How Does Insomnia Start? (It’s Not Always Something Big)

We’ve all had those nights. You roll into bed exhausted, ready to crash, but for some reason, sleep just doesn’t come. You toss, turn, sigh, and eventually drift off sometime before morning. That’s life. Everyone has bad nights.

Small Triggers Can Start Insomnia

Most people assume insomnia has to come from something huge — a major crisis, a death, or months of stress piling up. But in reality, insomnia often begins with something much smaller.

I’ve seen teenagers lose sleep just because they’re leaving for camp. I’ve seen students lying awake before a big exam. I’ve seen parents wide-eyed the night before a family vacation. These aren’t tragedies. They’re everyday moments, yet they can still throw sleep off track.

And yes — even children can experience insomnia. I once worked with a 12-year-old girl who simply couldn’t fall asleep on her own. The only way she managed to drift off was by climbing into her father’s bed every night. It wasn’t that her body didn’t know how to sleep — she was perfectly capable of it — but her mind had linked safety and sleep so strongly with her father’s presence that bedtime alone felt impossible.

In fact, research shows that about one in three adults experience insomnia at some point in their lives, and it usually begins with nothing more than a few shaky nights.

How Bad Nights Turn Into a Belief

The shift from a bad night to insomnia often happens gradually. On the first night, you might think, “That was rough, but tomorrow will be better.” The second night, it seems strange, and you wonder if you’re just stressed. By the third night, you’re questioning what’s happening. By the fourth night, the thought hits: “I think there’s something wrong with me. I can’t sleep.”

That’s the moment insomnia takes hold — not in your body, but in your mind. I hear it all the time from clients who say, “I haven’t slept in days,” or “It’s been months, maybe years. My sleep is broken.”

But here’s the truth: ✨ You cannot break sleep.

Sleep Is Natural

Every human being on this planet knows how to sleep. Babies do it, kids do it, teenagers (sometimes too much!) do it, and adults of all ages do it.

Sleep is a built-in rhythm of the body. Like breathing or digestion, it doesn’t disappear. Yes, it can be disrupted. Yes, it changes with age. But it is never truly broken.

The challenge is not sleep itself — it’s the belief we start to carry about sleep.

The Stairs Analogy: How Beliefs Take Hold

Imagine it like this: you live on the second floor of a building and take the stairs down to leave for work every morning. You’ve done this for years without a problem.

One morning, you trip on the last step. Annoying, but you brush yourself off and forget about it.

The next morning, the same thing happens — you trip again on the very same step. This time, you scrape your knee and limp to the door, thinking, “That’s odd. Twice in a row on the same step?”

On the third morning, you get to the last step and decide to step over it entirely. Why? Because now you’re convinced that step must be broken.

But was it? No. It was just a normal step. You happened to stumble a couple of times, and your brain jumped to: “There’s something wrong with the stairs.”

That’s exactly how insomnia starts. One bad night — fine. Two bad nights — you can still blame stress. But by the third or fourth night, your mind starts to say, “My sleep is broken.”

And once that thought takes root, it can stay there for years.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Sometimes, it’s not even the sleepless nights themselves that keep us stuck — it’s the stories we create about them.

Take Sammy, a 43-year-old client of mine. She had convinced herself that she would never sleep the night before she traveled, the night she arrived somewhere new, or the night she returned home.

No matter how tired she was, those nights became her “doomed nights.” Not because her body couldn’t sleep, but because her mind had accepted the story as truth. Her brain locked in the expectation: “These nights, I don’t sleep.” And so her body followed along.

This is why I always remind my clients: our minds believe whatever we tell them.

Where This Usually Leads

After a handful of bad nights, worry sets in. That worry cements into belief. And soon after, many people start looking for a quick fix. That’s where sleeping pills come in. They can offer short-term relief, but they also come with their own challenges — which is exactly what I’ll be talking about in tomorrow’s blog.

A Personal Invitation

If you find yourself stuck in this trap — believing you’re broken, or wondering if you somehow weren’t “born knowing how to sleep” — I would love to talk.

Sometimes, simply expressing how scary it feels can already lift some of the weight. Please feel free to book a complimentary call with me here: https://calendly.com/chevymermelstein/30min.

And if you’d like to keep reading, check out my blog on The 4 Stages of Insomnia and How to Move Forward.

✨ Remember: you cannot break sleep. It’s natural. It’s yours. And it’s always waiting for you.