I have had severe chronic insomnia for 15. Along with PTSD, depression, and anxiety, which is all my therapists, psychiatrists, and doctors would treat, always promising the insomnia would resolve when I got my other diagnoses under control. But how do you resolve trauma when every single night is retraumatizing? Pannell is the only sleep advice expert that I have ever listened to that actually truly understands insomnia: the anxiety ABOUT sleep that no provider seems to get, the way it controls your life, every minute of the day becoming obsessive ritual to attempt to unlock the right code to sleeping, the true hell that life becomes. I am not exaggerating when I say that years of “true” Trauma did not break me the way insomnia did.

No abuse gave me the suicidal fantasies that insomnia did. I thought my insomnia must be so much worse, so much different and more deeply rooted in who I am than it was for others if no sleep advice seemed to work for me. I berated myself for not being able to meditate well enough, that I must be doing relaxation techniques wrong, that my anxious brain must be seriously so damaged as to override its need to sleep.

When Joseph disparaged sleep hygiene and relaxation techniques and all the rituals we create trying to do everything perfectly in order to get sleep, I could have kissed him. I have only begun to implement these techniques and was going to wait to write my review after I’ve been “cured,” but  he has instilled such confidence (for the first time in 25 years) in my ability to implement these techniques and that they’ll work, that I don’t even need to wait for them to work before writing this. That’s a miracle by itself. He has given me a kind of hope and promise that I never thought I’d ever have. I am so grateful for this wonderful, wonderful man. At the very least I know for the first time I’m not alone.

Hi Joseph I am not expecting a response to this email but I thought I should provide you with some feedback re my insomnia after using your program and watching your You Tube videos. I last emailed you on Aug 27th. I want to thank you both for the materials you provide free, those in the online program and in your emails.

I now feel as though I have recovered from my insomnia. I predictably sleep around 7 hours a night with a sleep window of 7 hours 45 minutes. From your program and other advice I have learned so much about sleep and about how to approach both sleep and wakefulness. I am especially grateful for your passionate and well informed approach. A good knowledge base has been enormously helpful.

From you I have learned that insomnia is essentially an anxiety condition and I need to approach it from this perspective. In so doing I have learned other things about myself which have flowed onto other things that I do. Amongst other things, one thing that I found particularly helpful in my recovery was a better understanding of what I call quasi sleep - those times when I feel as though I am awake but am asleep in some sense. Learning to see this as sleep helped me become less anxious about insomnia and helped me sleep.

No doubt I will have some disturbed nights but I now know how to place these in a context. During my recovery period I have had some distressing events but my sleep has remained good throughout these. Once again, thanks for making the effort to share your experience and expertise, your desire to help people and for your empathic and non judgemental approach.