If you’ve had persistent trouble falling asleep or falling back to sleep, you may have discovered that sleep is elusive and skittish: Chase it, and it runs away.

Unlike many other challenges in life, insomnia cannot be conquered with effort and persistence. That’s because insomnia lends itself to performance anxiety, a response to the pressure to perform well when the stakes feel high. There needn’t be any audience to provoke this type of anxiety.

Washington Post