[TiredTwinDad]

Hello Everyone,
Just giving a quick check in. I’m going to say it’s been a very good week for me. The early morning awakenings haven’t improved, but my anxiety associated with that has. I may have even fallen back asleep once or twice. I had a “straw that broke” moment last week where I was getting poor sleep where I normally would’ve reached for a pill but I decided to just have a bad night, where I would just rest on the couch, listening to podcasts. I think I’m getting about the same amount of sleep, but my energy has increased and the insomnia mind is quieter. I’ve been meditating regularly for 2 months too.

I think the SC didn’t help me much. I think revved me up a gear in making a decision, then there was a lot of monitoring my tiredness and I never successfully made it back to bed. Though I (somewhat) enjoyed the structure of CBT-i, I think it inadvertently added to the anxiety.

There is one question I’ve been thinking of that I haven’t found a solution to yet. CBT-i says to get out of bed after 20 minutes, so you don’t associate wakefulness with the bed. ACT says to stay in bed to begin to associate peaceful acceptance with the bed. So maybe the wakefulness is anxiety, and you should only stay in bed if you’re not anxious, but what if you’re at peace with the situation, but just done with it? Is it ok to get out of bed and go lie somewhere else? Lately, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m at peace with the situation, but it feels like an hour has past and I’m tired of hearing my voice in my head. So I’ll rest on the couch, in the dark with a podcast and no expectation. Sometimes it’s early and I might get some light sleep. Others it’s closer to 5a than I realize, so no biggie. I know ACT is light on the rules (and I’m a good rule follower), but this kind of breaks that sleep in your own bed rule. What do you think?

[Dazzio]

I have had success with the sleep restriction but not with stimulus control. There is only 2 outcomes for me when i go to bed- either i fall asleep immediatly or i stay awake all night. I have never successful fallen asleep using stimulus control. I find SC only gets me more and more anxious, i am just waiting to get up, and then when im up just waiting to get back in bed- i also wonder am i better off just lying in bed the whole night

[Daf]

Hi Dazzio,

I used to be like that – All or Nothing.
In other words, I’d either get to sleep quickly or be awake all night.

However, there were a few occasions when I could get to sleep after 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 hours, so I figured, well if I did it then, I could do it again.

For me, key is as follows.
1 Only go to bed when tired. Have some wind down time but don’t get obsessed about all the stimulus stuff – dark room, ideal temp, no noise and all that nonsense. But do avoid caffeine after 2pm.
2. Try as best you can not to exceed average sleep amounts (the amount that will ensure you are tired by evening). For me, I worked out that amount is between 5.5 and 6 hrs. Yours will be different.
3. Be “in acceptance” and “let go of your desire to control things” if you cant sleep right away. See Jon Kabat Zinn video on Youtube “Seven attitudes of Mindfulness”. Rest can be almost as good as sleep.
4. If you do get fed up with not being asleep, get up and do something else that is relaxing. For me, its watching something light on TV or on audio. (PS Don’t listen to any vid/ audio specifically designed to get you to sleep, because that’s trying too hard – and when video ends and you are still awake, that could make you even more cross.
5. If you fall asleep on couch, and it’s comfortable, then stay there. So what, if its not in bed!
6. Keep in mind if you don’t sleep tonight, you are much more likely to the next night. (sleep drive will be higher)
7. Not sleeping does not have to mean you won’t get anything done next day.
8. It can take a long time. Took me 2 and a half years to fully get over it to a point where the odd and now v rare bad night / nil sleep night could be laughed off.
9. You may not realise it when you have slept. (Sleep misperception)

best wishes.
David

[Dazzio]

Hey David
Thanks for the response, i feel like i am in the middle of the storm right now- i know i just need to keep positive and battle through. But it really is those zero hour nights that crush me the next day. Last night i was really tempted to take a xanax to try and get 2hrs sleep, as i felt that would leave me in good humour the next day and shouldnt negate my sleep drive for the next night too much. However i fought the urge and just accepted the sleepless night. I am just wondering did you use any supports or meds like this during your recovery or did you achieve it free of everything? I definitly know what you mean about not listening to sleep meditation/hypnosis- i always get so stressed out when i know its coming to an end!!! Also just wondering David you mentioned it took 2.5yrs to overcome you insomnia, in retrospect was there anything you feel you would have done differently to have sped up your recovery time? Thanks so much for your advice

[Daf]

Have a listen to my interview with Martin in the Success Stories.

I did occasionally take meds. Sometimes, very rarely Zopiclone, but only gave me 3 hours sleep and felt depressed next day.
Mirtazapine (Remeron in the USA) I used more. I had read that best results for sleepiness were from cutting it down. Most people said to 7.5mg or 3.75mg. But I cut it to one eighth of normal amount… so 1/8 of 15 mg = around 1.9 mg. Taken an hour before bed, seemed to relax me. But it is not a knock out pill like the Zs, so never worked when I could not sleep for hours.

With the mirt, I was able to cut down by taking every other night, then every third night, then every fourth, then stopped totally.

But I’m convinced that while it helped through a bad patch, the key to me success was in non drug stuff. See the interview for how I did it and past posts on here.

Good luck
D

[JTthemillenial]

I think it depends on what your long term goals are. If you’re okay with sleeping on the couch long term, then what you’re doing is probably fine. I wouldn’t make it a habit though if that’s not what you want. I was having a similar experience where I would occasionally fall asleep on the couch and then beat myself up about it, and eventually abandoned SC and went full ACT. So far, ACT seems to be helping more. It helped me get off sleep meds quickly, and has given me more faith in my sleep drive after bad nights. I need to keep working on it, though.

I just started full-blown SRT last night. There are only a couple of video blogs of people doing this, so I started my own. Feel free to comment.

[Mac0908]

Glad to see you are being proactive in trying to help your Insomnia Jamie/JT. You are also lucky to have found this forum. In all my time of dealing with insomnia I can tell you this is the best place, and sadly it took me a very long time to find it. One piece of advice though – don’t ever refer to yourself as an insomniac! Martin is big one this one. You are simply a person going through a phase of sleeping problems 😉

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Mac0908.

[JTthemillenial]

Ah, thanks, Mac. Intuitively I knew that but I didn’t catch myself doing it!

[Steve]

Nice video Jamie. (Do you like to go by Jamie or JT? Do you really play rugby?) Just remember both ACT and CBT-i take time and there is a “honeymoon” period when it starts to work and then a lot of us regress. Then it picks back up again. Wishing you the best.

I’d like to give an update on my progress. Friday and Saturday nights were relatively good ones for me as I got about 6.5 hours both nights. Friday doesn’t surprise me because I was extremely tired all day. Sunday night was really good as I got 7+ hours of sleep. One night obviously didn’t cure me of all my symptoms but some of the eye problems I have been having did go away. They eventually came back later in the late afternoon as I tired but it was nice to know that some of them are caused by lack of sleep. Last night I regressed a little and I had 6+ hours of sleep but it was very fragmented. I had Monday and today off so I didn’t have to stress about the alarm. I’ll see what happens tonight when I have to get up for work tomorrow.

I didn’t know if I should say anything because I don’t know if she wants it to be known but I decided to mention it because I’m sure she can use your support. Please keep Featherly in your prayers as she is in the evacuation area for those wildfires out in California. So far, her house is still standing and I hope she can go back to it soon.

[JTthemillenial]

Jamie or JT, either is fine. I played rugby in college and now I do martial arts!

I’ve had three nights of strict SRT so far. My onset times are improving, but now I am having issues with waking up too early. I’ve been getting about 4-5 hours a night for the past week and am a little worried that I’m stuck in a holding pattern where my body gets core sleep and then decides it’s done. Someone tell me I’m overreacting and that I just need to give it more time.

Thanks for the update on Featherly.

[burn]

Jamie,

Do you have any anxiety caused by SRT? If yes, then it could explain it: strict SRT accumulates enough sleep drive to get you to sleep, but anxiety does not allow to relax completely and hence wakes you up after core sleep demand is satisfied. If you can stably receive 4-5 hours of sleep every night, try to look at it as a positive moment and see if helps you to relax a bit and therefore start sleeping around 5 hours.

[Steve]

Hi JT. You obviously have anxiety and that doesn’t work to well with SRT as restricting your sleep window a lot of times only fuels that anxiety. I’m curious why you are doing SRT. You read Guy Meadows book and it only advocates a very small SRT, if at all. One of the people on here, it might have been Burn, even talked to one of the Sleep Doctors at Guy Meadows school and she said that ACT and a strict SRT really don’t mix. There is a reason under ACT that you don’t get out of bed when you can’t sleep. If you really want to mix both, than you have to find a way to get your anxiety level down If SRT is going to work for you, just remember it won’t happen overnight. It could take weeks so don’t worry if you are still just getting 4 to 5 hours after a couple weeks, maybe even a couple months.

By the way, I took martial arts as well. I have a brown belt and hope to go back to it soon.

[Mac0908]

Steve I can’t disagree with you enough there. SRT is bad for those with anxiety induced insomnia?? SRT is still probably hands down the #1 tool to rebuild your sleep confidence as it forces us to rebuild sleep drive and well, SLEEP again. Martin would agree completely. Now, at FIRST I will agree that SRT can make you more anxious which is a given, but if you stick to it and stick to it correctly after a week or so you should start seeing some benefits. I know I did and I have anxiety through the roof about 9 months ago before I started.

[JTthemillenial]

I have high anxiety about sleep; I don’t think SRT itself is necessarily the culprit. I just think it will give me a quicker boost in the right direction than if I was doing ACT alone. My sleep therapist said he would want me on some level of SRT anyway if I started to regress. I get your point about how restricting time in bed might not fall in line with ACT perfectly but since a lot of ACT is about daytime as well as nighttime skills I don’t think they’re totally incompatible. And when I am awake in bed, I don’t get up.

Planning on finding a gym maybe this or next week. I need to start getting my mind off this.

[Dazzio]

Hey guys
Yeah im pretty much at the same point as you at the moment JT. I am finding my anxiety during the day a real struggle. I am literally spending every moment from the time i wake up thinking about how im going to sleep the next night! I was usually a really active person but insomnia slowly caused me to step back from alot of things. I think i really need to busy myself for every part of my day to get through this anxiety

[Author]

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