Insomnia: When counting sheep just isn’t working
- Tony Skehan
- Mar 2
- 2 min read
Insomnia isn’t just “a bad night’s sleep.”
It’s a slow erosion of how you think, feel, and perform.
Insomnia is an equal opportunities problem. It doesn’t care what you are doing, it will affect it.
Most people talk about tiredness.
That’s the smallest part of the problem.
The real cost of insomnia shows up in decision-making, emotional control, confidence, and resilience—often long before someone realises sleep is the issue.
The Brain Wasn’t Designed to Run Tired
Sleep is not passive rest. It’s active maintenance.
When sleep is disrupted, the brain loses its chance to:
Regulate emotion
Reset stress responses
Consolidate learning
Maintain perspective
Without this reset, the brain stays in a threat-biased state. Everything feels heavier. Everything feels harder. Everything feels more urgent than it really is.
Insomnia and Mental Health: A Two-Way Street
Insomnia doesn’t just come from poor mental health—it actively fuels it.
A tired brain:
Interprets neutral events as negative
Overestimates risk and underestimates capability
Struggles to disengage from worry
This is why insomnia is so closely linked with anxiety, low mood, irritability, and burnout.
And once that loop starts, sleep itself becomes pressured:
“I need to sleep… or tomorrow will be a disaster.”
Pressure is the enemy of sleep.
Performance Suffers Before You Notice
High performers often miss the early warning signs.
They still show up.
They still function.
But the quality drops.
Common performance effects include:
Slower thinking and mental fog
Reduced creativity and flexibility
Poorer emotional regulation under pressure
Increased reliance on effort instead of skill
You may feel like you’re “pushing harder,” when in reality you’re compensating for a tired system.
This is often mistaken for a motivation or confidence problem.
It isn’t.
Why Insomnia Feels So Personal
Insomnia feels like failure because sleep is supposed to be automatic.
When it stops being automatic, people start trying to sleep.
Tracking.
Forcing.
Controlling.
Worrying.
All logical.
All unhelpful.
Sleep happens when the nervous system feels safe—not when it feels managed.
The Important Reframe
Insomnia is not a lack of discipline.
It’s not weakness.
And it’s rarely about sleep itself.
It’s usually a sign that the system is stuck in over-alert.
Fixing insomnia means addressing:
How the mind responds to pressure
How the body handles stress
How much effort is being applied where none is needed
Final Thought
If your sleep is broken, don’t just look at the night.
Look at how you’re operating during the day.
Because insomnia doesn’t start in bed—
it shows up there.
If you are struggling with sleep, here’s a practical next step:
👉 Book a conversation and find out what’s really keeping you awake at night (and what we can do about it).
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