Why Thinking About Sleep Was Making Mine Worse - and What I Learned About the Insomniac Brain

During a particularly demanding stretch of exams and work, my sleep started to unravel. It began as the kind of broken nights most people recognise - lying awake too long, waking at 3am with a restless mind, getting up feeling like I hadn't slept at all. Stressful, but manageable. Or so I thought.

The problem was what came next. I started thinking about sleep. A lot.

I began tracking it, researching it, optimising for it. I avoided caffeine, dimmed my lights, bought magnesium, downloaded apps. And the more effort I put in, the worse it got. The moment my head hit the pillow, my brain switched on. Not to rest - to monitor. Am I falling asleep? Why aren't I falling asleep yet? What if I don't sleep again tonight?

I had, without realising it, made sleep into a problem to be solved. And in doing so, I had made it almost impossible.

The Hormone Connection

What I also came to understand, and what we talk about a great deal at The Women's Hormone Clinic, is that for many women sleep disturbance is not purely psychological. Hormones play a significant and often underappreciated role.

Progesterone - our calming, soothing hormone - has direct sedative properties and supports GABA production, which promotes relaxation and sleep onset. As progesterone falls during perimenopause, many women find their sleep deteriorates in ways that feel completely beyond their control: difficulty falling asleep, frequent waking, early morning waking, and unrefreshing sleep.

Oestrogen matters too. It regulates body temperature, mood, and sleep architecture. When it fluctuates, night sweats and disrupted REM sleep often follow.

And then there is cortisol. Chronic stress - the kind that comes with relentless work pressure and exam seasons - raises cortisol. Elevated cortisol suppresses progesterone. And lower progesterone worsens sleep. I was caught in this cycle without knowing it, and no amount of sleep hygiene was going to fully address a hormonal and nervous system problem.

What Actually Helped

I want to be honest here: there was no single fix. But a few things genuinely moved the needle.

Stopping the monitoring. Deleting the sleep tracker was one of the most useful things I did. What you measure, you magnify - and I was magnifying my worst nights at the expense of my best ones.

Changing my relationship with wakefulness. Rather than treating lying awake as a failure, I tried to treat it as neutral. Resting without sleeping is still rest. The catastrophising was often more exhausting than the wakefulness itself.

Stabilising my cortisol. Consistent meal times, reducing caffeine, and genuine rest during the day - not just productivity breaks - made a real difference to how wired I felt by bedtime.

A no-scrolling rule before bed. This was harder than it sounds. Reaching for my phone had become an automatic response to wakefulness - and it was making everything worse. The blue light aside, the stimulation of social media keeps the brain in exactly the state you are trying to move it out of. I set a hard rule: no scrolling after 9pm. In its place, something genuinely low-stimulation - reading, a podcast, or simply doing nothing. It felt uncomfortable at first. It helped more than I expected.

Brown noise. This became one of my most reliable tools. Brown noise is a deeper, richer sound than white noise - think the low rumble of a rainstorm, a running shower, or distant thunder. Where white noise distributes sound energy evenly across frequencies, brown noise emphasises the lower end, producing a warmer, more enveloping sound that many people find easier to settle into.

The science is straightforward. Brown noise works by providing a consistent auditory backdrop that masks the kind of sudden, unpredictable sounds that trigger arousal from light sleep. For those with an overactive mind, it also gives the brain something neutral to rest on - reducing the internal chatter that so often keeps us awake. I used it consistently in the 30 minutes before bed and throughout the night, and the difference in how quickly I fell asleep was noticeable within days. There are several free options on YouTube and Spotify, or through apps such as Calm or BrainFM.

Magnesium glycinate in the evening. Simple, evidence-supported, and noticeably helpful for nervous system relaxation.

Consistent wake times. Not bedtimes - wake times. Getting up at the same time regardless of how the night went helped rebuild my sleep drive more reliably than any other single habit.

When to Seek Help

My experience was stress-driven and resolved over time. But sleep disturbance is not always something you can work through alone - and it is important to know when to seek professional support.

Dr Ginny Ponsford was recently quoted in iNews on the signs that sleep problems need further investigation, including chronic insomnia lasting more than three months, night sweats, symptoms of sleep apnoea, excessive daytime sleepiness, and restless legs. If any of these sound familiar, it is worth speaking to a clinician. You can also find our Instagram live with Kathryn Pinkham - founder of The Insomniac Clinic on our page.

For women in perimenopause or menopause, exploring the hormonal picture is often the missing piece. HRT - particularly progesterone - can be genuinely transformative for sleep when hormonal change is the underlying driver.

If you would like to talk through your symptoms with one of our specialist clinicians, you can book a consultation here.