I’m trying therapy for my insomnia and it is *not* what I expected

The psychologist on the other end of the video call is exuberant over the topic of sleep science. Seriously. I feel like I have a personal audience with a motivational speaker. “I’m not going to tell you about sleep hygiene,” he begins. “I’m not going to tell you something you can Google. None of that stuff works. By the time people come to see me, none of that stuff works.”

Well, OK. This should be interesting.

Bedtime anxiety and poor sleep has plagued me most of my life. One of my earliest memories is of lying awake half the night before my first day of kindergarten, obsessing over whether I had all the items requested for the first day. (Paperclips, coins and stamps nestled in mom’s empty box of checks, obvi. It was the 90s. I don’t know.)

He asked me some questions: how long to fall asleep? Hard to say, since I’m basically drugging myself into slumber on the nightly with my long-term Ambien prescription. But without medication? Hours, probably punctuated by a restless, unceasing anxiety. Do I wake in the night? Wake too early? Sometimes, and Yes. Have I been abused? Do I use alcohol as a sleep aid? No and no. Caffeine? Three cups of of coffee I say (more like four). He doesn’t care. I’m trying to figure out how much caffeine would qualify for concern when he begins explaining why the conventional wisdom around sleep doesn’t work.

Initially, I’m skeptical.