Understanding the pressure around sleep
Lying awake and worrying about the next day can be exhausting. We can look at your sleep habits, what happens when you try to sleep and the feelings or pressures that may be keeping you awake.
What this can feel like
Experiences vary. You may recognise some of these, or your experience may look different.
Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Watching the clock and anticipating the next day
A racing mind at bedtime
Trying harder to sleep without success
Stress, mood or relationships affected by tiredness
Changing routines to compensate for poor sleep
Effort can make sleep feel further away
After repeated difficult nights, bedtime may become associated with monitoring and worry. Together, we can explore how stress, expectations and habits keep this cycle going, and how to make more room for rest.
Talk with Richard →How therapy can help
Our work brings together compassion, curiosity and practical change. Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a structured approach that addresses the thoughts and behaviours that keep sleep difficulties going. Its principles can help explain the cycle of sleeplessness and ways to interrupt it.
Compassion
Poor sleep can leave you exhausted, frustrated and hard on yourself. We can make space for these feelings, soften self-criticism and reduce the pressure to achieve a perfect night. A gentler relationship with sleep can make bedtime feel less like a test.
Curiosity
Explore what happens before, during and after a difficult night: racing thoughts, clock-watching, routines and worries about tomorrow. CBT-I uses tools such as a sleep diary to identify patterns and understand how attempts to compensate for poor sleep can unintentionally keep insomnia going.
Change
Find manageable ways to respond differently to sleep-related worry and build steadier routines. CBT-I works on unhelpful beliefs about sleep and strengthens the association between bed and rest. Changes are tailored to your circumstances, with progress reviewed over time.
Understanding your experience
More than a symptom
Sleep difficulties often become intertwined with stress, anxiety and what you are carrying through the day. When life feels demanding, your mind may stay busy and your body may struggle to settle, even when you are tired. Therapy offers space to understand these pressures and the cycle of worry around sleep, while exploring changes that can support rest.
What change might look like
Change may mean less dread at bedtime, less time caught in worry and more confidence in how you respond to a difficult night. We work towards a calmer relationship with sleep and routines that support your everyday life, rather than expecting every night to be perfect.
We can look at what helps you rest without making sleep another task to get right.
Related areas
Anxiety & OCD → Depression → ADHD & Neurodiversity →
For general information about counselling and accessing support, see the resources page.
Explore what else may be involved
Constant availability online and sustained demands can make it harder to rest. The linked pages explore boundaries and recovery, including the different demands involved in autistic burnout.
You can ask for help before you have the answers.
If you would like to talk this through, you are welcome to get in touch. We can discuss your questions before you decide whether to begin.
Get in touch