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I have now suffered from a really bad insomnia for 4.5 weeks now. It really affects me emotionally and it started to cause me a lot of anxiety too. My biggest problem is to fall asleep. I tried to implement some of the techniques suggested in Martin’s email course about sleeping and initially it worked but now it doesn’t. If I don’t sleep at all for one night then I am really unwilling to get out of bed when I cannot fall asleep the following night and prefer to stay in bed hoping that I will eventually get some sleep and I do not want to miss our on that. When I get to bed now I usually start feeling quite anxious, I can feel the anxiety creeping up from my abdomen and that just keeps me even more awake.
I am taking some over the counter medication that does make me feel drowsy, but it doesn’t seem to help with the anxiety. My GP prescribed me with some antidepressants as they apparently work on the anxiety too, I have so far taken one antidepressant and I didn’t sleep at night as I started seeing these really colourful and sharp images flashing in front of my eyes which made me even more upset as I normally don’t get that. I did take this antidepressant again this morning (as before I took one in the afternoon) to see whether it will make any difference at all. I was also prescribed some antihistamines that should help with sleep, which I took on a few occasions, but then I read that one of the side effects could be nightmares, which made more anxious to the point that my body started to trembling.
I am really desperate to get at least regular 3 hours sleep per night each night, I would feel so much better then as being up for the whole night does upset me a great deal and I don’t know what to do with myself when that happens. It’s not an experience that I would want anybody else to experience and I am hopeful that it will eventually resolve, but it is hard to be positive about it right now.
Hi Misa, I am sorry to hear you are going through a tough time right now.
It really can turn into a nasty cycle–wanting to sleep so badly, trying this or that, when it actually comes down to not trying. But what the hell does that mean, right?
I encourage you to stick with Martin’s website–to know you are not alone, and that this doesn’t have to last forever. It won’t. But it’s hard when you’re in the middle of it. And there is no medication which will guarantee good, consistent sleep, though sometimes they can help short term.
Over the long term, this course and the whole mindfulness idea of learning how to watch your thoughts rather than getting caught up in them is the key. Yeah, but how? One analogy might be your thoughts are like branches floating by on a river, maybe even roaring by. That is different than getting swept away by thoughts, being in the river yourself.
And on those days when you haven’t got much if any sleep the night before, can you ease up on yourself, maybe just note that “I’m having the thought that I am tired and anxious about sleeping tonight” as opposed to “I am tired and anxious about sleeping tonight–and I probably won’t sleep well, and this will never end, etc.” There really is a difference in these two thoughts, though I know it can be hard to see that when you are really hammered from insomnia. Hard to see, but true nonetheless.
Take care, you are not alone.
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