Why Your Insomnia Gets Worse When You Keep Talking About It

Yesterday, I shared the story of a teacher who heard about someone dying from insomnia. The fear gripped her, and the panic spiraled night after night. But today, I want to explore another side of sleeplessness — the social and emotional side, the part we often don’t talk about: how talking about your insomnia can actually feed it.

It sounds strange at first. After all, we all want support when we’re struggling. We want someone to listen, someone to understand how exhausted we are. And yet, for many people with insomnia, this very need to talk, to share, to prove how bad it is, becomes a trap.

I remember a client I worked with. Let’s call her Sarah. Sarah struggled with sleep for years. But over time, something interesting happened: the highlight of her day became telling her husband about the miserable night she had.

She would wait for the right moment, making sure he was paying attention, and then she would recount every detail — for ten minutes. Every toss, every turn, every minute spent staring at the clock.

“Why?” I asked her once.

She looked at me and said, “How will he know if I don’t tell him? I need him to understand. If I don’t tell him, he’ll think I’m fine. And I’m not fine.”

This struck me because it’s so common. People with insomnia often seek validation for their suffering. They want proof that they’re really awake, really struggling, really tired. And talking about it seems harmless — even necessary. But here’s the thing: it isn’t harmless.

Sasha Stevens talks about how sharing sleeplessness, obsessively recounting nights awake, and seeking validation can actually strengthen the neural loops that keep people awake. In other words, the very act of talking about it, obsessing over it, and showing it off keeps the insomnia alive.

In Sarah’s case, every retelling of her night became a ritual. It became an anchor — a way of feeding the narrative that she couldn’t sleep, that she was suffering, and that this suffering defined her. Every detail she shared reinforced the loop. Her body stayed on high alert. Her nervous system didn’t feel safe.

Here’s the subtle part: letting go of this ritual was terrifying for her.

Talking about her sleepless nights had become soothing — a ritual that gave her a sense of control and emotional release. When we discussed the idea of not sharing, it felt to her like she was losing the last piece of stability she had. The fear of letting go and “losing control completely” became almost as intense as the sleepless nights themselves.

It wasn’t just the sleeplessness keeping her awake anymore. It was the fear, the panic, and the need to prove it. The sleepless nights had become a performance, and the attention she received — the sympathy, the validation — was part of the loop.

The hardest part of her coaching journey was learning to notice this pattern and release the need to talk about it constantly. At first, she resisted. “If I don’t tell him, he’ll think I’m okay. If I don’t talk about it, how will anyone know how badly I slept?”

We worked together to gently shift her focus. Instead of recounting the night, she began noticing how her body felt during the day, how her energy ebbed and flowed, and what patterns triggered tension and panic. She started reclaiming her nervous system, one small change at a time.

Over weeks, she discovered something remarkable: the insomnia loosened its grip when she stopped feeding it with stories, obsession, and fear. Her nervous system began to feel safe again. And once it did, sleep returned.

The lesson here is subtle but profound: insomnia isn’t just a sleep problem. It’s often a social and emotional cycle, fed by our own thoughts, actions, and even conversations. Talking about it repeatedly, sharing every miserable detail, seeking validation, obsessing over how bad it was — all of that can keep the loop going.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share your struggles. But it does mean noticing when talking about sleepless nights starts to feed the insomnia instead of supporting recovery.

Next time you feel the urge to recount every detail of a night spent awake, pause. Notice how it makes you feel. Ask yourself: Am I sharing because I need support, or because I’m feeding the very fear and panic that keeps me awake?

If this resonates, I explore it in depth in my previous blog about insomnia and the fear loop:

👉 Exhausted. Wired. Trapped. Why You’re Still Awake https://www.chevymermelsteinsleepcoach.org/post/insomnia-when-fear-keeps-you-awake

And if you want gentle, compassionate guidance to understand your own fear loop and break the cycle, you can schedule a conversation with me — no pressure, just clarity and support:

👉 Book a 30-minute chathttps://calendly.com/chevymermelstein/30min

Could the very act of sharing your sleeplessness be keeping you awake?