Former Insomniac by End Insomnia Podcast By Ivo H.K. cover art

Former Insomniac by End Insomnia

Former Insomniac by End Insomnia

By: Ivo H.K.
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Welcome to Former Insomniac with Ivo H.K., founder at End Insomnia. After suffering from insomnia for 5 brutal years and trying "everything" to fix it, I developed a new approach targeting the root cause of insomnia: sleep anxiety (or the fear of sleeplessness). In this podcast, I talk about the End Insomnia System and I share tips, learnings, and insights from overcoming insomnia and tell the stories of people who did so you can apply the principles to end insomnia for good, too.Copyright 2026 Ivo H.K. Hygiene & Healthy Living Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health
Episodes
  • The Counterintuitive Rule for What To Do When You Can't Sleep

    The Counterintuitive Rule for What To Do When You Can't Sleep
    Mar 28 2026
    Here’s a radical idea for your next 2 a.m. wake-up: instead of lying there in misery, willing yourself to sleep, do something pleasant instead.Read a book.Listen to a podcast.Watch a show.Something you genuinely enjoy and find at least somewhat relaxing.It sounds almost too simple, but there’s real logic behind it.You already know you can’t force yourself to sleep. So the question becomes: what are you going to do with the time?You can lie there fixating on how awake you are, mentally calculating how many hours are left before your alarm, and spiraling into dread about tomorrow.Or you can occupy your mind with something that shifts the experience from pure suffering to something at least a little more bearable.That shift matters more than you think. Because when you turn being awake into a slightly less terrible experience, you lower the anxiety that’s keeping you awake in the first place.You have two versions of this to tryVersion one: do it in bed. Pick something you enjoy—reading, an audiobook, a podcast, a show—and do it while you’re lying down.The goal isn’t to knock yourself out. It’s to give your mind something to chew on besides worry.A quick note on screens: if they rev you up, skip them.But if watching something is the thing that actually helps you relax and accept being awake, that’s more valuable than avoiding blue light.Lowering your anxiety about sleep matters far more than optimizing your light exposure.As you do your activity, pay attention. At some point, you might notice your eyes getting heavy, a yawn sneaking up, or your head starting to nod.When that happens, stop what you’re doing and close your eyes. See if sleep is ready to come.If it’s not? No problem. Go back to what you were doing, or try a different approach. The key is patience.Trying to grab sleep the moment you feel a hint of drowsiness is just another sleep effort in disguise—and it’ll push sleep further away.Version two: get out of bed. If you’re lying in bed and your nervous system is running hot—heart pounding, body tense, mind racing—sometimes the best thing you can do is physically leave. Get up. Change the scene.This isn’t giving up. It’s giving your system a reset. The simple act of standing up, walking to another room, even just going to the bathroom—that physical change interrupts the anxiety loop you’ve been stuck in, often without realizing it.Fresh input, fresh perspective.Once you’re up, do something relaxing. Read on the couch. Watch something low-key. Listen to a podcast. Same idea as version one, just in a different location.When you start feeling sleepy—drooping eyes, yawning, nodding off—head back to bed and see what happens.If you’re still awake after a while, you can get up again or try something different. There’s no wrong move here, as long as you’re not white-knuckling it.The trap to watch forWhether you stay in bed or get out, there’s one thing that will undermine all of this: turning it into a strategy to make sleep happen.The moment “I’ll read for twenty minutes, and then I’ll definitely be tired enough” enters your mind, you’ve turned a pleasant activity into a Sleep Effort.And Sleep Efforts don’t work. They add pressure, which adds anxiety, which pushes sleep further away.So let your intention be simpler than that. You’re doing something enjoyable because being awake doesn’t have to be miserable. That’s it.If sleep comes, great. If it doesn’t, you spent the time doing something you like instead of something that made you feel worse.One more thingThere will be nights where this feels easy—where you genuinely settle into a book and drift off.And there will be nights where you’re agitated no matter what you try, convinced you’ve lost all your progress.Both are normal. Neither defines the trajectory. You just keep going.If you're looking to recover from insomnia for good by fixing the root cause (hyper-arousal) 100% naturally (no pills, supplements, or CBT-i), then:​Schedule your $97 FREE Sleep Evaluation Call​To peaceful sleep,Ivo at End InsomniaWhy should you listen to me?I recovered from insomnia after 5 brutal years of suffering. I've now coached 100s like you to end their insomnia for good, 100% naturally, by fixing the root ...
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    6 mins
  • What If You Stopped Trying to Sleep Tonight?

    What If You Stopped Trying to Sleep Tonight?
    Mar 21 2026
    Here’s a question worth sitting with: What if your goal at night wasn’t to fall asleep—but to find genuine peace while awake?That probably sounds absurd. You’re reading this because you want to sleep. But the relentless pursuit of sleep is part of what’s keeping you stuck. Every attempt to force it is a sleep effort, and sleep efforts backfire. You truly cannot control whether you fall asleep on any given night.What you can control is how you respond to being awake. And that changes more than you’d think.A better goal for 2 a.m.When you’re awake and don’t want to be, you have a choice. You can spiral into anxiety, toss and turn, and mentally beg your brain to shut off. Or you can do something that makes the moment more bearable—and quietly retrains your nervous system in the process.One of the most effective options is practicing mindfulness in bed.If your default at night is racing thoughts and mounting dread, mindfulness gives your mind somewhere else to go. Instead of getting pulled into the worry spiral, you gently direct your attention to something neutral—your breath, your body, the present moment. It’s not exciting. But compared to lying there marinating in anxiety, it’s a genuine upgrade.Here’s the important part: you’re not doing this to fall asleep. The moment it becomes a sleep strategy, it becomes another sleep effort—and it stops working. You practice mindfulness for its own sake. You do it because it’s a better way to spend the time. You do it because it’s slowly teaching your nervous system that being awake at night doesn’t have to be a five-alarm emergency.The irony? When you practice mindfulness without trying to make sleep happen, it often has an immediate calming effect. But you have to let go of that outcome to get it.A technique to try tonight: the body scanThe body scan is one of the simplest and most soothing mindfulness practices you can do in bed. Here’s how it works.Starting with your toes, bring all of your attention to whatever sensations you notice there. Don’t try to change anything—just observe. Spend about fifteen seconds, then move up to your feet. Then your ankles. Then your lower legs. Keep moving slowly upward through your knees, thighs, pelvis, torso, chest, back, hands, arms, neck, head, and face—all the way to the top of your skull.When you reach the top, scan back down in reverse. Repeat for as long as you like, finding a pace that feels natural.A few things to know going in. Your mind will wander—that’s completely normal. When you notice it’s happened, just return your attention to wherever you left off. If you can’t feel much in a particular area, notice that absence and keep going. There’s no wrong way to do this.Some people find the body scan quietly absorbing—a gentle distraction from the anxious chatter. Others discover something unexpected: a new awareness of what it actually feels like to inhabit their body. Subtle sensations you’ve never paid attention to. A sense of grounding that was always available but never noticed.What to expect (and what not to)Don’t expect to lie down, do a body scan, and suddenly feel blissfully at peace with insomnia. That’s not how this works.What happens instead is gradual. Over time, you experience less unnecessary suffering at night. You build confidence in your ability to handle being awake without falling apart. Your body and mind become less reactive to the experience of wakefulness—and that lower reactivity is exactly what allows sleep to come more easily in the long run.If your mind drifts while you’re in a restful state, that’s fine. Normal sleepers lie in bed resting when they can’t sleep. But if you notice yourself spiraling into worry, redirecting your focus to the body scan will help pull you back.And if mindfulness in bed doesn’t click for you? That’s okay too. It’s one option among several. The key is finding what helps you stop fighting the night—and start making peace with it.-If you're looking to recover from insomnia for good by fixing the root cause (hyperarousal) 100% naturally (no pills, supplements, or CBT-i), then: ​Schedule your $97 FREE Sleep Evaluation Call​To peaceful sleep,Ivo at End InsomniaWhy should you listen to me? I recovered from insomnia after 5 brutal years of suffering. I've now coached 100s like you to end their insomnia for good, 100% naturally, by fixing the root cause - hyperarousal.
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    6 mins
  • Try Singing Your Worst Fear About Sleep Tonight (Seriously)

    Try Singing Your Worst Fear About Sleep Tonight (Seriously)
    Mar 14 2026
    When you’re lying awake at 2 a.m. with a thought like “I can’t take another night of this,” it feels like that thought IS your reality.It feels solid, heavy, and permanent—like this is just how things are now and how they’ll always be.But it’s not permanent. It’s a thought. And like every thought you’ve ever had, it will pass.Here’s what’s interesting: the same situation that feels catastrophic in the middle of the night often looks completely different by morning.That’s not because the facts changed—it’s because your thoughts about the facts changed.When you start trusting that your perspective will shift, it becomes easier to hold those dark-hour thoughts with a lighter grip.This doesn’t mean anxious thoughts won’t be persistent. When you’re stressed or in a difficult stretch of insomnia, the same worries can loop back again and again.That’s normal.But each individual appearance of that thought is still temporary. You can notice it, let it be, and redirect your attention—knowing it will move on, even if it comes back later.You can even say to yourself,“I allow these thoughts to be present.”Not because you enjoy them, but because giving them room to exist—without fighting—takes away their power to control you.Try something right now.Set a timer for five minutes, sit still, and just watch what your mind does.You might start by noticing something in the room around you.That reminds you of something that happened yesterday.Which reminds you of an errand you need to run.Which connects to a conversation you’ve been putting off.Then a sound pulls your attention somewhere else entirely—and suddenly you’re thinking about dinner.Five minutes. Dozens of thoughts. None of them stayed.This is the nature of thoughts: they’re impermanent. They come, they go, and they change constantly—often without you even noticing.Even the thoughts that feel the most urgent and permanent are already on their way out.A surprisingly effective tool: sing itThis next technique might sound absurd. That’s actually why it works.Take a thought that’s been tormenting you. Something like“If I don’t take something to help me sleep, there’s no way I’m getting through tonight.”Now sing it to the tune of “Happy Birthday.”Go ahead. Try it, even just in your head.Feels different, doesn’t it?When you sing a distressing thought—or say it in a goofy voice—something breaks loose. The thought loses its authority.You can’t take it quite as seriously when it’s set to the melody of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The grip loosens, and you get a moment of space between you and the thought.To be clear: this isn’t about mocking yourself or dismissing your pain. The fear behind the thought might be very real.But the technique helps you see that the thought is just words your brain strung together—not a life sentence.And when you can see that, you’re free to make a calmer, wiser choice about what you actually do next.For instance, maybe you’ve been working on handling difficult nights without sleep aids.On a particularly rough night, the urge to reach for a pill feels overwhelming.Singing that desperate thought gives you just enough perspective to recognize:Yes, I’m scared. And I’m choosing to stay the course anyway, because that’s what serves me long-term.Putting it togetherNone of these tools are about achieving a perfectly quiet mind. That’s not the goal, and it’s not realistic.The goal is to stop being pushed around by every thought that floats through.You do that by remembering two things: your thoughts are input, not commands—and they’re temporary, even when they don’t feel like it.When you can hold your thoughts lightly instead of clutching them, you free up an enormous amount of energy that was going toward mental wrestling matches.And that energy? It’s much better spent on living your life—and letting sleep come naturally.If you're looking to recover from insomnia for good in as little as 8 weeks by fixing the root cause (hyperarousal) 100% naturally (no pills or supplements), schedule your FREE Sleep Evaluation Call.To peaceful sleep,Ivo at End InsomniaWhy should you listen to me?I recovered from insomnia after 5 brutal years of suffering. I've now coached 100s like you to end their insomnia for good, 100% naturally, by fixing the root cause - hyperarousal.
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    5 mins
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