How to overcome insomnia caused by emotional issues?

4 min readJan 26, 2021

By Jessica Peng (two-time top-selling author in Taiwan)

In today’s society, many people experience physical discomfort due to “insomnia” (sleeplessness/can’t fall into sleep). As for the symptoms of insomnia, most people understand the sleeplessness is caused by both physical issues and emotional issues in health. But why do sleeping problems continue to increase for lots of people?

The sleepless symptoms increase because people are having high expectations in life. These people who are overloaded emotionally are people who wish to reach a certain goal. While there is nothing wrong with people striving to achieve their goal, the problem occurs when there is a gap between your expectations and your goal. This will lead to feeling lost.

These problems can’t be resolved by travel or some activity to relax because this inability to sleep occurs from one’s inner emotion. If you experience insomnia due to your emotions, here are three suggestions for you:

1. Hide negative emotions

Negative feelings can be compared to a beast chasing you. Sometimes the negative emotions about past events can wear away at you like a beast. If you can’t avoid negative emotions, at least you can “hide “it”. The reasoning behind this is though hiding is not the best method to face negative feelings, hiding can help you exit the continuous loop of negative thoughts.

So how does one hide negative feelings?

The efficient way is to find positive things to replace the negative thinking.

For example, if you got fired from your workplace, the best way to overcome unemployment is to start looking for a new job.

If you are a student who didn’t do well on a midterm, the best way to change that negative feeling is to start preparing for the final exam.

It’s important to remember things that already happened can’t change anymore.

2. Learn not to judge yourself

People who can’t sleep usually have things that bother them. Sometimes the worries are about their current situation but other times the worries are regarding past regrets.

Don’t think back to the past, don’t over analyze your past self, don’t always try to think about the changes you would make if time could back to the past in order to avoid all the problems that have already occurred.

In reality, reviewing your past once can help you realize what to prevent for the future but continuing to criticize your past will only make you stuck in the past and stop you from moving forward. This doesn’t mean that it is wrong to analyze yourself but over-analyzing yourself is similar to a patient who already got sick but doesn’t know when to stop working.

3. Change your thinking

In reality, every career will have ups and downs, every relationship has issues, and every marriage has conflicts. When the results are not as good as your expectations, to prevent negative feelings from occurring, the easiest way is changing your thinking.

Don’t feel discouraged when the results are not as good as you thought because you are not the only one who experiences setbacks. In fact, most people have to face difficulties when they are trying to reach their goal.

4. Don’t over exhaust yourself

In today’s society, many people overwork. Many times, while you feel fine during a hard workday, the coming days after completion you may find that fall ill. After the matter is resolved, why do some people become seriously ill?

This is because some people have strong willpower when they resist external forces. However, many people often mistakenly think that such willpower is a natural basic instinct. In fact, that kind of overwork through willpower will damage your physical body, emotional feelings, and your spiritual thoughts. When matters come to an end, the human body will send a warning message to you, telling you that the body can’t handle the pressure anymore. This usually leads to sleep problems (insomnia) or becoming seriously sick.

This situation resembles war. The general led the solders to fight. However, while fighting the enemy bravely, he was also scared. After the war ceases, the courageous acts are over, but the painful feeling lasts.

Similarly, when a person is fighting against unsatisfactory things in life, they appear to be courageous while solving all the problems. Nevertheless, he is gradually getting hurt.

To avoid insomnia, you must face the difficult situations that affect your sleep. it is necessary to achieve a balance in life, that can help keep you emotionally stabilized. The balance of life will affect your happiness.

Whatever happens, happens. Be adaptable! This is the best strategy to conquer the battlefield of the mind!

**This article was previously published on 彭孟嫻 Jessica Peng Facebook Fan Club in 2019

If you know Mandarin, you can read my book『戀愛脫單魅力學』（時報出版）.

The links to this book are listed below.《戀愛脫單魅力學》

Worldwide:

【亞馬遜 Amazon.com】『戀愛脫單魅力學』

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=戀愛單身魅力學&ref=nb_sb_noss

Taiwan:

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https://is.gd/DnO3O6

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