[Deb]

Sorry you didn’t have a great night, Steve, but glad that you don’t feel too bad. I found that to be true for me, too, when I was practicing ACT. Most of the nights when I only slept a few hours, amazingly I usually felt decent the next day and not a zombie. That’s great that you’re living your life, too, and not letting it be controlled by insomnia.

[burn]

I am still stuck in a pattern of sleeping only every other night. Not sure why. Anxiety is close to zero. Perhaps little bit of frustration at day time contributes and I suspect that I apply small mental sleep effort which is hard to catch. I seemingly didn’t get any sleep today, but I don’t remember thinking about anything or worrying at night. Perhaps little bit of frustration at day time contributes and I suspect that I still apply small mental sleep effort which is hard to catch in the middle of the night.

[Steve]

Burn – Sorry to hear that. A couple questions for you. When you do sleep, how many hours are you getting? And you’re only getting that approximately every other night? Are you going to schedule another session with Dr. Kat at the sleep school?

[burn]

Hi Steve,

I am sleeping about 7 hours on good nights and usually 0 hours on bad ones. I am not planning to schedule another session yet. I think I understand my major issues: sleep effort and little bit of frustration. I don’t know if Dr. Kat can be helpful at this point.

[Steve]

Burn – Well, we both need to stick with the program as best we can and hopefully it will turn around for both of us eventually. Correction! Hopefully it will turn around for EVERYONE here.

[gsdmom]

burn – I had your sleep pattern of sleeping well only every other night. About my 2nd week into ACT, I felt like I had a couple of weeks of really not sleeping at all one night, then the next night sleeping about 8 hours. Then a few weeks ago it seemed I would sleep at least 2 hours on the bad nights, instead of zero, then the next night sleep fairly well. Then starting about my 9th week of ACT, I had a full week of 6-8.5 hours of sleep per night, except for last night, only 2 hours. I skipped a couple of days of practicing mindfulness, so I will incorporate that again.

[burn]

Steve and gsdmom,

Thank you for your support.
ACT is indeed good to overcome anxiety, but my sleep effort is so far hard to eradicate. I thought that at some point I may need to implement good dose of SR to retrain from sleep effort and overthinking. I was thinking about Matin’s recent interview with Nick Wignall, about ACT being next level after CBTI. Indeed people who benefited the most from ACT so far are Deb and Borgesbi, who both worked with Martin for good amount time before switching to ACT. Perhaps, good dose of SR can help me retrain from sleep effort.

[JTthemillenial]

Hey all,

Just want to say thank you sharing your experiences with ACT. Meadows’ philosophy resonates with me and I wouldn’t have known about it if if wasn’t for this thread. It’s only been about a week since I’ve been following ACT protocol and I have yet to come totally off sleep meds, but already I have had three good nights in a row this week, which is encouraging. I feel like my relationship with my insomnia is changing for the better, although I have a really long way to go and need to keep reminding myself to be patient whenever I have nights that don’t go my way. Patience seems to be my biggest hurdle.

Thanks again for sharing your stories. They are encouraging and they remind me that everyone’s road is different.

[Steve]

JT – Welcome to the thread and glad we were able to help you. Like you say, it’s a long road but you sound like your making good progress. Feel free to ask any questions that you may have on ACT.

[Deb]

Hi JT and welcome! Just curious, how long have you had your insomnia? Also, is your type of insomnia sleep onset or sleep maintenance? Mine started in Oct 2018 and was finally healed in August.

[gsdmom]

JT – So glad you find this forum helpful. I truly don’t know where I’d be without it, especially the education and support I’ve found. I agree with you that having patience is difficult, but if you have a realistic expectation of recovery its easier to deal with. After reading several success stories, and my own personal timeline, my recovery will probably take 4 months. About another 6 weeks to go.

About your sleep meds, ACT is not strict about them and I feel you can learn the ACT process and at your own pace come off the meds. And if you’ve been taking them for a while, then ideally you should probably taper off slowly. When I first started ACT, I averaged one Ambien a week, slowly increased to 8, 9, 10 days without Ambien and tomorrow will be one month without one. Weening off just came naturally on ACT. Also Deb gave lots of support for this too. During the spring and early summer, I was using a lot of meds.

[Mac0908]

Deb, I read your responses from yesterday. Quite the interesting topic over the whole “Do nothing” scenario. From what you explained, it seems like “Do nothing” was more about being in the moment while in bed when the person (from the case study) wasn’t able to fall asleep. Instead of thinking about pills, getting out of bed, looking at the clock or whatever else, you just lay there and that’s that.

I myself got to this point quite a while ago now, over the hump of a certain point of anxiety, so to speak. My issues now aren’t usually at all about falling asleep, they’re about staying asleep. So I guess my question to you would be, when I, or anyone for that matter starts having a couple of bad nights in a row, and the negative thoughts of worry start creeping up more and more, what exactly would you do to “combat” them?

[Deb]

Mac – that’s when you use the mindfulness and welcoming tools. These will help you create some “space” between the thoughts and yourself. The thoughts aren’t “you,” they are just thoughts, that’s all. I think Martin said to imagine them as clouds floating away. The two chapters in the book on mindfulness and welcoming explain it the best. As an example, when I was getting fearful I would feel a knot in the left side of my stomach. I decided to use the welcoming tools of giving my sensation a name and using humor. I imagined this sensation as a round, red, furry thing that was all scrunched up with worry. I called him Mr. Worry Wort. When I thought of it in that way then Mr. Worry Wart seemed so pitiful and I felt sorry for him. Then he dissipated and the knot in my stomach and fear went away. So this is how we create space between ourselves and our thoughts, feelings or sensations. Then we can do something about them instead of being dominated by them.

You use the tools both during the daytime as well as the night. It’s usually easier to do it during the day than at night when there are no distractions and they can overwhelm you more easily. The same tools are used whether people have sleep onset like me, or sleep maintenance like you.

These are skills to learn and they take practice and time to get the hang of them.

[Steve]

Mac – I want to add one thing to Deb’s comments. Remember that these tools aren’t designed to get you to sleep. They only help put you in the mood so that sleep can come more easily. There are many times at night that I have used these tools and still remained awake. However, I was definitely in a more peaceful state, such as no tossing and turning, and was therefore able to just lie there and not expend energy fighting the insomnia. That’s where “acceptance” comes in. Just lay there without thinking about anything in particular and accept whatever happens. Hope that helps.

[Mac0908]

Thank you for that Steve. I appreciate it. Going to try the absolute best I can more than ever before to accept my awakenings going forward. To almost expect them. To know that they are almost a part of my sleep routine. To welcome them and the bad thoughts that come over me when they occur. Had a bad night last night as I experimented with breaking my sleep window and just not caring about what time I went to bed. Hit the hay around 10:30pm not super sleepy. I paid for it with a very early awakening. Remained pretty calm, but it didn’t really matter. Will report back in another week or so.

[Author]

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