[suren]

Hi Everyone. I’ve been following this thread for a bit. I’ve had insomnia for a year, and started CBT back in May.

With the CBT, I got promising results (not refreshing but slightly better) sleep after the 1st week then things started to get progressively worse. I took a break from CBT about 2.5 weeks ago as I was running on a full month of 1-2 of light sleep daily and it just didn’t feel sustainable.

Encouraged by Debs results, I bought the sleep book and stated ACT 2 weeks ago, using a 7.5hr sleep window.

The 1st week, I experienced an average of 3hrs of light fragmented sleep. This week, I experienced about 4hrs of light fragmented sleep as well, but noted my anxiety level was significantly lower.

Last night, I felt a bit sleepy at 8:30pm. I fought the sleepiness and moments later was super alert. Then as my sleep window approached I started to feel super anxious. I went into bed at 10:30 not sleepy, and had a really bad almost sleepless night. I’m curious, but with ACT are you only supposed to go to bed when tired or sleepy? Do you guys follow this rule strictly? In other words, do you ever go into bed when not sleepy or tired? I did try to sleep (as opposed to just rest) last night so maybe that’s what did me in.

I am practicing being more relaxed and accepting in bed, but I haven’t been very good at practicing the mindful tools during the day. How often (and how much time do you dedicate during the day) to practicing the mindful tools?

Also, I haven’t had refreshing sleep once since May. I’ve been running on light sleep for months even when doing CBT. I’m hoping ACT will help me to sleep more deeply. I’m also hoping that I bounce back from last night.

Suren

[Steve]

I had a strange thing happen to me last night that reminded me so much of the first night I got insomnia. On that first night, I felt a “pinging” go off in my head and I immediately woke up at 2:00 in the morning. I never slept well again and that was 10 months ago. Last night, I was in a dream state and knew it and that same “pinging” occurred and immediately woke me up. I haven’t had that happen since it first happened 10 months ago. I got really scared after it happened last night but I started immediately using the ACT tools and I did get back to sleep for an hour or so. Maybe a little more. That settled me down some when I got up this morning because I remember the first night it happened, I didn’t get any sleep after. I have no idea what that “pinging” can be but it’s scary so I hope I don’t get it again. Maybe it has happened since that first night as I still do awake suddenly and maybe I just don’t realize it’s happening. Anyway, that is why I sometimes think my insomnia is being caused by something physical in my head rather than stress and anxiety. Who knows? Have to stop thinking like that though. Hope everyone slept well last night.

[Steve]

Suren – I gave a reply to your post but it is awaiting moderators approval since it contains a link. In the meantime, you can go to bed under ACT even if not sleepy. Also, they to practice tools during the day. It will help you more at night.

[Featherly]

Please share your thoughts for establishing a rough sleep window. I have a bedtime down. But I’m just waking naturally in the morning because it’s sooo lovely on some mornings. I’m also trying to figure out how much sleep I need. It’s hard to tell when I wake several times. If I do get to the point where I need an alarm. Do I need a morning alarm? Do you all use one?
For now I roughly allow 6 hours, but I am quite flex on that. Per the book, that’s 1 hour less than what I guess I’d need. It’s so enjoyable to be semi awake when relaxed, and just stay in be in the morning. I do get concerned that the following night may be pay back though. But just welcome that thought and decide not to try to sleep if it happens. (still easier said than done ;/)
For practice and prep for the night, I take several intermittent moments throughout my day to use tools of mindfulness. (Natasha, you asked about this.) I do this by taking just a couple of minutes to notice everything through each of my senses- stopping to focus on what I hear-smell-see-taste of feel on any part of my body. Then I’ll look for any thoughts/emotions that show up that I can practice welcoming-describing-characterizing-giving space- floating with. I start this part with being aware of my breath to put my attention there, and then move to observing thoughts.
After all my hardships with CBT, ACT has been such a breath of fresh air. I just love love not having all the straight jacket rules of CBT-i. I’ve been doing it less than a week and have already had a few wonderful nights (of course that’s compared to the really awful ones previously). I wish I had know about ACT 5 years ago when I started struggling with this.
The mind stuff for ACT may seem odd but the more you practice and experience it the more effective it becomes. Being a mediator helps with the concepts. I haven’t really been meditating though for months, because the CBT-i program had me so depleted I couldn’t.
I’m just about finished reading the book. I take notes because it helps solidify everything for me.
Steve, you seem to have a good deal of fear and anxiety around that surgery. It’s coming up for you. You might want to work on that by taking time (maybe 5 minutes) 2-3 times daily to bring forth all those feelings and then welcome them. It will take courage because it might be difficult for you. Work toward being accepting and relaxed even though it will likely be uncomfortable. Keep in mind they can’t harm you. It may not be the actual surgery causing difficulty, but your emotions surrounding it.

[Steve]

Hi featherly. Actually, I have been grouping all of those surgery thoughts under “the Science Guy” and have been welcoming him both day and night with all of his scientific theories about why I have insomnia. He still pushes through though and so I pay extra attention to welcoming him and telling my brain that “I’ve heard that story before and it’s time to move on”.

In answer to your question, I use a 7 hour sleep window although it’s more like a little more than 7 as I start getting ready for bed 15 minutes before my 7 hour window. I want to make sure I am in bed before that 7 hour window begins so my SW is more like 7 hours and 10 minutes.

While I may have posted about that “pinging” last night and how it disturbed me, I actually feel quite good today. I no longer clock watch so I can’t really keep a sleep diary to see how long I have been sleeping. I just go by how good I feel the next day. I still have soreness in the eye muscles and have trouble focusing, but the headaches caused by the insomnia are a lot less and sometimes don’t come on until the end of the day. My leg muscles don’t seem as tired today as well. I am going to try to get in a hike a little while from now to get some exercise in. I probably won’t have time for a motorcycle ride as it is supposed to rain later on. But all in all, I am feeling better than I was a couple weeks ago.

[suren]

Thanks Steve! I look forward to your response once it makes its way past Martin’s checkpoint. Also commend your efforts in dealing with the unwanted thoughts.

Thanks as well Featherly for your tips on practicing the mindful exercises. I feel with practice, they will become easier.

Another area that I struggle with is with my wind down routine. I used to watch tv as a way to wind down (as I find reading at night makes me restless) but then the sleep book advises against it. So now I turn off the tv and idle in the dark, but doing so is not always relaxing. I don’t want to do anything that involves turning on a light. Are you able to share your own routines for winding down?

[Steve]

I do watch TV for my wind down time. Martin says as long as you’re more than 10 to 15 feet away from the TV screen, and the screen is not in your bedroom, then it’s okay to watch. I usually watch the last episode of Frasier which ends at 10 and then I start getting right into bed.

[Steve]

I do watch TV for my wind down time. Martin says as long as you’re more than 10 to 15 feet away from the TV screen, and the screen is not in your bedroom, then it’s okay to watch. I usually watch the last episode of Frasier which ends at 10 and then I start getting right into bed. I should have said that you should not be watching something overly stimulating that’ll get your heart beating fast. Just a TV show that is nice and relaxing.

[suren]

Thanks Steve! Your feedback is helpful. My tv is 9’ away but it’s a 75” monitor, so I often worry about it’s stimulating effects.

Moving forward, I think I’ll be a bit more laxed about the tv watching.

Best,

Suren

[gsdmom]

Natasha – some thoughts on wind-down routine as I’ve struggled with this too. It seems that if I do the same thing too often it becomes ineffective. Some nights I take a warm shower, my doctor said that as your body temperature cools down after a warm shower or bath at night it stimulates the melatonin production. I’d do that within an hour before going to bed, but I just do it once in a while because it feels good and prior to starting ACT, I would get lots of body aches from insomnia, it was soothing for the aches. For a while coloring was fun, but then it became like a chore, and now and then I listen to an audiobook on Amazon. I’ve also just traced and sketched my hand on a piece of paper when my mind was too tired to read or think. My whole life since I was about 7 years old, my wind-down was reading in bed for about 20 minutes. I’m trying to add this in again, as ACT allows this (CBT did not) and I really want to get back to establishing my normal life again. I read on a Kindle on a low light setting, and researched that if you read less than an hour the backlight should not bother you. Also if you don’t like to read, maybe just flip through a mail-order catalog. I know you want to do things in the dark, but I’ve done all these things with a very dim light which hopefully won’t be too stimulating for you. I have an eye issue and my doctor does not want me to watch TV in the dark.

For mindfulness exercises, I try and do what the book recommends, 3x day for 3 minutes sitting and focusing on breathing. If my mind just won’t focus I use guided meditations on YouTube. I like the Mindful Movement videos and I also like to practice one from Roy Masters, you sit in a chair and focus on your hand/fingers. As the book mentions, with this practice stuff may come up unrelated to sleep, so I’m dealing with a personal issue today, but in a healthy way.

Just remember healing seems to be a slow process. Last night I had a very strange experience and was feeling discouraged. I looked through my sleep diary from July 1st-17th and I took Ambien 6x, in August only used Ambien 2x, so that is good progress for me.

[suren]

Thanks gsdmom, as well as for all of the useful routine suggestions. Outside of watching tv and reading, it sounds like I need to be creative with my wind down routine- as things not spontaneously enjoyed quickly loose their appeal. I’ve also tried listening to audio programs but after a bit, I just felt bored.

Thanks as well for sharing your own mindful practice. I’ve just started to do use the tools in the book, and do also care to get up to practicing 3x times.

I agree that recovery is a process. I was never looking for an immediate solution; just some tangible progress (however small) will be enough!;))

[Deb]

Hi Suren – It sounds like you’re making good progress, going from 1-2 hours of sleep per night, to 3 hours the first week and then 4 hours the next. That’s great progress! About the sleep window, I just recommend that it be consistent. Dr. Guy gives a leeway of 30 minutes on either end of the window.

Another person who has used mindfulness effectively is Borgesbi. Check out her post on page 35 where she describes what she does. She said when she first started she did her mindfulness exercises before going to bed instead of in bed. The first night it took 2 hours to get herself to a place of calm and acceptance. Then the next couple nights it took 30 minutes and after that just a few minutes. This sounds like a good idea for anyone who just feels too much anxiety while in bed.

I’m just curious what you did for wind down before you had insomnia? Can’t you just go back to that? For myself, reading always relaxes me.

Steve – I’m glad to hear that you’re doing better than two weeks ago. You’re making progress! About the “ping” I would ask Martin about that. I’m sure he’s heard about everything.

[suren]

Thanks Deb! You’re a bit of a legend on here. I was thinking we should retitle this thread ‘People seeking ACT support’

Yes, there has been a bit of progress between this week and the last. I noted and acknowledged this as well. This said, prior to starting CBT 2.5 months ago, I was having the same light sleep but sleeping for 8-9 hours uninterrupted as that’s how long I’d lie in for. At the time, I did not regard light sleep as sleep, as I always woke up exhausted. Plus with the light sleep there’s the perception of not sleeping at all. In short, I’d much rather have a single hour of restful sleep than 8 hrs of light sleep. I don’t even know what deep sleep feels like anymore.

Prior to the insomnia, I always watched tv in bed, and would turn it off and go to sleep when I felt tired, or when it was getting late and had to get up for work (about 12am on weekdays and 2am on weekends), which meant I always slept in on weekends. Watching tv for me always felt enjoyable and relaxing, and I never took notice as to whether it was overly stimulating or not. The other thing is that on weekends, I’d have very long naps during the day (3-4 hrs) and it never affected my sleep at night. So adopting old practices would mean reverting to watching tv in bed, which is not supported by either CBT or ACT. Back then, I would also climb into bed at 6pm, 5pm, and entertain myself in bed (texting on my phone, calling friends, playing games on my ipad etc. until it was time to sleep). My bed was the most heavenly place on earth!!

I will certainly check out Borgesbis post. I had a bad night yesterday and tried to remember the mindful practices, but had a hard time implementing them in bed. I thought perhaps daytime practice would make this fear easier.

One question for you Deb: I assume when you were doing CBT you only went into bed when tired or sleepy. In your 1st week of ACT, did you get into bed without feeling tired or sleepy? I ask, as I’m still waiting to feel some sign of sleepiness prior to getting into bed. The only difference is that now I don’t do stimulus control (like ever! haha) and I don’t have a strict sleep window, just a consistent wake up time.

Suren

[Steve]

Suren – A lot of us used to do a lot of things we can’t do now that we have insomnia. I, too, used to fall asleep for an hour or so while watching TV around 5:00 on a Saturday and then have no trouble sleeping at night. Or falling asleep in a chair watching TV Friday evening for several hours and then getting up to go to bed and sleeping with no problem. Those days might come back but first we have to follow some rules to become a normal sleeper again.

[Deb]

Sure – When I was doing CBT-I I stayed up until 12:00 a.m. when my sleep window began. The only exception was if I wasn’t sleepy enough. Then I went to bed later when I became sleepy. With ACT I went back to my normal bedtime which was between 10:30 and 11:00, usually closer to 11:00. The first week I was always tired by that time because I wasn’t sleeping well. As my sleep started to improve I just kept to same bedtime schedule. I wasn’t necessarily really “sleepy” which is required with CBT-I but it was the normal tiredness like I felt before the insomnia.

I get the feeling from book that not watching TV is not strict rule. With ACT there are no strict rules, just guides, but you can always adapt them. I would think that because it helped you relax before, it might help you now as long as you don’t watch something that is overstimulating. You could always experiment. The main point of ACT is to learn to relax and if this helps you relax, then why not? I bent the “rules” myself when I would sleep until 8 or 8:30 on the mornings when I would wake up tired. I’d let myself stay in bed and doze another hour or hour & a half and then I felt so much better when I finally got up. So it was worth it and overall it helped me relax, which again is the whole point.

[Author]

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