If you are working hard to fall asleep — checking the clock, going to bed early, cancelling plans to “protect” your sleep — you are probably trying too hard. Sleep is not something you can achieve by effort; it is a process that happens when you let go. The very behaviours we use to guarantee sleep, known as safety behaviours, signal to the brain that this is an emergency and keep the arousal system switched on.
When it comes to insomnia, the brain does something interesting and frustrating: it tries to solve the problem of not sleeping exactly the way it would solve a problem at work — through effort, planning and constant checking. The trouble is that sleep cannot be forced. It arrives when we release, not when we push.
What are safety behaviours?
Safety behaviours are the things we do to “guarantee” we’ll fall asleep, or to “survive” the day after a sleepless night. On the surface they look very sensible, but in practice they signal to the brain that we are in an emergency — which keeps the body’s arousal system on high alert. Common examples include:
- Repeated clock-checking — “if I fall asleep now, I’ll have exactly four hours and twenty minutes left…”
- Going to bed early — to “give myself a better chance” of sleeping.
- Cancelling social plans — for fear of being too tired to function.
- Over-using caffeine, or “catching up” on sleep at the weekend.
Why do these behaviours harm us?
These actions become a kind of crutch. The brain learns that it cannot sleep on its own and grows dependent on these rituals. They increase the anxiety around sleep and perpetuate the vicious cycle of insomnia. The harder we try to control sleep, the further it retreats.
The proven solution: CBT-I
The good news is that the brain can be “reprogrammed”. Today the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia is not sleeping tablets but cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), recommended by NICE, the NHS and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. In treatment we identify these safety behaviours and replace them with science-based strategies. We learn how to stop fighting wakefulness, how to break the negative link that has formed between the bed and tension, and how to let sleep return to its natural state.
If you have insomnia, it may be time to stop leaning on “crutches” and reclaim the calm of your nights.