But truly loved this introduction to the science of it all. I then attended a course on CBTi (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia), this is when I realised that I've been practising a lot of these principles already as part of my sleep coaching work. 

And my curiosity continues, sleep has so much to teach us and I'm looking forward to expanding my knowledge on how to help clients like you for many years to come. I think I'll be a student for life, especially as I go through life stages and experience sleep through all we get exposed to throughout our lifetime.

I really appreciate you reading this page, and I'm looking forward to helping and supporting you to finally overcome your sleep problems or insomnia. 

Remember, if I could overcome it, so can you!

Beatrix A Schmidt 

Sleep Coach, Professional Speaker, creator of the Sleep Skills for Life Programme and the Author of The Sleep Deep Method®