[Deb]

Glad you’re doing so much better, Borgesbi! I’ve just finished 4 weeks of recovery. I still have some thoughts sometimes when I go to bed but they are just little, tiny worries and I fall asleep before I know it. This week my sleep was a little restless, with wake ups in the night. But this was because I was sleeping in a different place at my parent’s house on the floor on some cushions instead of in my comfy bed. I made up for the wake ups by sleeping in and then I was fine during the day.

Steve – When you wake up in the middle of the night, I wouldn’t wake myself up fully if I were you. I think your laying there and just resting like you did was the right thing to do. As of result, you did get some sleep even if it wasn’t solid. Just wondering, do you think your sleep is improving overall or not?

Nik Burn – I think the most important thing to accept is to accept the insomnia, i.e., accept that I MIGHT NOT SLEEP TONIGHT. Also, during that day that even though I’m tired, I CAN HANDLE IT AND IT’S NO BIG DEAL. Borgesbi sums it up well, “ACT has been working for me in learning to not overthink anything, relax, go with the flow, and just “not mind insomnia” either if I have to be awake for a while at night or deal with some uncomfortable symptoms the next day.” This is what cured my insomnia – learning to accept that I might not sleep at night. I took it one night at a time. For myself, when I was having too many uncomfortable thoughts and feelings at night, it helped to get up and write in my journal. Then I usually realized that I was not accepting my sleeplessness. Once I did I could relax and go back to bed, and many times then, fall asleep.

[Steve]

Hi Deb. Overall, I do think I am improving. Some nights are better than others like last night, I am pretty sure I got about 6 to 6.5 hours of sleep and the first 4.5 to 5.0 was consecutive. The rest was broken up but I did get to sleep. I seem to be like some people here and am alternating good nights with bad nights. My concern is that even though I am getting more sleep, I still have trouble concentrating on things the next day and focusing on things with my eyes. But the headaches I was getting in doing SC are pretty much gone so I will just continue doing with what I am doing and hope the sleep gets better and more consistent. If I start sleeping normally again and I still have trouble concentrating and focusing my eyes, I’ll go back to the doctor then. Glad you are doing really well. That seems to be both you and Borgesbi that have been cured by ACT.

[Deb]

Glad you’re improving, Steve. Keep up the good work!

[Deb]

P.S. I unsubscribed from this thread for a few days. Then I subscribed again. Today I got my first email notification again.

[Deb]

Nik – I re-read your post and realized that probably what I said wasn’t very helpful, because you understand the importance of accepting but you’re wondering HOW to accept. I’ll try to explain what accepting means to me, but maybe it’s different for others. For myself it involved taking a big leap of faith to completely accept my sleeplessness. I felt like I jumped off a cliff when I first started ACT. That’s why I said my spirituality helped me. I’ve taken these leaps before and they are not easy. But because I saw positive results after taking them – maybe not immediately, but eventually – I could do it again with the insomnia. It’s like you have to die to your own desires – completely surrender your desire to sleep. You have to say to yourself that you’re completely willing to not sleep this night and the next and the next and the next. You have to completely give up your attachment to sleep night by night.

Here’s an example from my own life. I moved to Huntsville, AL 30 years ago. I absolutely hated it! I wanted desperately to move back to Maryland where I had family, friends and a spiritual community. I struggled here for a long, long time, having a hard time making friends or feeling any sense of community or belonging. But my husband was not willing to move back to MD. So eventually I accepted it and gave up my attachment to being near friends or family. Over time I did make new friends and finally found a sense of community here. Also I have had wonderful opportunities here that I would not have had in Maryland. So now I am finally happy and content with being here. But it took a big leap of faith to give up my attachment to MD and to try to have faith that something positive would happen as a result.

So acceptance means sacrificing what we’re attached to, with the faith that things will work out in the long run. It’s letting go, giving up, completely surrendering. It’s a change in ATTITUDE and not any “technique.” It’s scary to take that leap of faith, but sometimes life requires this of us.

Anyone else want to chime in on what “acceptance” means to you?

[Daf]

I have now gone 12 weeks’ since I had a night of nil sleep. (I used to get up to 9 a month, which went on for 2 and a half years).

A big part of my cure (there were 6 other things, which when I’m less busy I will write about in full here), was realising that, though I give impression to people of being quite laid back and funny, I am actually a slightly over controlling person and at 5 other times in my life I had become over-obsessed with certain things….which then constantly preyed on my mind for long periods.

I suddenly realised this was how I was in a blinding flash after the end of my usual 3 mile run one day. My father and brother are both over controlling characters too, so maybe I inherited this trait. Father is a big insomnia sufferer too.

Once I realised that, it was a big help in just realising how the over-focus on sleep was just like the girl I once fretted about, just like the obsession I had at university that I had taken the wrong course etc etc…. for six other times in my life.

Just realising this was a big wake up call.

I bet most of the people on here are probably successful people, like me, and very driven… and if they are honest a tad, over-controlling and given to obsessing about things – in this case sleep.

If you ease off, accept it and realise you will get through it… I always did and sleep always came the night after a nil sleep night… and yes, I could still get a lot done, despite feeling awful after a nil sleep night……. then you will have a good chance of getting better.

I bet most of you like to be in control of things…. but then something comes along that you cannot control – sleep… and not surprisingly, you hate it.

But if you let go, ease off, you will be on the road to recovery.

The other things that helped me I will write about when I have time.

[Featherly]

Hi Steve and Deb!
Deb, I see you get out of bed sometimes when you find yourself awake and can’t sleep at night. I’ve been trying to remain in bed but it gets to be very long. I get antsy waiting for my morning wake-up time. Maybe I’ll try reading for a bit…is that legal? When I stay in bed I’ll maybe doze lightly for a time, doing some mindful stuff. But I’m irritable the next day getting under4 hours on the in-between bad nights.
Without an am alarm I get a decent sleep every other night, when I’m not awake long at all. I’d like to break this pattern. I suppose I’ll reluctantly try an alarm again. But I don’t need to get up for work or anything. I just want to sleep better on those in-between nights when I’m in bed awake for hours….really not liking that.

What’s the average time-frame for when ACT helps sleep? Hopefully I won’t have to wait 6 months like with CBT.. Which never did work.

Thanks for your email Steve! That is so crummy that you stayed home for the repair guy and he didn’t show. I gave myself a 6 hour SW. On bad nights it’s to long and on good nights I sleep past it. I have the sleep yo-yo thing going on. I don’t want to make my SW longer because I really don’t like waiting to get up when I’m awake. I wait until 11 or 11:30 to go to bed, which isn’t so bad. I’m good and tired by then, sleeping at least 3 hours before waking the 1st of usually 3 times. On good nights I get back to sleep fast. On the bad ones I’m mostly awake from then on. That’s when the night gets to long. What happened with the phone repair dude? He should have apologize. I’m not keeping a diary like I did before. I just note when I went to bed, got out of bed and guess (totally) how much sleep I got and how I feel. I rarely look at the clock and do better that way. I’m less stressed and focused on sleep, but it still has much to work on.
Right now I’d like to nap…but I won’t…well, maybe just 10 min.

[Steve]

I see the title of this thread was changed and the amount of posts shortened. Probably because all we do is talk about ACT now. Also, I think Ellen’s message was delayed because she is talking about something I wrote a while back. Anyway, I thank Martin for letting us ACT people congregate here. This is virtually the only place I know of to go for ACT support. Glad to see we have a lot of people getting better, Holiday is over. Back to the grind. I hope I can sleep tonight with added pressure of knowing I have to get up for work tomorrow. One more unwelcome thought I need to welcome. lol.

[burn]

Deb,

Thank you again for all your insight. Leap of faith is a good description for accepting the insomnia.

[burn]

I would like to take a moment and say special thanks to Martin, the owner of the platform for allowing us to discuss ACT here. This forum is virtually the only place in the internet with heartwarming support for insomnia. Although Martin himself is a CBTI coach and proponent, he was kind enough to allow people, many of which are not his clients, to discuss ACT here. Thank you Martin.

[burn]

Deb,

Your acceptance attitude does sound like a soft paradoxical intention. Paradoxical intention refers to falling asleep while aiming to stay awake. Your description helps substantially, thank you.

One thing that puzzled me after my talk to sleep doctor is that I told her, that when I can’t sleep, I tell myself that I still well be ok next day. And I thought I was accepting. But she said that I was programming myself and enduring not accepting. That puzzled my a lot after our talk, but your description of acceptance Deb, helps to understand the difference. I think it helps.

[Pam1129]

To Martin;
Although I am
Not a client I too want to thank You for allowing us ‘a voice ‘ to discuss our experiences ! Thank youfor the free clinic and the daily emails I received from you for that time frame! You helped me a lot!

Deb ;
Acceptance for me is quite similar, in that I too , have a strong faith and truly believe that I was ‘holding on too tight’ to the feelings that ‘this cant possibly work’ or ‘this is stupid , I am to accept that I’m restless and WAIT…WELCOME it,no way, that can’t possibly work .. HA!’
But, when I would go to bed, I would let whatever thoughts come, think on them, play around with them in my mind a bit, then go back to thinking how great it feels to be in bed resting…ect … and not too long after, fall asleep ( not every night is so simple, but I have made that ok as well )
Accepting to me , is ‘whatever does happen, be it a ‘Great night’ or a Poor night!’ That’s OK …. because the fact is … I’m WAAAY better than I was when I started all this!!
I believe i was also making it TOO difficult , overthinking too much , on whether what I’ was doing ( the process ) was right or wrong, instead of just relaxing

[Steve]

Burn – I think what Dr. Kat meant was that you were thought challenging, Like when we do The Thinker exercise and just notice the thought and maybe a one or two word description and nothing more. Last night, I did the same thing as you did and I noticed the thought and told myself I would be okay the next day. But I shouldn’t have done that as that was a form of thought challenging. I should have just noticed the unwelcome thought that I would feel bad (if the thought came around) and welcomed it and that is all. By telling myself I would be okay was challenging the thought that I wouldn’t be okay, and the problem with that you can read about in the book on Page 124 – 126. And if you told yourself that without the thought coming to mind, then you opened yourself up to an unwelcome thought that you wouldn’t have.

[Steve]

Deb – That is a wonderful explanation of acceptance. I thought I was accepting of my insomnia but not to the point of ready to forgo sleep night after night. I will try looking at it that way starting tonight.

[Steve]

Well, I said that I am starting to alternate between having good nights and bad nights and last night was the bad night. A very bad night. I am a zombie today. I got to sleep okay but was up after an hour or two and then was awake the rest of the night. And I don’t mean in and out of sleep. I mean wide awake. I tried letting my mind wander and I welcomed some unwelcome thoughts that cam to me but to no avail. I did almost nod off a couple of times but quickly awoke. I didn’t toss and turn except for the occasional turn to prevent soreness but mostly, I just lay there for the entire night in a restful and peaceful state trying to let my mind drift. I am starting to wonder if the good sleep I get on alternate nights is due mainly to sleep drive building up. Still, I will persevere with the tools and total acceptance of my insomnia. Hope everyone else had a good sleep.

[Author]

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