[cat_ncsu]

In the spirit of celebrating wins, I want to share a little story. I’ve been struggling with an acute insomnia episode for about 3.5 months, and started CBT-i about 5 weeks ago, with roller coaster results!

I know my anxiety is key, and I’ve been trying to “thank” it for keeping me safe. The night before last was one of my worst, and I felt pretty cruddy yesterday. But, as Martin and others suggest, I lived my life and ended up having a decent day in spite of the brain fog and fatigue.
Then, over dinner, the anxiety returned. But I really befriended it. I said “hi there, thanks for visiting,” and proceeded to have a conversation with it as it sat on the couch next to me. I told it, “did you notice how well we did today?” And positive things like that. I didn’t ask it to leave. But eventually, after flitting back in and out for the next couple hours, it finally left. And I slept fantastic! One of my best nights over the past 4 months.

Here’s to persistence, to acceptance, and to mutual support.

[Martin Reed]

Wonderful — thanks for sharing!

Just as you shared, when we don’t battle with our thoughts and feelings, we tend to become more skilled at noticing them coming and going and they often start to have far less of an influence over us.

Remember that our goal with accepting (and even welcoming!) our thoughts and feelings isn’t to get rid of them (or to make sleep happen!) but sometimes that can happen. When it does, enjoy it as a bonus!

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[smueller1117]

Thanks for posting this! I’m working on the same thing and it seems to be helping.

[dbaldino]

Ditto. Thank you for posting this. It inspired me. I have found that acceptance works for both anxiety and insomnia. You have validated that this is true.

[LJ Rennick]

Congratulations! I’m glad to hear of you befriending your anxiety. Id like to learn this too.

[krampusdecorous]

I’m so happy for you. I wish you luck.

[mistered]

I love this. I think embracing the anxiety rather than trying to drive it away (even through positive thoughts or mindfulness) is super helpful.

[Friend]

Now that I am learning to recognize my thoughts about sleep and other things and allow them place without trying to get rid of them I am more at peace.i still have a ways to go yet but but setting a sleep window is helping me and when waking up in the night and saying it’s OK to be awake has calmed me alot. Not fighting the thoughts but allowing them is freeing.

[LJ Rennick]

Excellent! Here is to cheering you on with more and more relief! When I graduated the course, I was peeved because I was still not sleeping as I liked. But within a couple of weeks I was sleeping GREAT! It’s only been a out 3 months but this is the best sleep I’ve received since I was kid! Good 🤞 to you!!

[Sriram]

This is exactly which keeps bothering me. Am trying to welcome the thoughts but somehow have not been able to accept them and move on. I am suffering from insomnia since last 30 years and more often than not after a bad night i have been able to cope up the next day may be at 90% efficiency of not more but still the thought of not sleeping and having a bad next day keeps me awake on the nights when these thoughts overcome me. I am trying. Martin and this forum is such a reassurance. Guess this is my best shot at finding normalcy ultimately in my life.

[cat_ncsu]

I have to say that acceptance and befriending isn’t always easy for me either, despite these periodic “victories” such as the one I described in the original post. One thing that I added to this recently is the query – what is so bad about accepting? What is the worst that can happen? Is it likely to be worse than what I’ve already gone through?
And I found that no, it can’t be worse!
With all of these tools for healing ourselves, different tools will support us through different phases of our journey. Celebrate the wins, no matter how tiny!

[Author]

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