Insomnia: Dr Guy Meadows

Don’t Tell Me The Score

How to address insomnia and anxious thoughts with Dr. Guy Meadows. Guy is the founder of the sleep school, and has treated a number of top sportspeople, as sleep is essentially the greatest natural performance enhancer available to each and every one of us (as Christie Ashwanden revealed in an earlier episode of Don’t Tell me The Score- called the science of rest and recovery). And while poor sleep can affect your performance on a pitch, track or court, it can certainly also have negative impacts on important areas of your life including your work and relationships. Guy’s pretty unique in the sleep world in using an approach known as ACT- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy- which teaches you to relate to your uncomfortable feeling and emotions in an often counter-intuitive way (ACT has helped a number of top sportspeople including Sir Alastair Cook who talked about it in our earlier episode). While this approach can help tackle insomnia specifically, it is also a powerful tool for addressing anxiety in all areas of life. So the tools and techniques they discuss in this episode can equally be applied to anything anxiety inducing, like preparing for a speech, a job interview, or an important match or competition match. In this episode Guy reveals the importance of sitting with anxiety and 'welcoming' uncomfortable feelings and thoughts, to send the danger seeking amygdala part of your brain a powerful message to help it relax. Trying to get rid of them just makes them come back stronger.