“You will be sitting your SATS soon?”  “Yes”, I replied.  “It may be that you are a little worried.  You will be okay if you miss a night’s sleep… you will sleep eventually”.  I can remember feeling dismissed by the GP’s words, but 10-year-old me knew it was rude to argue with something a grown up had said.  I am now in my late thirties, and over the last three decades, disturbed sleep and insomnia has remained like a permanent figure in my life.  I liken my sleep troubles to the Grinch, residing as a lifelong roommate, sometimes minding his own business and other times keeping me awake with his moaning and misery and from time to time, pointing out my still conscious state just to torment me.  During these times I have anxiously experienced the clock ticking ever onwards towards morning. The Grinch’s loath, hopelessness and dread, projecting onto my expectations for the next day, when I surely will not be unable to function, and my world will fall apart. Not sleeping can have a detrimental impact upon memory and concentration.  Life can feel miserable and it can be a can struggle to functioning well, or perform at work.   This can lead to a vicious cycle of anxiety about getting to sleep, which, in turn, seems to make it impossible to drop off.  Stress, depression, anxiety, neurodivergence, hormones and bad sleep hygiene are all characters in the dark story of insomnia. It can be tempting to use pharmaceutical sleeping aids, and at times these can indeed be helpful in enabling us to get to sleep when we most need it, but they can also be counterproductive, and do not solve the problem long term, as we tend to build up a tolerance to them.  That aside, who wants to feel groggy the following morning and consistently feel the need to mask yawns during morning office meetings, so it does not seem our work colleagues are the most boring people on earth! Some clients are prescribed SSRIs by their GP to support treatment of depression, anxiety, or maybe PTSD . Often these clients report improvements to their sleep, although this may take 3 or 4 weeks to happen.  SSRIs work by increasing levels of Serotonin in the brain, a neurotransmitter which is linked to sleep.   Depending on the individual, this can sometimes be enough to get the sleep needed in order to be able to work on the underlying cause of the sleepless nights, either independently or with a therapist. Commonly, sleep improves as clients feel better able to deal with their problems, or as symptoms of low mood and anxiety reduce.  Many say that counselling sessions are an important part of self-care and of enabling the maintenance of good mental health. It does not come as a surprise that as levels of stress and worry reduce, sleep frequently improves. There are various techniques I share within therapeutic work to encourage soothing of both the nervous system and the mind, and I find this dual approach to be key.  Work around calming the amygdala (part of the brain which detects danger) and activating the parasympathetic (calming) nervous system, is frequently a sensible starting point.  Often this can then be followed by using Transactional Analysis and working with the Parent and Child Ego States to uncover and question those deeply entrenched beliefs about self and the way we imagine life will always be (our Script). Sleep problems may come and pass relatively quickly, or they may be ongoing and benefit from building a 'toolbox' and from deeper therapeutic work. It has become increasingly apparent to me over the years, that sleep is a complex and multifaceted human process, which for a lot of people, requires more than a hot bath and lavender pillow mist to achieve.  For me, my Grinch is a far less pessimistic soul these days. He has a regular bed time and a regular time to wake and begin the day, which supports circadian rhythm. The majority of the time he sleeps happily next to me, and when he does start grumbling, instead of becoming exasperated, I am often able to soothe my Grinch back to sleep.