Insomnia Is Not a Sleep Problem (A Sleep Expert Explains What It Really Is)

Chronic insomnia is not a sleep problem…

In this episode of the Health Pioneers Podcast, sleep and insomnia expert Anne-Marie Boylan explains why melatonin, sleep hygiene, CBT for insomnia, and sleeping pills will never fix chronic insomnia, and what actually will.

Anne-Marie struggled with insomnia for two years while working in a high-stress corporate job. She tried everything. Magnesium, blackout blinds, cutting caffeine, sleep apps, and nothing worked. 

When she finally ran functional lab tests on herself, she discovered a parasite she had picked up 15 years earlier, liver imbalance, and hormonal issues. 

Once she addressed those root causes, her sleep came back. 

In 2025, she was named one of the top sleep coaches in the country by The Sunday Times.

In this conversation, Anne-Marie breaks down the five lab tests she runs that most doctors have never heard of. 

She explains how the gut-brain connection drives insomnia, why parasites are most active during the full moon, and how one client's doctor-prescribed estrogen patch was actually making her insomnia worse. 

She also shares why sleeping pills prevent deep sleep and why the "gold standard" CBT treatment for insomnia only works for behavioral issues, not the biological root causes her clients are dealing with.

🕰️ CHAPTERS: 

 00:00 Why insomnia is not a sleep problem
 00:40 How chronic stress broke her body and caused 2 years of insomnia
 03:08 Why sleep hygiene is insulting to people with chronic insomnia
 05:01 The whole body approach to fixing insomnia with lab testing
 08:57 The 5 lab tests your doctor has never run for sleep
 15:49 How gut parasites keep you awake at night
 21:44 How HRT made one woman's insomnia worse
 27:45 Why CBT for insomnia does not work for chronic cases
 31:03 Why sleeping pills destroy your deep sleep
 34:12 How she gets people from 1 hour of sleep to 7

❓ COMMON QUESTIONS

Is insomnia a sleep problem?

 No. Anne-Marie explains that insomnia is a whole body problem. Chronic stress over years can break down the gut, hormones, liver function, and neurotransmitter balance. All of these systems talk to the brain and tell it whether or not it is safe to sleep. Until those root causes are addressed, no amount of sleep hygiene, melatonin, or sleeping pills will fix the problem.

Can gut health cause insomnia?

 Yes. The gut talks to the brain 90% of the time through the gut brain axis. If you have parasites, bacterial overgrowth, leaky gut, or no good gut flora, your gut is constantly sending distress signals to the brain. Anne-Marie found that a parasite she picked up 15 years earlier was one of the main drivers of her own two-year insomnia. Parasites are especially active at night and during the full moon when serotonin levels are higher.

Do sleeping pills actually work?

 Sleeping pills will get you to sleep but they prevent you from reaching deep sleep, which is the recovery and healing stage. The brain's own cleaning system only activates during deep sleep. Without it, the brain never gets cleaned. Many people become psychologically dependent on sleeping pills without ever addressing why they cannot sleep in the first place.

👉Find Anne-Marie Boylan:
Website: EasySleepMethod.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sleepandinsomniaqueen


#insomnia #chronicinsomnia #sleepexpert #sleephelp #cantsl eep #guthealth #parasites #sleepingpills #melatonin #sleephygiene #functionalm edicine #hormoneimbalance #healthpioneerspodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Insomnia is not really a sleep problem.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Insomnia is not a sleep problem. It's a whole body problem.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

I've done everything else right. I've followed all the instructions and I still can't sleep.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

In the Wild West, you know, there's really bad guys like Billy the Kid, so that might be your parasite secreting, it's partying up the storm in your gut at night, and especially during the full moon. So the full moon parasites come out to feed on our serotonin, which is higher during the full moon. By giving her an estrogen patch, she was actually giving herself more estrogen in a body that had too much estrogen, driving her symptoms wild. There is hope and your sleep can 100% be fixed.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

All right, welcome. Today I am with Anne-Marie Boyhan. She's a sleep and insomnia expert who regularly appears on TV and radio. She's worked with dozens of clients to resolve chronic insomnia. And in 2025, she was named one of the top sleep coaches in the country by the Sunday Times. I am super excited to have you here, Anne-Marie. Thank you so much for taking the time.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Thanks, Jim. I'm delighted to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this conversation because insomnia is such a huge problem. And uh I've been in the health and wellness world for like 25 years. And when you and I first had a conversation, I was in like absolute awe listening to you talk about insomnia. And I've just loved how the conversation went way more than just like red light glasses and like turn off the TV an hour before bed. You bring a really novel approach to insomnia, and I'm really excited to dive into it. Yeah, me too. So tell me a little bit about how, like, why did you decide of all of the kind of problems out there in the world that you could help? Why did you choose insomnia?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Released on my own pain. I had insomnia for two years, and there was nothing or no one that could help me. I really struggled. Uh, I couldn't fall asleep. Uh, I was highly stressed. I was in a stressful job, but little did I know that stress really breaks down your body, and there was a lot more going on. So, all of the sleep hygiene, all of the advice from everyone, oh, just take take magnesium. It didn't work for me. And I was really frustrated. I was a mom of two. I was working full-time in corporate world and I couldn't sleep, so I couldn't function. I was living off caffeine, um, energy drinks, the vending machine, chocolate bars to just keep me, keep me going. And I needed to do something about it. So I ended up leaving that job and in that journey tried to find a solution to fix my sleep. And that's how I found functional medicine.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Did you was there a change in your sleep when you when you left the job? Or was it did it take a lot more work than that?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

It took a lot more work than that. It it didn't change when I left the job. So it wasn't the immediate stress of the job. What I found out later, it was chronic stress over years that had broken down my body essentially. And there's a point where it's like the straw that breaks the camel's back, and in some people it shows up as insomnia, and nothing will help. So that's what I found through my journey, and I did lots of research. I read every sleep paper, listened to every sleep expert, tried all the things. I tried training myself. I had post-its on my refrigerator around what time to go to bed, take a sleepy tea, take magnesium. Uh, it didn't work. So my aha moment really was I heard a podcast, would you believe? And um someone who uh had studied functional medicine was talking about sleep, and that was like, oh my goodness, there's something deeper here. So I ended up changing my life to go and study this. Uh, studied in the US and functional diagnostic nutrition and became a practitioner. And then as part of that, I got to run lab tests on myself, and I found out that there was a whole lot of things going on. I found through a gut test, I found a parasite, I found out I had liver imbalance and I had hormonal issues. So it really was a uh an aha moment, but then a journey in doing the study, doing the work on myself. And then after that, I thought, well, if it works on me, you know, it should be able to work on others.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

That's amazing. And that that that ties into one of the things that I've heard you say, which is that you know, insomnia is not really a sleep problem. Can you talk a little bit more about what that means?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah, insomnia is not a sleep problem. Uh it's a it's a whole body problem. And it's it's really one of the first things that I talk about when I meet with people. When someone has a sleep issue, there's no point in treating the symptom. You know, the sleeping meds or the going to your doctor and getting your bloods done. Most people, it comes back, you know, you're fine. It really isn't getting to the root cause. And I know root cause is is a phrase that's out there a lot, but in this case, it it really, you know, taking a sleeping pill is like a band-aid. It it doesn't fix the sleep, it just will get you to sleep, but it your your insomnia isn't gone. So it really is a whole body problem, and that's essentially my ethos in my program. And when I work with when people work with me, we essentially get under the hood. It's, you know, we get under the hood of your body. It's like bringing your car to get it serviced and plugging in that dashboard, and you see that all the red lights pop up everything that's wrong, and then we figure out what's wrong, and then we go about addressing those and getting your body back into balance. So that's one of the first things I teach. It's it's it's not a it's not a sleep issue, it's a it's a whole body issue.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

And I love that that approach, like grounded in the the lab testing. This is when we first talked, one of the things that really got my attention is that it's not like it's not guessing. Like so, in in the years of my acupuncture practice, I can't tell you how many times people would say they took melatonin to try to help them get to sleep. And I never saw it work. Like everybody was taking it and it wasn't helping anybody. And then, you know, it's like you just hear other stories like, oh, I tried turning off the TV, I've got these glasses, I'm you know, I've I stopped caffeine at like after two o'clock, and they're just like throwing everything that they can at it, all of these kind of like surface level things. And you're just like, you know, like can we just stop playing that game? Like, let's get some actual tests here and take a look at what you know conventional doctors probably don't even know about, much less consider testing.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, for sure. And there's so much sleep advice out there, and and people who have insomnia are constantly googling, they're worrying about it, it consumes their day. So they're constantly looking for the next melatonin tablet or quick fix that's gonna fix it. So there's a lot of advice like that out there. And the the traditional advice is sleep hygiene. Uh, that's one. The other one is try CBTI, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. But sleep hygiene, to say that to someone who's had insomnia for two years or five years or 10 years is really insulting because they have tried it all. You know, they've they've they've given up coffee or they might have given up gluten or sugar, they're doing all the things, they've bought all the really nice blackout blinds, they've they're doing all the sleep hygiene, and it just doesn't work for someone with chronic insomnia. It is okay for someone who, you know, who has bad sleep habits and needs to train themselves a little bit, but not for someone with chronic insomnia. And they do come to me really fed up because they're getting this advice from their neighbor or their doctor, and it it's really frustrating for for them because nobody understands how bad it is and how how much they're suffering. So that's where the theory tests don't guess. And that's another one of my values. Uh, I am a big data nerd, and my clients love that because they we I run the lab tests on them and it that we get back the data, it shows a number of things that that are imbalanced in their body, but the data tells the story, right? So we just follow the data, and that's how I fix insomnia. So it's really a relief for these people because because they've tried so much, but it it gives them answers. And people have said to me, I'm so relieved, you know. I don't care that there's all these things wrong with me, that I'm a mess, but I now have answers and we now have a roadmap to get better. And even that step, the reliefs, and they they you know, my clients say to me, I'm so relieved that now I have a plan and that someone has given me answers and I'm not going crazy or been told in the doctor's office or wherever they've been that you know it's all in your head. So it's a huge relief and and an achievement for them.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

That's amazing. Let's let's nerd out just a little bit if you if you can humor me. Uh how does the lab test that you run differ from the kind of normal labs that they may just be getting from their from their Western doctor?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Right. So the normal labs, what they test for, so it could be a blood test, or for example, it could be a breath test for H. pylori, which is a bacteria in the in the intestines, in your in your stomach. So usually those tests come back, you're fine. They're they're clear. Um, so they're not looking for sleep markers or insomnia markers. So they are looking for a doctor will tell you when they go out of range, and that's really when it's gone into disease mode. So, for example, on those tests, it might be your thyroid. So, thyroid is one of the things I look at. Um, both types of thyroid and balance cause sleep issues. But a typical thyroid panel on a on a doctor's or a blood test will only tell you when there's something wrong. So it's gone into the red and it's like, okay, you, you know, you've got hypothyroidism, you need some medication. Whereas when I run the test, it's totally different. So I need to see firstly, uh, I get them to do a separate blood test that shows the full thyroid panel. So for example, there's about seven health markers that I look at. A typical doctor will only look at two. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the the other test that I run, which is a gut stool test, stress and hormone panel, which is a dried urine test called a Dutch hair tissue mineral analysis, which is a hair sample, and then a neurotransmitters test, which is a urine. So they're they're totally different tests. They're looking at different parts of the body, but they're looking for imbalances in the body that when I interpret it, I know the ones that lead to the sleep issues. So they're very simple. They're they're done from home. So they're self-testing. So the client does the test themselves and they're given instructions. Um, and then they're sent back to the lab. And then the interpretation I do when I get the results. But it's very different because, for example, on a gut test, I will be looking for things like have you any parasites in your gut? Have you any yeast in your gut? Have you low good gut slora? Um, have you any bacteria? Or have you got leaky gut? So those types of things all lead to insomnia. And you, if you've done the test, might have one, or you might have all five or six of those. So it's really about knowing what to look for. The other thing that a lot of clients before they come to me, they have been to a functional medicine practitioner or doctor. But the thing is, they're not a sleep expert with that. So they might just be looking, oh, oh, there's something wrong with your gut here, you know, take some supplements and and let's, you know, try and fix that thing. But they're not looking at it with the sleep lens. So it's it's quite interesting because I do get people who have done all the tests, or they've done the break test, they've done the blood tests, or things like if if someone does have a gut issue, they might have gone for a colonoscopy or something really what is considered deeper, but those don't pick up on the same things that, for example, the GI Map, which is the stool test that I run, picks up on, that looks at it. It's like a PCR test and it's so specific. So it will look at certain bacteria in your gut. It's it's it's a totally different realm and not recognized by the Western medicine world. So that's kind of the battle I have with sometimes people being influenced by their doctor or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah. And you know, the this whole podcast is about like talking to people that are pioneering health and kind of like leaving the conventional system to you know bring answers to people that that are looking for help. And I love how you've like doing all this advanced testing, and you know, you're able to give answers to folks that like are just told that everything is fine, everything is normal, right? And like I think that's one of the big things with just Western medicine, a lot of clients that a lot of people out there may not know is that there's a big difference between like what's considered normal uh on a lab test versus like what's optimal, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Correct. And yeah, and that's why there's so many frustrated people because they they go to the doctor's office and they're told everything's normal. And they walk out of there, but they know there's something wrong, or they feel there's something wrong, or they feel they're broken, but they don't get the answers. And typically someone has gone to multiple doctors or consultants or even other practitioners, you know, maybe hypnosis or a nutritionist. So they've gone to multiple people to try and resolve this issue, but they they have never gotten to the root cause. So it's they're very frustrated. They're they're really, you know, it's not just the biological issue, which they don't really know they have, but it's the psychological stress that comes with that and been told everything's normal, but you know you're not normal because you're not sleeping. So there some people are in a in a in a bad way, you know, and they might have been not only prescribed sleeping medication, but they might have been prescribed antidepressants or benzodiazepines or anti-anxiety pills. So, you know, but they know they don't have those issues, but sometimes they've been given these as a solution when that person that's giving them doesn't know what else to do with them. And I've had people that tell me, my doctor doesn't know what to do with me anymore. I keep going to him or her, and they're like, they don't know what to do with them. So it's it's really frustrating. So they are uh when they meet me, I've heard the words, you know, you've given me hope. I'm so relieved, I'm not going crazy. So it's it's really, I feel so proud of the fact that I can help these people. It's yeah, it's so personally satisfying to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

That's incredible. When you talk about the like the lab tests that you're looking at, and especially people that have been down the functional medicine path, this maybe this isn't a great comparison, but it sort of reminds me of like those cooking shows where like everyone has the same ingredients, you know, and you're just like, you're like, they don't know this person doesn't know how to make this like amazing thing with these ingredients, but you do, right? And so it's like being able to say, okay, noticing how these different systems interplay with one another and how they're connected to me is so fascinating because so much of Western medicine and even to a certain extent, functional medicine, you know, people like they they they just sort of know what they know, and it's very kind of like uh tight domain, but you have this ability to take a look at multiple systems and noticing how each one kind of connects back to to their insomnia. What do you find is like the let's talk about the the gut, right? So if someone comes back with some gut issues, what does that um the first part of that treatment kind of look like?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

The first part of the treatment is is the the data, so the finding what what is going on in your gut. So that's a stool test, as I mentioned, and that can reveal, for example, helicopacter pylori. It could reveal parasites, although sometimes parasites don't show up in the test, but they so we look at something else to see a lot of people with insomnia do have parasites. It shows low gut gut flora, it may show that you have a bacterial overgrowth, or it may show that you have leaky gut. So there's some of the things that we find, but the gut is so important for sleep because the gut brain access, so the gut talks to the brain 90% of the time. So the brain only talks to the gut 10%. So if you think about it, if your gut is messed up and you're trying to talk to your brain 90% of the day, and your gut has a lot of go things going on, it is not telling the brain that you can sleep. So your gut is your second brain. So if you fix the gut, you can fix your sleep. Now it isn't the whole picture, but it is a lot of the picture. And sometimes people don't have any symptoms, so they're asymptomatic. They don't have, they don't think they have gut issues. They but then sometimes people might have gut issues like GERD or diarrhea or constipation, or they find they're allergic to foods or can't handle foods. So they're but so they're they either have symptom gut symptoms or they don't, but in both cases, they have uh certain things in their gut that are leading to their insomnia. So then how we go about treating those is through uh diet, lifestyle change, and supplementation. So, you know, there's a lot of supplements out there, but these are high grade targeted supplements that either are getting the bodies out or they're bringing up the levels when we need to, in some cases. So that we're trying to all the time balance the things in your gut. So in some cases, the things like are too high and we're trying to get them down, and in some cases the things are too low. So sometimes I liken it to the Wild West. So when I talk about what's in your gut, so in the Wild West, you know, there's really bad guys, you know, like Billy the Kid. So that might be your parasite. So something like blastocystis hominus, you know, it's it we get it through water or travel or food, contaminated water, usually. Um, in my particular case, I got it like 15 years before I found my insomnia when I was traveling in Central America, and I know it was the water or the street food. Um, but um, so Billy the Kid is the is the parasite, and that's like a particularly nocturnal pathogen. It's it's eating, it's secreting, it's partying up a storm, and you're good at night, and especially during the full moon. So the full moon parasites come out to feed on our serotonin, which is higher during the full moon. So Billy the Kid is in there and he's he's really going crazy with his gun and and and lots of antics, and and he's probably you know causing a lot of your sleep issues. And then you might have someone else, the sheriff, who comes in and he's trying to, you know, find Billy or put him in jail, um, or there might be shootout, and that could be a case where there's some something else where you might have H. pylori, for example, or you might have uh bacterial overgrowth. Um, and these guys are all, you know, doing a shootout in your gut, keeping you awake at night. So we need to um get them out of your gut. And, you know, in in Western medicine, for example, you know, if you had uh H. pylori, they would do a breath test and then they would treat it with an antibiotic. Now you can do that to treat it, but what happens is um the treatment of that is only 15 days, where the whereas the life cycle of H. pylori is about six weeks. So you're never gonna get it fully killed off. So uh that's why my approach works because people have had the breath test, they've tried it with their doctor, but they still might have the thing. So it's it's complex, but there is a an order of operations and we get it all done, and it's six months of intense work. In some cases, it's longer. But when everything goes back into balance and the bodies are out and they're in jail, then you do get your sleep back.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

That's amazing. It's amazing. And it's like if people, I mean, I've seen it where it's like if people guess like, well, maybe I'll take a little melcholin or I'll, you know, I'll change my sleep hygiene. Like, certainly when it comes to supplements, they guess all over the place because it's like, oh, I heard this here, I heard, you know, maybe probiotics this, and maybe you know, 5 HTP over here. And I think what they don't understand is that if you're taking the wrong thing at the like wrong time or the wrong order, or for something that you don't even have, it's not always a neutral. It can sometimes make things like even worse.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Totally. It can make things even worse. So there's lots of examples of that. So, you know, there's a lot of advice out there about, for example, you know, your gut, eat eat some sauerkraut, or eat um, you know, some kimchi or drink have take a probiotic. But what happens is if you have an overgrowth of a certain bacteria in your gut and you're taking that stuff, you're just feeding it to get bigger. So the other thing, you know, the the melatonin tablets reproduce melatonin in our bodies anyway. So it's gonna work for some people, maybe for a short time. But if you have enough melatonin in your body to take a melatonin supplement, it's either gonna make you groggy or give you really vivid dreams or you know, not work. So it really is about getting all of the data and then um trying, not trying, but addressing each one because, like that, if you only take the one thing, you may not have it, as you said, or you're you're doing the wrong thing with it. You're you're driving your insomnia worse. So I have an example of a a female client. This is why I really believe in the test, don't guess. A woman in her early 50s had just started menopause, and her doctor handed her HRT, which was um estrogen and estrogen patch and And some progesterone, but the doctor never checked around her symptoms. So the thing about it is, she, when I run the ran the hormone test, the Dutch test on her, I found out that she had high estrogen and low progesterone. So what the doctor had given her in that hormone replacement therapy, by giving her an estrogen patch, she was actually giving herself more estrogen in a body that had too much too much estrogen, and she was her driving her symptoms wild, like her insomnia was so much worse. So in that case, a blanket solution, and we saw the data, and it was like, whilst I can't advise someone to come off uh, for example, a drug because I'm not a doctor, however, I can educate it around around the data to show that you may not need that. Um, and we got to work on your liver instead to make sure that that you're you're detoxing that estrogen out of your body because you already have too much going on. So that's where there are a lot of aha moments, or the you know, the case where someone might have a supplement graveyard, you know, they're they have so many supplements and um, you know, I'm like stop taking all the supplements, you know, and then we we assess through the data which ones that you need. And even at that, the ones that they end up taking to address something are very high grade. They're not something you buy in the local store or they're not something you get over the counter. They're really very potent that you would take for a short, intense period of time until the body is back in balance. And then we also work on why the body got out of balance in the first place. So we're constantly working on the root cause as well. So I never want anyone to take supplements for life. It's really a short, intense burst until until they get better.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

That supplement graveyard is a great phrase. My wife calls it intuitive vitamining. We open the cabinet and you're just like, what do I feel like I might need today? You know, and it's like it's such a haphazard and like terrible approach. It's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah. And you know, I get it. The the supplement industry is huge, and you, you know, you hear all this advice and things that it that I my clients say to me, you know, Andrew Hooverman podcast said, take this, or and I'm going, no, you know, so uh yeah, people they're they are searching for answers, so they're desperate and they have bought a lot of supplements, or their friend or someone has recommended it, you know, so so they do think it's the answer. So that that's where the tests don't guess, and the data really is powerful.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

One of the themes that that we see on the show a lot is the shift from kind of like blanket one size fits all uh treatment that you generally will get on allopathic western medicine to this much more personalized, customized and really adaptable uh approach to medicine, right? Where or to treatment, where you know, you get the the numbers ahead of you, you know, you you do the testing and then you keep track with people. Like you stay in touch, they work with you closely so that you can adapt as they improve. Because as you know, they're in different parts of the process. I imagine levels will change, things will shift, and they need to be, you know, kind of uh amenable to like, okay, this is the next step. And it's it it seems to me like everything is really personalized. And the vibe that I get from you is that like you're gonna be in the trenches with these people. Like, you know, for someone with chronic insomnia, it's not always straightforward. And it's been often sometimes what years of frustration for them. And to finally have an ally who is like, listen, I speak this language, I have the solution, like we're gonna do this together. I mean, I can just imagine the level of relief that must be.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yes, the relief is fantastic, but it's also the support not only from me who has lived through it, but from the community of other people going through it. So when you have chronic insomnia, no one else really understands how bad it is. So if someone talks about their sleep issue, no one else gets it, you know, handing out that that you know, sleep hygiene advice or just take magnesium. So they can't really talk about it with other people because nobody gets it. So it's it's a really safe community that they can vent, but also get answers and then get their personalized plan. And the journey is not easy, you know, it's not linear. It there's ups and downs, there's good days and bad days. But what I say to people is you will your sleep will come, but it will come at the end when we've addressed everything. So you've got to believe in the process, you've got to be coachable. So, you know, believe in this method. And mindset is a big part of the journey because so we do a lot of mindset work because they have these associations of being a bad sleeper, or they might be uh telling a story around being a bad sleeper, and that's gonna affect your sleep. So it's not just the biological issues, there are mental or psychological issues to do with sleep, not sleeping. So things like you know, you might wake up in the morning or you might have slept, but the first person you meet in the household, be it your partner or your parents, or your dog, I don't know, but you might go into work. And the first thing you do is you tell everyone how bad your sleep is, or they know that you're a bad sleeper. So they ask you and you answer them, or you have a particular, you know, you get it off your chest. So the brain is constantly listening to that story and that narrative, which is reinforcing then the bad sleep behavior and saying, Yeah, of course you're a bad sleeper. So we have to work a lot on that. But the other thing is, um, so it's the mindset, but cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is the traditional gold standard of treatment for insomnia that um a lot of healthcare systems have, or that is the treatment for insomnia. And why? Why is that? So it's it's really odd because, you know, as we as I mentioned, the sleeping pills don't work or they'll only work for a while. So cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is when it's a behavioral issue. So it's when you have bad sleep habits or you are going to bed really late, or you've really gotten into a bad pattern of not sleeping. So that will only work for you if you have a behavioral issue with insomnia. But a lot of the people that come to me have already done um cognitive behavioral courses or app, there's an app by one healthcare system in one really big country that that's their treatment for insomnia. It's an app, and there's a lot of sleep restriction in that. So there's if you're awake for more than 20 minutes, you have to get out of bed and move to another room. And for people who are not sleeping, to ask them to do that sleep sleep restriction is torture. So I don't know why it's the the gold standard, because for the people that come to me, it doesn't work for them. But it will work for the behavioral if you have a behavioral issue.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

That's wild though. It sort of reminds me of um like back when I was a kid where they were just like, ah, it's all in your head, you know, or like whatever it was, right? I I feel like we've gone so far now in just the the arc of the medicine and treatments that are out there that like we recognize that things aren't in their head. But I'm hearing you say that the gold standard of CBT, my first thought, maybe it's wrong, my first thought is it's it's basically sending the message of like, well, if you were just diff if you just weren't how you were, then you'd sleep better, you know, or as like if you had a better routine or if you were just a little less stressed. But that's why I think part of your story is interesting, where it's like, you know, you this you feel stressed at work, you quit the job, and you know, I'm sure on some level you were like, okay, well, I got rid of this stress or like my sleep shouldn't get better now, but then it still doesn't because it's not it's not some of these surface things, right? It's so much deeper than that. So that's well, that's pretty wild that CBT is the is the solution.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Is the is the standard, not the solution, but that's like the main thing that they go to. Because I can imagine that would probably just make things worse for someone who did might have, you know, all of those underlying issues that you test for, and they're just sitting there and just thinking, like, it's I've done all I've done everything else right. You know, I've set my house, I've got all these, I'm following all the instructions, and I still can't sleep.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Yeah, it's it's so frustrating. And that is that person, you know, they have tried the CBTI, they've tried all the things, and because it it's the the gold standard, then they think there's something really broken or something wrong with them, and and they're not getting answers. So it just perpetuates the cycle of doom for them. So um, and and I do get some cynicism, you know, around when I meet someone for the first time around, well, I've tried so many things. How do I know this is gonna work? So that's a that's a big conversation as well, because they literally and they spent thousands or years doing things. So they really are they're desperate, but they're also cynical. Why will this work?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

And let's talk uh briefly about some of the medications and the pharmaceuticals that people get prescribed. Because I heard somewhere that that it may get you to sleep, but the quality of sleep is basically shit. Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, so and and so the first thing that happens um if someone has insomnia in most doctor practices around the world, or certainly in with the clients that that I work in, which is US, Canada, uh, UK, Ireland, the first line of defense is you go to your doctor and you're offered a s a sleeping pill. So that can be things like Zopiclone, it can be uh they have many names in in different countries, right? So what happens with the sleeping tablet is it will get you to sleep, but you never get deep sleep. So when we do a full sleep cycle, which takes 90 minutes, we do about we're supposed to do four to six of those in a night. So when one sleep cycle, uh three quarters of the sleep sleep cycle is N REM sleep. So REM is rapid eye movement, and then a quarter of the sleep cycle is rapid is rapid eye movement. So the the non-rapid eye movement, which is 75% of that 90 minutes, is one part of that. The N3 part of that is deep sleep. So with sleeping medication, you never get into deep sleep. And deep sleep is the recovery sleep, it's the healing sleep. So sleep scientists only discovered 15 years ago that sleep is so new that they only discovered that the brain has its own lymphatic system, which cleans down every night. And it does so in that third stage of NREM sleep. So if you're not sleeping, that um cleaning, like the cleaning crew never came in that night. So, but if you're taking a sleeping med on top of that, you're not getting it anyway. So it'll get you to sleep. You think you've slept, but you never actually get the recovery. So that's where it can unfortunately over long term lead to other things. Um, people get very addicted to it, but it's not really the solution. Like I mentioned before, it's a band-aid, so it's not getting to the root cause. But some people, they take them, or a lot of people that come to me, they want to get off them. They want to be able to sleep naturally. So I help them with that. I cannot uh tail tell someone to come off a medication. However, I will work with their doctor to help them come off it because what I find is at a point in the program, usually around month four or month five, of working with me, their body is back in balance and they're able to sleep naturally. But what they might have is a psychological dependence on it. Some people are prescribed benzodiazepines, uh, some people are prescribed antidepressants. And again, these things can be highly addictive, but they can be um really dangerous if you are weaning off them on your own. So, again, I would work with this person psychiatrist or a medical professional around that. It's really not simple to come off a lot of those things, but they're the solutions they've been handed. So, you know, you gotta meet the person where they are and and help them. But yeah, so so not everyone is in that boat when they come to me, but so a lot of people are.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

So um tell me a little bit about your kind of ideal client. We've been talking, we've been throwing around the phrase chronic insomnia. You know, at what point is someone like a great candidate for the work that you do versus like, you know, continuing to try to figure it out on their own?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

My ideal candidate would be someone who has insomnia for two years, sorry, from anything from two months. So insomnia is anything from two months to years. So if you are not sleeping for more than two months, you have insomnia. So if you have insomnia for two months or two years or five years or 10 years or 15 years, and you're really willing to do the work and you're really, you know, gonna show up, you're really committed, you really want answers, but you're actually gonna lean in and do the work, then that person is my ideal candidate. It's not a quick fix. It is a it's a it's a journey, but we get there. And people that have had insomnia for 23 years, for 14 years, and just thinking of my current clients for two years, uh, for 10 years that have had no hope. They have gotten their sleep back. So I'm getting people from one, two hours sleep a night to seven hours.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yeah. So it's they're they're in awe, and I I'm I'm in awe, but they have looked at the data, we've run the tests, they've done the work to address the imbalances and they've stuck with it, the mindset, it's gonna work. The sleep comes last, but it's gonna work, and they get their sleep back. So that's the ideal person. So if you have tried everything and still can't sleep, you've had insomnia for a long time, and you're willing to find a solution and do the work, then you are my ideal client.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

I mean, there's a reason that um if someone's being tortured, sleep deprivation is like the thing they go to, right? So, like doing a to me, doing a gut cleanse or, you know, whatever the treatments might look like seems like um kind of a no-brainer if it means you're gonna get your sleep back.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Yeah, and even things like, you know, they've they've been on sleep studies, and that's another thing that a lot of people they've they their insomnia is so bad. So their doctor or a specialist will send them on a sleep study, but a sleep study only looks for sleep apnea. So if you have insomnia, it's not gonna tell you anything. Um it doesn't give them a solution. So so there's a lot of things that they've tried or the gut cleanse, um, but it's in isolation, so it's not gonna work. You need all the data, and it is a case of me being a uh like a sleep detective, but I am gonna leave no stone unturned to find out exactly what's going on with you.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Amazing. So uh we've covered a lot of ground. I think it's clear that you bring a an approach to solving insomnia that is very, very rare, and maybe even you are a total unicorn in the in everything that you bring to the table to help solve this problem once and for all for those people that are suffering. Is there, um, as we wrap up here, is there any message that you might have for somebody who's watching right now that you know feels like they've tried everything and that they still might be a little bit a little skeptical that, you know, recovering their sleep is even possible for them. Is there anything you want to say to them?

SPEAKER_00 37:29

What I would like to say to them is you're not broken. You just haven't found the right person or the right solution yet. So there is hope. And hopefully you will hear this or you will you will find me, but there is hope and your sleep can 100% be fixed.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Beautiful. And how can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

They can find me on easysleepmethod.com or on Instagram. I am sleep and insomnia queen.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Amazing. Thank you so very much, Emory, for being here. Be sure to check her out. Thank you for watching, and we will check you next time.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Thanks, Tim.