Your body will find the time. If you don't respect it now, it will demand payment later.
Across the developed world, millions have quietly made peace with sleeplessness, treating it not as a condition to be healed but as a permanent feature of who they are. Sleep psychologist Nuria Roure, drawing on more than two decades of clinical work, has identified five recurring mental barriers that keep people from seeking the help their bodies have long been asking for. Her message is both gentle and urgent: poor sleep is not a fixed destiny, but a treatable disorder that responds to sustained effort, professional guidance, and the willingness to stop rationalizing suffering as identity.
- Insomnia has reached public health crisis proportions, yet the most stubborn obstacle to treatment is not biology — it is the stories people tell themselves to justify inaction.
- The five most common excuses — no time, not yet, it's genetic, I need pills, nothing works — each carry a grain of feeling but none hold up under clinical scrutiny.
- Every delay deepens the disorder: the body does not recognize calendar promises, and a nervous system long deprived of rest grows harder, not easier, to retrain.
- Roure's approach cuts through resignation with a clear counter-argument: good sleep is a learnable skill, not an inherited gift, and the nervous system can be guided back to natural rest without permanent medication.
- The path forward is unglamorous but proven — consistent schedules, screen-free wind-down rituals, stress management, and professional support tailored to the individual.
Insomnia has become a quiet public health crisis, yet many of its sufferers have stopped trying to solve it. They have come to see poor sleep as a fixed part of themselves rather than a treatable condition. Sleep psychologist Nuria Roure, who has spent more than two decades helping people rebuild their relationship with rest, has identified a troubling pattern: those who struggle most are often those who have stopped believing change is possible.
What happens during sleep is far from trivial. The brain consolidates memories, the immune system strengthens, hormones find balance, and metabolism regulates itself. Deprive the body of adequate rest and these processes quietly unravel — leading, over time, to cognitive decline, mood disorders, and weakened immunity. Yet chronic sleep deprivation is widely treated as something to endure rather than resolve.
Roure has identified five excuses that function as mental barriers. The first is lack of time — a claim the body will eventually answer on its own terms, through illness or collapse. The second is postponement, the promise to fix sleep after the next deadline, the next season, the next calm stretch that never quite arrives. The third is fatalism: the belief that poor sleep is genetic and therefore unchangeable. Roure is firm here — sleep is a skill, not a trait, and what feels like inability is usually a normalized disorder.
The fourth excuse is medication dependency, the assumption that pills are the only path to rest. While medication has its place, nightly reliance prevents the nervous system from relearning how to sleep naturally — something, Roure argues, it is fully capable of doing with the right support. The fifth excuse is the exhausted claim that nothing has ever worked. But approach and timing matter enormously, and scattered self-directed attempts are no substitute for professional guidance tailored to a person's specific life.
The remedies Roure recommends are not dramatic: consistent sleep and wake times, a screen-free wind-down period, stress management, and attention to diet. What they require is commitment and the willingness to ask for help. The barrier to better sleep, she insists, is rarely the body — it is the decision to keep making excuses instead.
Insomnia has quietly become a public health crisis across much of the developed world, yet many people who suffer from it have stopped trying to fix it. They've convinced themselves that poor sleep is simply who they are—a fixed trait, like eye color or height. Sleep psychologist Nuria Roure, who has spent more than two decades helping people of all ages rebuild their relationship with rest, has identified a pattern: the people who struggle most are often those who've stopped believing change is possible.
What happens during sleep is far more than unconsciousness. While you rest, your brain consolidates memories, your body regulates metabolism, your immune system strengthens itself, and your hormones find balance. Deprive yourself of sleep—whether through insufficient hours or poor quality—and these processes break down. The consequences accumulate quietly at first, then loudly: cognitive decline, mood disorders, metabolic dysfunction, weakened immunity. Yet many people live with chronic sleep deprivation as though it were inevitable, something to manage rather than solve.
Roure has noticed that certain phrases repeat so often in conversation that people begin treating them as fact. "I'm just not a good sleeper," someone will say. "I've always been this way." Or: "I don't have time to fix my sleep right now." Behind these statements, she observes, often lies exhaustion so deep it has become normalized, frustration that has calcified into resignation, and a body that has been asking for help for years. The expert has identified five excuses that appear most frequently—the mental barriers that keep people trapped in poor sleep.
The first is the claim of insufficient time. People tell themselves they cannot afford to prioritize sleep because their schedules are too full. Roure's response is direct: your body will find the time. If you do not respect its need for rest now, it will demand payment later—through illness, accidents, or collapse. The second excuse is postponement. "I'll fix my sleep in September," someone promises themselves. "After this project ends." "When things calm down." But the body does not understand calendar dates. Waiting only deepens the problem and makes recovery harder.
The third excuse is fatalism: the belief that poor sleep is genetic, unchangeable, baked into one's nature. Roure pushes back firmly. Good sleep is not an inborn trait—it is a skill that can be learned and trained. What people often mistake for inability is simply the normalization of a treatable disorder. The fourth excuse centers on medication. Many people believe they need pills to sleep, and while medication has its place, relying on it nightly prevents the body from relearning how to rest naturally. With the right strategies, the nervous system can be retrained to sleep without pharmaceutical assistance.
The fifth and final excuse is the claim that nothing has ever worked. "I've tried everything," people say, having attempted various remedies without success. But timing matters, and so does the approach. Roure emphasizes that good sleep requires a comprehensive view of the person's life and professional guidance tailored to their specific situation. It cannot be solved in isolation or through trial and error alone.
To rebuild sleep, Roure recommends establishing consistent routines: regular sleep and wake times, a wind-down period before bed free from screens, stress management practices, and attention to diet. These are not glamorous interventions, but they work. The underlying message is clear: poor sleep is not harmless, and it is not permanent. It responds to sustained effort and professional support. The barrier is not biology or circumstance—it is the decision to stop making excuses and start seeking help.
Citações Notáveis
There are phrases that repeat so often we end up believing they're true. But behind 'I'm just like this' often lies chronic exhaustion, frustration, and a body that has been asking for help for years.— Nuria Roure, sleep psychologist
Good sleep is not something you are born with—it's something you learn and train. You're not a bad sleeper; you've simply normalized a disorder that can be corrected.— Nuria Roure
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why do you think people cling so hard to these excuses? It seems like admitting the problem would be easier than defending it.
Because admitting it means you have to change. An excuse lets you stay exactly where you are. If you're "just not a good sleeper," that's who you are—no responsibility, no effort required. But if poor sleep is something you can fix, then you have to do the work.
But the work doesn't sound that hard. Regular bedtimes, no screens, stress management. Why is that so difficult?
It's not the work itself. It's that these changes require you to say no to other things. You have to protect your sleep time. You have to stop scrolling at midnight. You have to admit that your schedule is unsustainable. That's the real cost.
So the excuses are really about avoiding that confrontation with your own life?
Exactly. And the longer you live with poor sleep, the more it becomes invisible. You stop noticing how exhausted you are. You think that's just how people feel. By the time you realize something is wrong, you've already convinced yourself it's unchangeable.
What does Roure say to someone who has genuinely tried and failed?
She says the problem wasn't the attempt—it was the approach. You need someone who understands your specific situation, not generic advice. And you need consistency. Most people try for a week or two, then give up. Sleep recovery takes time.
Is there a point where medication becomes necessary?
Possibly. But Roure's point is that many people reach for pills first, before they've tried anything else. The body can relearn how to sleep naturally if given the right conditions and support. Medication should be a tool, not the default.