Sheep-Sleep Avis 

I was skeptical at first, but Luomei really broke down both the behavioral and cognitive side of CBTI for sleep issues.

I’ve been dealing with sleep issues for a few months with early awakenings and unable to go back to sleep. Luomei helped break down various concepts to me like sleep debt, circadian rhythm, etc to create a solid routine.

I wouldn’t say my sleep is perfect but it’s much better than what it was before. I look forward to continue to implement these techniques going forward.

Through my sessions with Luomei, I learned how to look forward to going to bed and be excited about getting up the next day.

I don't have insomnia, but I have had lifelong trouble with "revenge bedtime procrastination" and general sleep hygiene. Working with Sheep Sleep, especially the one-on-one sessions, helped me internalize the mechanics of my own psychology around sleep, as well as give me tools for getting to bed and waking up earlier; for example, the importance of waking up early over going to bed early, and reframing lack of sleep as giving you an advantage when it comes to going to bed. Also, what really worked for me was putting my own money on the line and being accountable to another person. You can read all sorts of facts about sleep online, but not wanting to waste your money and not wanting to show up empty-handed during our Zoom sessions really helped me take action on what I learned!

I have had really bad sleep for years! I am a patient at Pacific Sleep Disorders for sleep apnea. I told the NP that I have been seeing how lousy my sleep is and that I am exhausted and miserable due to insomnia. She recommended GNSheep website. I downloaded the app and spoke to Luomei. She is very helpful and knowledgable about insomnia. She said that the science works! That I just need to do the work. I did and it paid off in a huge way! I have had terrible sleep patterns for YEARS. This program works. I am now actually, for the first time in my life, more of a morning person. I have a lot more energy than I had before. Luomei is a gem to work with and I appreciate her and the sheep sleep program very much! Thank you!

I developed severe and chronic insomnia six years ago. Before, I could happily sleep eight or nine hours most nights. I cannot be absolutely certain what happened, but in 2020 I suddenly started sleeping only an hour or two a night, with an accompanying loss of energy and concentration. Over the years, I tried: sleep hygiene, exercise, daily light management, caffeine avoidance, alcohol avoidance, meditation, environment changes, a slew of folk remedies, over-the-counter drugs, and prescription drugs. Only the prescription drugs seemed to have any consistent effect, but I built a tolerance to every kind of drug that worked.

My productivity decreased, as did my ability to plan for the short or middle term, because sleep, and energy and concentration by extension, became such wildcards. Working toward any long-term ambitions became increasingly frustrating, because sleep deprivation exacerbated a pre-existing tendency toward executive dysfunction and made sustained efforts difficult. Sleep concerns led me to restructure my everyday life, including building in lots of downtime in my plans to accommodate fatigue and committing less absolutely to things I wanted to do in case of energy fluctuations.

My psychiatrist suggested Sheep Sleep as my nightly dose of sleep medication cocktail was ratcheting up to keep up with my new tolerances. I’d read about CBT-i and learned that on average, people only gain an hour more of sleep per night with a licensed professional, and that decreases to half an hour through self-guided CBT-i programs or apps. In addition to that, nothing I’d tried had worked and stuck, and I thought if there was something behavioral I could do, I would have already tried it. However, I was still willing to give it a try, because there was half a chance it might actually help, and there was a money-back guarantee if it didn’t improve my insomnia symptoms.

I ended up doing an eight-week program and getting off medication. For the past two weeks, my sleep has consistently been 7-8 hours at night, and the best part is that I have energy and executive function during the day. My relationship with sleep has also changed, in that I’m spending a lot less effort to maximize it.

The first week of the program was just life as usual, but the second week was hard. My time in bed was restricted, and I was sleepy almost all the time. I actually had to take creative measures to avoid falling asleep whenever I stayed sitting for any period of time, which in hindsight was a good sign. The third week, the sleep restrictions relaxed, and I was able to sleep a consistent number of hours per night and had more energy during the day. I went off my medication in the middle of the fourth week, and the biggest surprise of all was how I was immediately able to sleep without it. Because my sleep and energy levels were on an upward trend at the end of my first month but not quite where I wanted them to be long-term, I paid for another month just to make sure I was doing everything I could. At the end of this second month, I am quite happy with the quality and consistency of rest I’m getting at night, and I no longer feel too sleepy during the day. I’m now experimenting with adding small amounts of caffeine back to my morning routine, after years of abstinence.

The other benefit has been that my relationship with sleep has improved. Even though I knew from my own research that anxiety about sleep is one of the biggest contributing factors to insomnia, and even though I thought I had already mostly handled my own anxiety, I was still dedicating a lot of brainspace to thinking about how I could maximize the next night’s sleep. I’m happy to report that the Sheep Sleep program also targeted that sort of thinking, and now I’m enjoying my newfound capacity to put that effort toward other things instead.

I am happy for Sheep Sleep and Luomei’s guidance and expertise, because while it is just a set of behavioral changes, I really do not think I would have thought to do many of the things they suggested myself. In addition, having a companion both let me offload my sleep worries while doing the program and gave me encouragement I wouldn’t have found otherwise were I to try to undertake a self-guided program.

My main concern right now is that, even though my sleep routine and sleep consistency are stable for the time being, other things that have worked in the past have stopped working after a period of a few months to a year. It is too early to tell whether the gains I have gotten from Sheep Sleep will stick for a lifetime, but I am cautiously optimistic after going through it, and will take this opportunity to move forward.

I’ve been battling bad sleep for many years. Most of the things I ever tried ( and I’ve tried it all and read a lot on sleep) never helped in fact usually made it worse. When I had started working with Luomei at Sheep Sleep, I had gone several months with poor sleep. She changed all of that. I liked that she provided immediate value on our first call. So many like myself probably go on suffering for years without getting solutions from healthcare providers. You have nothing to lose except a bad night sleep, it’s changed my life knowing I have a solid foundation not only to have fixed my current sleep issue but more importantly address sleep for when inevitably high stress may return.