[Deb]

Steve – I think that was Borgesbi’s question and not Gdsmom. About my attitude when I went to bed, I didn’t have any expectations. I went to bed to “rest” and to accept whatever happened. Fortunately I only had one really bad night where I was up all night and then a zombie the next day. Even if I only slept a couple hours somehow miraculously I was “ok” the next day and able to deal with the day instead of being a zombie. I would tell myself things like my sleep “wasn’t too bad” i.e. manageable and that I could deal with it. So this helped me be accepting of whatever sleep I got and helped me not worry about the night.

[Deb]

Just a thought for some of you who are going through a rough time after your honeymoon period with ACT. I know you’ve heard this from me before but I feel the need to repeat it. When I did ACT back in March I had no one to go to with my questions. There were no appointments available with Dr. Kat until mid April. Most of the time I was getting the light sleep all night or just a couple hours of sleep in the early morning and then waking up tired. I started to worry about my sleep thinking that I’m training my brain to sleep only lightly or to be awake all night until the early morning. Now I am certain that this worry only fed the insomnia because when I finally was reassured by the sleep doctor that this was normal then I stopped worrying and recovered. My point is that I think you are worried too much about the quality of your sleep, wondering if you need to restrict it, that you’re training your brain to be this way, etc. The very same worries I had. As a result, the worry is feeding the insomnia. Of course you may be thinking to yourself, well it’s easy for Deb to say this because she only had to persevere for two weeks and then was done with the insomnia battle. It’s already been 3 or 4 weeks for me and I’m not sure if this is really working or not. I don’t know why I was so lucky to heal so fast (well I actually do have some thoughts about that) but everyone has their own course so I want to encourage you to just be patient and keep going. If you see even just a little progress, even in your attitude during the daytime then claim that and cling to that hope. Some of you (maybe you, Steve, in particular) may want to consider getting help from Dr. Kat as Nik Burn is doing. Sometimes we just need the extra support and encouragement from a professional to help us feel more confident that we’re on the right course.

[Deb]

I’ve been out of town for a few days dealing with aging parents so just now read the posts. Thus my marathon comments. One last one here for Mac.

Mac – I’m sorry you’re having a hard time. I want to encourage you to read the posts here because we’ve got real champions here who are doing great jobs of learning to calm their anxiety- please read the posts of Gdsmom, Steve, Borgesbi, Nik Burn, Karen and others. Although you’ve come a long way in reducing your insomnia anxiety, somehow it seems to still be there beneath the surface, ready to be triggered. I think that if you were start practicing some of these tools like mindfulness, meditation and others, it would go a long ways towards reducing your overall sleep anxiety as well as any other type of anxiety you may be experiencing.

[Pam1129]

Deb!
Thank you for sharing that! I too feel a lot of those same feelings!
Whether I’m in the honeymoon period, or not, I believe the biggest change for me has def been my attitude about insomnia… in Sasha’s the Effortless Sleep Book , she mentioned having a positive attitude at all times about our insomnia , even if it wasn’t the ‘whole truth’ and felt like a lie , she said begin small… ‘replace negative sleep talk with positive statements’
Example; I had such a good night last, I could have slept for hours this morning ‘
She said, ‘see how it feels, it’s empowering, and makes you feel like a ‘normal person’
She mentions we all are constantly using affirmations that reinforce our beliefs , so if we are constantly saying we are ‘bad sleepers’ or ‘nothing works for me’ we are reinforcing the already strong belief that we are terrible sleepers and nothing works for us!!!
This one HIT me hard!! It actually made me MAD when I first read it ! I thought ‘she has No idea how stupid that sounds!
But I was SO desperate for HELP, that I would and felt I had DONE everything !!! So the next day I decided when asked about my sleep , I would tell them (my fib) “I am doing much better thank you” it was SO HARD ,because they’d be so excited for me , knowing my many years of struggles … I would then want to say ‘No , actually it’s really still been CRAP!!’ But I bit my tongue and smiled … ha!!
Anyway ALL this to say, I truly sincerely believe this was the start to my success with sleep of late!! I’ve been sleeping 5-7 hours for the past week ( still waking several times) I was lucky to get 2-4 hrs on a good night
Like Deb I want to encourage any of you, to work on
Being positive, ( I KNOW it’s not easy, in fact it sounded near impossible to me when I first attempted )
But then again WHY NOT!!
To me ,now just writing it, even sounds crazy, all these many years of struggling .
She also says ;
‘Positive affirmations are very powerful and if used properly will really speed up your belief change regarding insomnia’

[Steve]

Hi Deb. Thanks for getting back to us. I hope everything is okay with your parents. I wanted to make a couple comments on your posts. First, the only real reason I wanted to restrict my sleep more was because even though I rest in bed when I am not sleeping, I do get sore if I am in bed for more than a couple hours. I was hoping to decrease the time in bed that I lie awake just to avoid that soreness from lying there. After last night, I am not worried about fragmented sleep or regressing to the point of being afraid to go to bed again. I had a pretty good sleep last night. I don’t know if it was because I had a big sleep drive or what but I slept deeply for a couple hours, was in and out of sleep for a couple hours and then lay awake and rested for about an hour. I had no worries or issues when I was lying there awake. I did have an issue with a bad dream when I was in and out of sleep but that is natural and it passed. As for having a session with Dr. Kat, I would really consider it but being hearing impaired like I am, I would not be able to carry on a conversation with her. I think one of the main issues still causing my insomnia is that I really have no one to distract me from it. I am a single adult after a divorce and have no kids. So, I tend to carry on conversations with myself and they naturally tend to center around my insomnia. Of course that happens less now that I use the tools and mindfulness and I am working on continuing that. I also realize hanging around on this forum thread a lot also tends to keep my mind focused on insomnia so I am going to try to spend less time here. In retrospect though, ACT has been good for me. I have less anxiety and I do believe I have more energy from staying in bed rather than fighting it by doing SC. I know this because I am not falling asleep at my desk the following day like I used to do after I practiced SC. I am also going to incorporate more positive thinking about my insomnia as Pam suggests. Thanks again for being a resource to us in this thread.

[Steve]

Deb – One other thing I forgot to ask in my last post. If they aren’t too personal, I would be interested in your reasons as to why you think you healed so fast. Thanks.

[burn]

I’ve just finished talking to the sleep doctor.
Regarding sleep restriction, she does not recommend combining ACT and SR, because in her experience SR fuels more anxiety in her clients.

We spent time discussing my particular issues and I need to think about her answers. For instance, following the book the way I understood it I go to bed and I lie there in quiet wakefulness, while waiting for sleep to come. She noticed that I likely focus on waiting and ‘sleep to come’ instead of accepting present moment as it is. Sad but true, I think she is right.

I told that I am trying to stay relaxed and opened to what shows up at night. She noticed that I am likely overtrying to stay relaxed and opened instead of just being. She recommended compare my daytime mindfulness and nighttime mindfulness approaches to the present moment. I think she is right in that too.

[Steve]

Hi Burn. Thanks for asking the questions. I’m not sure I follow your last paragraph. Do you mean she wants you to compare how you do your daytime mindfulness to how you do your nighttime mindfulness? You were approaching them differently?

I can see sense in her second response too as I do that sometimes as well. But mostly, I followed Deb’s practice of just letting my mind go blank or letting it wander. Did you get a chance to ask her about lying in bed for long periods of time?

Thanks again for asking her our questions.

[Deb]

Contributed to my recovery:

1. Supportive and loving husband
2. Flexible schedule – could sleep in when needed
3. Relatively stress free life at this time in my life – finances good, marriage good, kids are grown and doing good, good health, satisfying part time career
4. Spiritual beliefs – have had many other difficult challenges in life and with Gods help was able to overcome them. So trusted God in this situation too (except during my meltdowns, ha ha). Also have had many experiences of “surrendering” difficulties to God. Therefore could surrender my insomnia struggle and accept whatever happens relatively easily.
5. More relaxed about “rules” which for me are arbitrary many times (drives my husband crazy, the rule follower). So for instance when doing CBT I took a lot of short naps of 20-30 minutes which I wasn’t supposed to do. It really helped me a lot and didn’t hurt my sleep drive at all. So I don’t worry if I don’t follow all the rules.

[burn]

Well, now when I lie in bed I focus on sensation of a pillow too much I guess. Before insomnia I used to think about random things while falling asleep. Now I when I go to bed and want to allow mind to wander, it actually doesn’t. Similarly, when I do noticing a thinker exercise, major thought that is coming is a thought that no thoughts are coming. She pointed that during the day I simply notice thoughts, but not trying to hold my mind still, and in the night I likely focus on present moment (sensation of a pillow) too much, which keeps my mind tense. In this way, I am not really opening myself to present moment, but trying to avoid it.

[burn]

Steve, I didn’t ask about lying in bed, didn’t have time. But I think we can devise the answer ourselves. If we accept present moment, we train or brains to relax and sleep. If we struggle and don’t accept, we promote wakefulness.

[Steve]

Deb – Thanks for those reasons.

Burn – Okay. I understand it now. Like I said, I usually let my mind just wander and I can do that now. I had trouble doing that up to a couple months ago. But my problem is that after I go to sleep, I wake up about an hour after. I suppose it’s the same principal. Once I get my mind to relax, I will not suffer the awakenings so much.

[burn]

Deb,

Any comments on how to release the expectation/desire for sleep? I realize on bad nights, that I am struggling, wanting sleep to come, trying to release the expectation, to then realize: do I release it to actually fall asleep? Circular intention.

[Steve]

Burn – Another quick question. You said you were worried that you were retraining your brain to sleep every other night and that you were going to ask her about this. What did she say? Thanks.

[burn]

I didn’t ask that. But I think the answer is the same as with lying awake for hours: with true acceptance sleep will eventually restore, meanwhile need to practice acceptance.

[Author]

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