Sarah Bartlett

I struggled with chronic insomnia for years, trying everything I could find with little lasting relief. What I didn't understand at the time was that my nervous system had become so over-sensitised to the need for — and yet difficulty with — sleep, that a state of chronic alertness had taken hold. What I was experiencing, I now know, was sleep anxiety: a self-reinforcing loop that makes sleep almost impossible and becomes increasingly difficult to escape.
Sleep anxiety is what I now specialise in. I draw on evidence-based approaches including CBT-i and traditional insomnia strategies, and I find EFT enhances this work significantly — taking it deeper by addressing the problem in the body and emotions, not just the mind.
When the nervous system is stuck in a heightened, reactive state, sleep becomes harder over time, not easier. Anxiety, low mood, and exhaustion compound one another, and the patterns — mental, emotional, and physical — can quietly entrench themselves. What often looks like a sleep problem is frequently a nervous system problem, with real physiological changes underlying it.
The good news is that this can shift. When we calm the nervous system's threat response around sleep — that state of chronic alertness that keeps you from rest — sleep can begin to happen naturally again. Not forced, not managed, but genuinely restored. EFT is particularly powerful here, working directly with the body to release what the mind alone can't always reach.
If this resonates with your experience, I'd love to hear from you.