The Wellbeing 5 Project

Martin Reed, MEd, CHES®, CCSH

Insomnia Coach

The Physical / Sleep Wellbeing 5

5 Simple Questions to help with sleep wellbeing with answers from Experts, Thought Leaders, Campaigners & Advocates

Martin Reed

Martin is a trained and experienced sleep expert & coach and the creator of “Insomnia Coach.” His own personal journey lead him to research, document and ultimately help him beat his own insomnia. His approach uses mainly cognitive and behavioural techniques to address (and fix) the root causes of most cases of insomnia. Martin’s 8 week course helps people to live a better, more energised and happy life through improving their sleep. He also offers a free course that has so far helped over 5000 people to overcome insomnia.

Martin holds a master’s degree in health and wellness education and studied clinical sleep health through the University of Delaware. He is a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES®), holds a Certification in Clinical Sleep Health (CCSH) and is also an ACE-certified Health Coach.

Find out more about Martin here

The Physical / Sleep Wellbeing 5 with Martin Reed

1. What is your favourite quote, anecdote, proverb or experience that helps with physical / sleep wellbeing?

Martin: “The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

When it comes to sleep, it’s often a case of the more we try the harder it gets! Sleep is probably one of the only things in life that doesn’t respond well to effort — as soon as we actively try to make ourselves fall asleep or try to get a certain amount of sleep, sleep becomes a lot more difficult! So, if you are finding sleep difficult, it can be helpful to abandon all effort to make sleep happen — when you are sleepy enough for sleep, you will sleep!

2. What is your top piece of advice for physical / sleep wellbeing?

Martin: To follow on from my last answer, if you are struggling with sleep it can be helpful to ensure that you only go to bed when you are sleepy enough for sleep! It is so easy to mistake fatigue for sleepiness — unfortunately, fatigue isn’t a sign that we’re ready for sleep so if we go to bed when we are feeling fatigued instead of sleepy, it can be hard to fall asleep. If you are already worried about your ability to sleep, this can lead to more worry and make sleep more difficult. So, it can be really helpful to only go to bed when you are sleepy enough for sleep — and by “sleepy enough for sleep”, I mean you are finding it hard to remain awake!

3. What is the one change in the world that you would like to see? (in the area of physical / sleep wellbeing or in the world in general or both)

Martin: I can’t choose just one, so I’d like to cheat a bit on this one and share three changes I’d like to see!

If we could eliminate all mention of sleep hygiene, offer more effective alternatives to sleeping pills and supplements, and stop the promotion of fear-mongering sleep articles, we’d have fewer cases of chronic insomnia in the world.

Sleep hygiene isn’t helpful for people with insomnia because it doesn’t tackle the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption. When someone with chronic insomnia tries to implement sleep hygiene, they add more unhelpful rituals to their lives, draw more attention to sleep, and when they don’t work (which is actually to be expected) this can lead to more sleep-related worry which can make sleep more difficult.

Sleeping pills and supplements aren’t an effective long-term solution for chronic insomnia but if they’re all we are offered it can become easy to believe that we need a pill or supplement in order to sleep, when that’s never the case. The end result is every time we take a pill, we erode sleep confidence and tell ourselves that something is wrong with our ability to sleep and that we need something else to generate sleep for us. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a far more effective long-term solution for chronic insomnia because it’s a set of skills that helps tackle the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption. In other words, CBT-I gets to the root of the problem and it builds long-term sleep confidence.

Finally, if we could get rid of all the scary headlines in the press about the effect of insufficient sleep, we’d have a lot less sleep-related anxiety (and, therefore, insomnia) in the world! The press is keen on coming up with scary headlines and drawing conclusions from associations. Many of these studies take healthy sleepers, deliberately deprive them of sleep and draw conclusions from there. Others look solely at sleep deprivation, which is not the same as insomnia! There is no evidence that chronic insomnia causes any health problem whatsoever.

4. Which resources (books / websites / videos etc) for physical / sleep wellbeing would you recommend?

Martin: Two of my favorites would be:

“Set it and Forget it” by Daniel Erichsen

and

“Quiet your mind and get to sleep” by Colleen Carney and Rachel Manber

5. What’s the one thing that always makes you smile?

Martin: Nothing is more rewarding than being able to witness the change in a client who goes from thinking their sleep system is broken and that they are destined to have insomnia forever to someone who doesn’t think about sleep, has full confidence in their ability to sleep, and sleeps well! Client transformations make me smile every single time!

Bonus Question! Is there anything else pertinent that you would like to add to the conversation?

Martin: I would add just one thing — there is always hope for anyone with insomnia! I believe that nobody is beyond help and that nobody needs to live with chronic insomnia. I have worked with clients who struggled with sleep for over 60 years and now sleep well. So, I’d like to end this interview with three simple words that I firmly believe in — you CAN sleep!

The Wellbeing 5 Project

Martin Reed, MEd, CHES®, CCSH

Insomnia Coach

The Physical / Sleep Wellbeing 5

5 Simple Questions to help with sleep wellbeing with answers from Experts, Thought Leaders, Campaigners & Advocates

Martin Reed

The Physical / Sleep Wellbeing 5 with Martin Reed

Further Exploration - Martin Reed

Website: Insomnia Coach

Videos: Insomnia Coach

Podcast: Insomnia Coach

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