The Habit Healers Mindset

The Habit Healers Mindset

Share this post

The Habit Healers Mindset
The Habit Healers Mindset
The Insomnia Reversal Protocol

The Insomnia Reversal Protocol

Doctor-Prescribed Habits to Restore Sleep Drive and End the Cycle of Sleeplessness

Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA's avatar
Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA
May 24, 2025
∙ Paid
30

Share this post

The Habit Healers Mindset
The Habit Healers Mindset
The Insomnia Reversal Protocol
2
1
Share

You’re exhausted. But wide awake.
Not because you drank too much coffee. Not because you didn’t try.
But because your body, despite its fatigue, has lost the internal pressure that once made sleep effortless.

This isn’t burnout.
It’s biology. And the harder you push, the worse it gets.

So let’s get clear about something most people, including many doctors, still miss:

Sleep isn’t something you can try harder at.
It’s something you rebuild—through habit.


The Real Problem: Your Sleep Drive is Collapsing

There’s a reason you can’t “just relax” or “get more sleep” on command.
Sleep is governed by two biological forces:

  1. Circadian Rhythm – Your internal clock that tells you when to sleep.

  2. Sleep Drive (Homeostatic Pressure) – The internal pressure that builds with every waking hour.

That second one—sleep drive—is what makes you feel sleepy at night. It’s driven by a molecule called adenosine, which accumulates in the brain throughout the day. When levels get high enough, your brain tips into sleep like a diver falling off the edge of a board.

But here’s what happens in insomnia:

  • You start staying in bed longer to catch up on rest.

  • You take naps to get through the day.

  • You lie in bed for hours, anxious, frustrated, alert.

  • And the pressure system that once ran on autopilot begins to malfunction.

Your body forgets how to get sleepy.
Not because it’s broken, but because your habits no longer build sleep drive.
They dissipate it.


The Shift: Stop Trying to Sleep. Start Training to Sleep.

Sleep isn’t a behavior. It’s a response.
Your job isn’t to
perform sleep. Your job is to create the biological conditions where sleep is inevitable.

This is the core of what we teach as Habit Healers.
We don’t chase sleep.
We design lives that generate the pressure required for sleep to return naturally.

The tool we use is The Insomnia Reversal Protocol—a set of five doctor-prescribed habits that rebuild your body’s sleep drive and rewire your brain’s associations with rest.


Want the Tracker and Tools?

The Insomnia Reversal Protocol is now available inside The Habit Healers Mindset’s Inner Circle, complete with:

  • A printable weekly sleep drive tracker

  • Daily prompts for building consistency

  • A zero-fluff breakdown of the neurobiology behind each habit

  • Micro-habit variations for people with irregular schedules or parenting demands

Because you’re not one big change away.
You’re one healing habit away.

Join the Inner Circle to access your full protocol and sleep drive builder kit.

This post is for paid subscribers

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Laurie Marbas, MD, MBA
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share