Had crippling insomnia for most of 15 years. It's the worst thing that ever happened to me and I would not wish it on anyone. I'm convinced I've lost years of m

Had crippling insomnia for most of 15 years. It's the worst thing that ever happened to me and I would not wish it on anyone. I'm convinced I've lost years of my life - not just in the sense of wasted time, but shortened life. But no use being bothered about it. The mainstream knowledge is still slow to catch up, but things are better than when I was researching at the outset. All you had from online searches was boilerplate inconsistent "sleep hygiene" advice and nothing else. I took a methodological approach and cracked open some books, and spent a lot of time on google scholar / pubmed. Self-adminstered CBT-i was an important intervention, despite its flaws - you can gripe that there are blind spots (e.g. it's possible to have automatic negative thoughts through conditioning despite knowing and understanding that they are distortions, 3rd-wave approaches like MCT make it a point to handle this), but in the main, a better mental game is absolutely key. Other interventions included eliminating pornography consumption, exposure to more sunlight in the morning and daytime, limiting total time in bed, experimenting with bedding, and even dietary changes. There were others as well I can't think of right now. Basically threw the kitchen sink at it. The mistake I often see is that those afflicted will rationalize that trying interventions "will lead to anxiety". There's no reason they have to. The anxiety comes from you.