The Things they Don't Tell you about Insomnia

Today I'm here with Devin Burke. He's the founder of the Sleep Science Academy and on a more personal note, he's my sleep coach. I've suffered from, and you know, insomnia for a while, on and off, not chronic. It kind of comes in waves. And Devin recently helped me recover from a pretty bad batch of insomnia a couple of months ago where I was probably sleeping two to three hours, you know, maybe two to four hours a night for about three weeks, which was really brutal. And so I was working with him and his lovely staff, and they helped a lot. And I just thought it would be a great opportunity to have Devin come on and talk about insomnia and how to recover from it. So Devin, thanks so much for taking time to come and speak with my audience.

>> So grateful to be here. So thanks for having me.

>> So Devin, I like to start with just some first principles, you know, just to level set and get on the same page. And I think I want to ask you, what is insomnia?

>> Yeah, well, there's a couple of different classifications. So there's onset and maintenance insomnia. So onset insomnia is people that have trouble falling asleep. Maintenance insomnia is people that have trouble staying asleep. Now, you can have both. Sometimes it flips to onset insomnia and then it could be, you know, maintenance insomnia. But just a plain, clear, simple definition for insomnia is if you're having trouble either initiating sleep or staying asleep, and it's affecting your life, you have insomnia. Now, there's different classifications as well. It could be acute, it could be transient, it could be chronic. After three months, it's considered, you know, chronic. There's a lot of people that have insomnia that just, they're not even aware that they have it. They would never think of themselves as, you know, having insomnia. So if you're struggling to stay asleep, fall asleep, and it's affecting your life in an impactful way, you have insomnia.

>> How could someone not realize they have insomnia?

>> That's a really good question. I think sometimes people just don't put labels on things. Sometimes people ignore. They think it's normal that they're getting, you know, three, four, five hours. They don't, and it's just become the norm. And they're kind of believe also that it's something that you can't do anything about. There's a lot of people out there that think that sleep challenges are a lifelong affliction. And they just never connect to the fact that there's something that you can do to shift it, to change it.

>> Now, what about like hours of sleep? Is there a certain number of hours that is healthy or normal for people?

>> Yeah, I mean, so a lot of times people think that they need eight hours. That's a myth. Not everybody needs eight hours. And the amount and duration of your sleep, that's going to change throughout the course of your life. For example, if you're a world-class athlete, let's say, you know, LeBron James or, you know, any of these world-class athletes, you're going to need more sleep 'cause you're putting your body through more physical stress. If you're going through a stressful period in life, whether that be, you know, a relationship issue or a work issue or a death in the family, there's more stress mentally, emotionally on your body, you're going to need more sleep. If you're sick, if you're recovering from the flu or if you have a cold, what does your body want to do? Wants to sleep. So, your sleep architecture is going to change throughout life. And we also come into this world with something called a chronotype. So, not everybody needs the same amount of sleep. Some people, six hours is enough. I've seen people that thrive with six hours. Most people, I would say for adults, between seven and eight hours is the common amount of sleep where they would feel their best, they'd feel energized, focused, emotionally stable. But again, it the sleep drive and the sleep need, it changes. It changes as your life changes, as you move through life.

>> What's with chronic insomnia, right? You know, because there's some people who, you know, they've had sleep problems their whole life, you know, they try on medications, they're doing CBT for insomnia. Why does it become such a lifelong problem for some people and why don't the common treatments help?

>> One of the big things that I've realized is people look at it like it's a problem. Even CBTI often, you know, in that methodology, it's people are looking at it like sleep is a problem. And it's not. It's not a problem. It's a result. It's a symptom. And so, when you shift that baseline thinking around what insomnia is, it then creates a lot more choice and possibility. It's one of these things that once you realize that it's not a problem, that there's it's a symptom or it's a result, then you can start to really shift your attention to, well, what do I have to learn? What's the cause? What is this telling me? Insomnia is it's like a, you know, your body's engine check light going on, right? It's just trying, it's something in your life needs attention. And it's not just a bedtime disorder. I think there's a big misconception. A lot of times people look at insomnia as a bedtime disorder. I don't. I look at it as a 24-hour challenge. Something that again, your body is just saying, "Hey, pay attention. Pay attention." And if you ignore the whispers of your body, eventually those whispers become screams. And often in the form of chronic insomnia, you know, having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep. And then it becomes an identity. So, we've worked with at this point thousands of people. And I've worked with a lot of people that have struggled for decades and they identify as an insomniac. They identify as someone who can't sleep, someone who's broken, who sleep isn't possible for. And so there needs to be a shift in identity. And there's payoffs. So, for some people, not sleeping gives them the excuse to not show up for life, to not fully go for it.

>> [snorts]

>> And so people hold on to those things, and then those are some things that you need to really explore and look at if you want your body to do what it's designed to do, which is sleep. We're born knowing how to sleep. There's nothing to be true about sleeping. It's not something you really even need to think about. And people fall into that pattern of obsessing over it, thinking about it, striving for it, trying to control it, all of these underlying patterns that then lead them to struggle for some case decades and beyond, you know, five, six, sometimes seven medications, and those medications aren't working.

>> You'd mentioned you work with thousands of patients, and that insomnia is a symptom rather than a disease in and of itself. If you were to break it down, top three things that this that that is causing this symptom of insomnia, what are you seeing in your patients?

>> Stress and anxiety. So, there's always the event. So, an event could be, like in your case, it was traveling, time zone change. It could be, you know, jet lag. For a lot of people, it's a stressful event, like a death in the family, a change in location, moving, a divorce, a major life event. Maybe it's, we get a lot of clients that have kids, and they're breastfeeding or they're getting up in the middle of the night, these moms, to attend to their children, and then their kids learn how to sleep, and then all of a sudden they're not sleeping. So, you know, there's the event, and then really where people get stuck, Joseph, is what they do to try to fix it or solve it. And it's what you do after that's where the pattern develops. So, at the very core of what insomnia is, it's a pattern. It's a learned behavior. It's a pattern. And so, stress and anxiety, for sure. And then, the pattern of trying to force or control sleep. This is a huge one. It's not talked about a lot. I think it needs to be talked about more. Sleep is not something that you can force or control. And it's so easy when you're not sleeping to fall into that pattern of, "I'm going to do something and then sleep's going to happen." And that's really where people fall into the trap, I think, of taking these sleeping medications. It's, "Hey, this is what my doctor's telling me I should take. I'm going to take this pill." And unfortunately, what happens is when you're trying to force or control sleep, it puts more pressure on sleep, more focus on it. I'll add that that's exactly what had happened to me. And that was the situation where I came to you because, yes, you know, there was the time zone change. There's also stress about, like, you know, work and the growing team and all of this stuff which is on my mind. And I ended up buying like an Eight Sleep thing. I was just like, "Maybe if I just sleep a little cooler with this thing." You know, my wife was like, "Maybe you should try this little EMF hat." And she bought me an EMF beanie. You know, I

>> [laughter]

>> I think I bought like, I think I bought like a pillow. I at one point had a dehumidifier in my room and an air purifier. I was like, "Well, you know, I was in the Mediterranean over the summer. And so now I'm up here at the mountains. Maybe maybe I'm like hypoxic." I had someone bring out like nasal cannulas to the house. I had like a little oxygen thing. Maybe that will help. Everything that I did to try and control it made it worse. And my sleep got worse and worse and worse until, you know, I was driving my wife crazy with it. And it was only when I let, when I started working with you and Stacy that I was able to recognize that and just let go of it. That's the key word you just said, let go. And it's such a simple thing. And often, it's not an easy thing. 'Cause most of us are trained to not let go, to hold on, to push away, to try to control, to do something. And sleep's a little bit tricky where it's like one of the few things in life where the harder you try at, the worse it gets. And it's confusing. Because normally, the harder you study, the better grades you get in school. The more you focus on something, the better you get at it. With sleep, it's the complete opposite. You know, so there's three really patterns. We call it the pedestal pattern. So, people put sleep on a pedestal. And this is a bit tricky because it deserves to be on a pedestal. Because of course, when you're sleeping better, you're more focused, you're more emotionally stable, you feel better, you have more energy, all of these things, right? So, we put it on a pedestal, but the fallacy there is when it's on a pedestal, now we're trying to grasp, to focus, to force, to do something to make sleep happen. And you can't make sleep happen. Sleep just happens. And the other one is the problem-solver pattern. A lot of entrepreneurs, we get a lot of doctors, we get a lot of therapists, we get a lot of high performers, entrepreneurs in our program, a lot of loving, caring mothers, problem-solvers, the problem-solvers of the world. And again, if you look at sleep like it's a problem, then it puts you in this problem-solving mode where it's like, "Hey, I'm going to do all of these things, and then I'm going to sleep." It's not the case. And the last one is the, we call it the perfectionism pattern. Or the, with the three P's in our program. But that's where you're trying to perfect sleep. The perfect sleep hygiene environment. Sleep hygiene doesn't work for someone that has insomnia. And that's a bold statement, but it doesn't. It really doesn't. Because all it does is it forces someone to have all these conditions that create all this pressure around sleep, and then leads to worse sleep.

>> Yeah, and I mean, that was so true for me because when I was in the middle of my insomnia, I was just like, "Well, you know, no screens at night. And I brought, I brought like a puzzle. I was like, I'm just going to do this puzzle or something like that. Maybe it helped. You know, red light glasses, you know, not going to be on my phone. And I think I hadn't figured out the whole, because that's what it was. It's like, if I do these 10 things, then I will sleep." Sleep was contingent upon all of these the stuff. But now that I've got the anxiety under control about, and I was able to let go of a lot of the issues, I have to say, you know, and don't get mad at me, my sleep hygiene is, it's it's people wouldn't describe it as great. You know, I've got lights on in the house. I'm watching TV at night. Gosh, the other night I probably fell asleep watching Fifth Element on my phone. You know, it's just like a movie from back in the day. And I slept great. You know.

>> [laughter]

>> And I'm not going to, you know, lie to you, Devin. I would say probably occasionally during the week, I am still falling asleep watching stuff on my phone and I'm sleeping great and I'm not stressed. And it's kind of like this thing that I do at the end of the night that everyone says, "Don't do this." And I know it's probably not good. And I know there's like blue light there. But I found that when I was like, not doing those things or I was just like, "Oh, I can never do this." It's going to be really bad. It would just stress me out completely about it. That just not thinking about it and just kind of being more, I don't know, less more more relaxed about the whole thing just helped it happen.

>> 100%. That's that's one of the secrets or one of the keys to this. And it seems so simple and it is simple. But you need to experience it. And not to say that having sleep hygiene is, of course, if we're not eating late at night, of course, if we have a cool, dark room, of course, if we're not getting blasted by blue light, like the quality of our sleep's definitely going to increase. But often people are listening to sleep experts online or reading books and they're orthosomic. They're really they're too focused on all of these things. And again, sleep is something that happens. It's not something that we can control. And that's the big understanding that people need to understand or can choose to understand that then relaxes the body. The body, our bodies are so intelligent. They're amazing. We could feed it a bunch of crap and somehow it turns that crap into fuel. Now, we can, we, it's just there's a natural intelligence to the body. And it's about understanding and reconnecting to that intelligence. And then also really making meaning around your experience. Insomnia is something that happens for people. It's not something that's happening to you. When you realize that, it creates a lot more choice and it creates a lot more possibility. When you feel like it's an affliction, when it's happening to you and you're a victim, you become very narrow-minded and there's a lot less choice and a lot less possibility. And so it's one of these things that it actually can be a gift for people. It can wake people up to what they've been ignoring in their life. And in that way, it's a gift because if you weren't really struggling with anxiety or falling asleep or sleeping or staying asleep, and it wasn't painful enough, you might just continue to brush what life or God or the universe or consciousness is trying to tell you, "Hey, pay attention to this. Pay attention." That's all it, you know, all it means is there's something to learn and to pay attention.

>> You know, Devin, it's really profound what you said because on this channel, I mean, usually we're talking about anxiety and depression. And I could say the same thing. You know, some of the reasons people get anxious and depressed, it is happening for them. I mean, it is, you know, are you in a destructive relationship? You know, are you doing work that doesn't jive with you? You know, that you don't find meaning with it? Are you living a life where your health is not a priority to you? You know, to the point where maybe you don't move your body or maybe you don't make enough time to make sure you're nourishing yourself with the right foods. And the anxiety and depression you're having is a smoke alarm going off, going off in your house saying there's a fire, you need to attend to it and you need to put it out. I think in our mental health sphere, and you know, a big part of this is the pharmaceutical industry and, you know, maybe the doctors and just the desire to kind of fix things so quickly. We don't talk to people about it that way. This is happening for you. This is a sign of something greater that needs to be investigated. Don't fall into this place where you have a broken brain, you're a victim, and you just need to jump on a medication and there's nothing you can do about it. You need a more empowering message. Be curious about this. Have a look at this. If you actually go through this pain, you may end up with a better life. You may end up with more confidence and address serious things. So, yeah, spot on there. I mean, I think I think we've completely missed that in the way we treat a lot of these things, anxiety, depression, and insomnia these days. And it just gets people riled up and afraid instead of empowered. And they should be empowered to look at these things and address them.

>> 100%. I couldn't agree with you more. Pain just means pay attention. So when you're in pain, whether that's you're anxious or you're depressed or you're not sleeping and you're exhausted and you're physically in pain, all pain means, pain's a gift. It means pay attention. And most people, what we're trained to do is push away pain, ignore it, mask it. And if we have the courage to lean into it, to get curious about it. That's a really important word you said, curious. If we can get curious about our pain, we can be more free. In every way. And it's a way of being. That's the other thing. So, the way that I look at sleep, if you're being someone who sleeps, sleep happens. If you're being someone who doesn't sleep, sleep doesn't happen. And being is not just thinking about something, it's a whole body experience. It's being someone who accepts things. It's being someone who is open and curious. It's being someone who is willing to lean into pain versus try to mask it or cover it up or push it away. And that takes courage. And most of us, unfortunately, we're not trained to think like that. And I think that that's from our education system, that's just...

>> It's from our doctors, Devin. And I see this in psychiatry because we almost train our doctors to say, "Oh, well, you know, if you suggest that maybe there's some changes they can make in their life or something like that, that that would help." It's like, "No, that's stigmatizing. You know, depression is more than that, anxiety is more than that. Like, you're trying to say that they have some kind of personal failing." And so, we there's this very, I'm going to call it maternal energy, just that is lopsided, I would say, in the mental health sphere at the moment. Very validating, very, "That's so bad, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. It's not your fault." Which is nice. It's nice to have the comfort. I think they need the other side of it. You also need someone who's a coach, who's there, who's saying, "Hey, maybe there's something to this. Maybe you're not living in alignment in a way. Maybe there's some ways you can improve. Maybe you can do that." That obviously takes a lot more time. It's a lot more confrontational. You can actually upset people when you do that. But as a father, and I know you're a father as well, you recognize that there's a yin and a yang in raising a child. And you could also use raising a child as helping someone. You need the comfort and security, but you also need the other side, which is pushing someone beyond their boundaries and letting them know that they don't need to be afraid and they can do things that are difficult. And I think we've lost that in a major way. And I want to see more therapists, and I want to see more coaches, and I want to see more people in there sort of pushing people outside of their bounds and empowering them that they actually can change their life, and they're not a victim, and they're not just this passive passenger on this ride. They're actually in the driver's seat.

>> 100%. Yeah, it's so, I think it's so needed in this world. It's so, so needed right now. Specifically right now. You know, we can get into a deeper conversation of, you know, there are people on this planet that don't want people to step into their power and to take ownership and responsibility. And it's easy to be a victim. It's a lot more challenging to step into a place of responsibility, meaning not from a place of blame, but just from a place of honesty. Of, "Hey, this is what's going on for me." And leaning into the discomfort versus running away. And we live in a society right now that is really comfortable. And people don't want to be, they don't want to be uncomfortable. I mean, that's just the reality of it. And change is uncomfortable. Confrontation, being honest, being vulnerable, looking at your life, doing the work necessary to really have an outcome that's sustainable versus just masking it, it can be uncomfortable. And it's so worth it. It's so worth it. Because, you know, so I think that, you know, there's a deeper conversation. It's really understanding how can you take your power back versus putting your power in a pill. Right? Like when you take a pill, unfortunately, what you're telling yourself subconsciously is, "I need this in order for something that my body knows how to do naturally to do." And it's not true. It's not true. I mean, it's every time you take something or do something thinking that, "I need to do this in order for sleep to happen." If you really explore that thought, that belief, it's absolutely not true. And you're putting your power, you're giving your power away. And when you can start to take that power back, not only do you feel empowered, but you have again, possibility and choice. And more possibility, more choice.

>> And you know, shifting gears now, how do you, okay, so you got someone, they're coming in, they've had insomnia for 30 years. You know, you know, maybe they're on some Klonopin, you know, they've done sleep apnea testing, maybe they even have a device, they still have insomnia. Like, what do you do? Like, how do you look at these problems? What's your step-by-step in helping the chronic insomniac who identifies in that way? And they've almost given up hope, you know, this is, I've, they've tried everything at this point. How do you help that person?

>> Well, we start with the mind. So, first step is to create awareness. Awareness of what? Awareness of the patterns of thinking and the beliefs. 'Cause when you can get your mind out of the way of your body, again, your body has an intelligence. We don't have to think about our nails growing, our hair growing. We don't have to think about breathing. All that happens. So, the first step is how do we get the mind out of the way of the body so that we can allow the body's intelligence to come on board. And that takes creating awareness. Awareness of thinking patterns and belief patterns. So, most people that come to us, they believe three things that are not true. The first thing they believe is that they're broken. They believe that something is broken within them which is allowing them to not sleep. So, we need to explore that belief, find evidence for the opposite of that, and really get them to move to a place where they not only just believe that they're not broken, but they know it. And whether that's borrowing evidence from others, from our community, whether that's creating small, looking for, people look for evidence that they're broken. We help them look for evidence that they're not. So, that's where we start. And then they also believe that they're alone. And you're not. There's over 40 million just Americans that struggle with chronic insomnia or some type of insomnia. And I think that's a low estimate and it's only rising. So, you're not alone. And most importantly, what you're experiencing is not unique. People believe, so many people have the false belief that their situation is unique. How you got there is unique. What happened that created it is unique. You are unique, but what you are experiencing is not unique. And what I mean by that is either trouble falling asleep or waking up in the middle of the night and having a hard time falling back to sleep, having anxiety and fear about what tomorrow's going to bring as a result of not sleeping. That is not unique. There are millions of people that are having that experience, that will have that experience tonight. So, once we create the awareness around some of the false beliefs and thoughts that fuel the anxiety and the way of being that leads to not sleeping, then now we have something to work with. And this is where the real work starts. It's okay, well, what can I do? What's in my control to start to shift the thoughts, the beliefs, and the behaviors that then help me be someone who sleeps? That's phase two. Really looking at, okay, well, how do I relearn or remember how to become someone or be someone who sleeps, who doesn't have to think about sleep, who doesn't have to do anything to sleep? And that's a longer process, and that takes for certain people, it can be challenging. Practicing acceptance, understanding the power of letting go, understanding forgiveness, having those difficult conversations with your spouse, changing your job, drawing boundaries, all of these life conditions in your life situation, when we really start to address them, all of a sudden, the body starts to relax. The hyperarousal pattern starts to lessen. And it's like, I like to give the analogy, it's like there's a tight fist, and what we need to do is help people, what we get to do is help people open up the fist so that the body can relax, can release, and then sleep happens. I'm speaking pretty high-level here, but that's the work. And then, through that work, it's pattern recognition. It's the body remembering how to do something that's so natural. And again, it does take some time. For some people, it doesn't. It can be very, very quick. It's just realizing a couple things, and then making those adjustments, and all of a sudden, you're sleeping.

>> Yeah, I mean, I know for me, it was actually very fast. You know, yes, it was triggered by time change differences and things like that, travel, but then, when I was working with one of your coaches, Stacy, she actually had me do some journaling, which I rolled my eyes at, honestly, to begin with, because I'm just like, "This is crazy. I was just like, men used to go to war, and I'm here with a sleep coach for something that's natural, journaling. Like, this is so stupid." Um, and so I started doing some journaling for her and, you know, all of this stuff comes out, all of these anxieties and fears and problems. Some of them I just needed to write out to look at them and then just kind of go through, okay, so, you know, what if the business goes belly up and, you know, what would happen to my family? Or, you know, this, that, and the other. A number of different anxieties there that you have. And just kind of going through that and just seeing them as like, "Huh, that's what's going on." You know, having conversations with my wife about difficult things. You know, we're expecting a child. I have to tell you something. I work in psychiatry, so I see lots of sick kids. And I'm just, and I'm getting nervous about my kid being sick. And for me, it was important to talk about, you know, what would it look like if we had a kid who was sick? You know, how would we manage that? And that was also a very freeing conversation to be like, "Okay, here's what we do. You know, super committed to each other. We'd find a way to support each other through that." And that's just the kind of anxious thoughts that I have. It was all helpful. You know, I credit you and Stacy because after I started working with you, and I know this may not be the case for most people, but really within a couple of weeks, it lessened dramatically. And it was just a few things. It was stopping to like find the next gadget to help me sleep. And then talking about talking through a lot of anxieties that I had to just realize that these things are crazy. There's nothing you can do to control them. Just let go. Like, it's okay. And so I share that just because it can be fast as well.

>> Yeah, and I so appreciate you being so open and honest with your community and your listeners because it does take courage to face some of these things. And the main emotion that keeps most people from sleeping is fear. A body in fear can't sleep. And it's a lot harder when it's in fear. And I say that because there are people in war zones right now that are sleeping. Because the body needs sleep, and it will sleep. And if you're in fear, fear of whatever, losing your job, losing your marriage, losing your health, whatever it is, any type of fear, fear in the body contracts the body, it tightens the body, and that's a pattern. So, that can become a physiological pattern in your body that needs to be unwound. So, there's certain people that can understand, you have a lot of training, and you have a lot of self-awareness. There are certain people that don't, that don't have that training. And so, it can take a little bit longer. And then, logically, we might logically understand, okay, you know, I have a lot of fear, these thoughts maybe aren't logical, and yet they're still feeling afraid. So, in that instance, we go into the body, and we do some understanding somatically, what's going on in your body that we can get curious about, understand. Like, what is this pattern when your heart starts to race or your stomach tightens, and you're not even aware of what you're thinking? How can we start to unwind that? So, we can get into the soma, and start to understand, well, what is this meat suit? What's going on? What's this pattern in this meat suit that's, what is it trying to tell me? What am I making it mean? Well, I make, I don't like when my heart races. I don't like when my stomach's tight. You know, I try to push it away, or I try not to feel it, or I distract myself. We would help someone like that lean in, get curious, ask start asking a lot of questions. Hey, I wonder what would happen if, rather than pushing it away, meaning I don't like these feelings in my body, if you literally just sat with and noticed how it's changing. So, really getting into a sense of how everything changes, impermanence. These are some of the techniques or the understandings that when we're working with a client, we get into to then, again, it's all about understanding because once you understand something, once you see it, you can't unsee it. And then you have a lot more possibility and choice, and then it's up to you to then make those choices. Once you know what's not working, now you have a choice to do something different. And a big part of our work is helping show people what's not working, and then just inviting them to make that choice.

>> So, Devin, how can people find you if they want to, if they're ready to step into their power and they want to learn how to break the pattern of chronic insomnia?

>> Yes, uh sleepscienceacademy.com. Yes, Sleep Science Academy. We'd love to explore how we could help 'cause there's so many people out there that are really in need of this type of support. And yeah, we're great at what we do, and I feel really blessed, and it gives me so much purpose to share these techniques, these tools, and to really be a support system for people that are in that scary, dark place of not being able to sleep and feeling broken.

>> You're also on YouTube. You're a YouTuber like me. How can people find you?

>> Yeah, so currently I have two YouTube channels. We're transitioning to one, so Devin Burke, D-E-V-I-N B-U-R-K-E, that's going to be the main channel, but Sleep Science Academy also is another channel. And right now, you can find content on both of those channels.

>> Devin, thank you so much for your time, taking time out of your Saturday to come and talk with me and my audience. Much appreciated.

>> Uh, it was great. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you.