[Steve]

Deb – Yes, if you do ask her if SR and ACT can be done together, let me know what she says, would you? I am real curious about that. Basically, except for the SW, I am doing all ACT now. Of course, both programs have a lot of combined elements.

[gsdmom]

Deb – Yes, I took the ambien because of lack of sleep the previous night, and took about 11pm as I don’t want to feel groggy in the morning. I have taken it as late as 1am though. My insomnia is usually onset, but seems to have developed into sleep maintenance, so both ends. Since my spouse’s alarm usually wakes me at 5am, I attempt to go to bed between 9pm-10pm, depending on my degree of sleepiness. My insomnia started the middle of March 2019, due to two medications. One was short acting and I knew it would give me temporary insomnia for a couple days, the other was very long acting and had no idea of the insomnia side effect, so ended up taking it for almost 3 weeks. Since March the longest time I’ve had without Ambien is 8 days, that was fairly recent, hoping to stretch it out longer. After reading the Sleep book, I realize how in the past I was really trying to control the insomnia. I’m trying to let it go now. It also helps telling other people about, some friends and neighbors, so I don’t feel ashamed or hiding it, its easier to let go.

[Steve]

Hi gsdmom. How did your sleep go last night? I have to tell you that it was a really bad night for me. I got to sleep relatively quickly but woke up after about 45 minutes. This has been happening a lot lately, even when I was practicing pure SR/SC. Then I returned to sleep after awhile but woke at 3:00 in the morning with terrible anxiety. I started tossing and turning but after awhile, I started doing the mindfulness exercises I learned in the ACT book and at least I was able to stop the tossing and turning. Still, there was no way I was going to get back to sleep with that amount of anxiety. I’m just considering last night to be an off night as I have been doing good with the mindfulness tools I learned in the ACT book. I am not picking up any more sleep yet but after evaluating how I feel this morning, I can honestly say that I don’t think I am any worse off than when I was just doing SR/SC. Besides not doing SC anymore, and using the mindfulness tools I learned in the book, I am not doing much of anything different now that I started ACT. Probably only the SW is a little longer which I might shorten. Not sure yet. Are you now getting the same amount of sleep before you started ACT?

[gsdmom]

Hi Steve -thanks for reminding me about the clock watching, even my doctor told me it was OK to watch the clock as long as I didn’t have a negative reaction to it. I don’t have a negative reaction, it was more just my attempt to follow rules and try to control insomnia. Sorry you had a disturbing night and hope tonight is better. Has your dizziness and eye strain improved by just resting in bed? I have dry eye and put gel in my eyes before bed, and taking fish oils have helped.

I had a better sleep last night, almost 6 hours, woke up at 3:45am and just stayed in bed until 6am. I might have had moments of light sleep during that time, but I’m finding just resting to be so helpful. My energy has been so good during the day even when getting only 3 hours of sleep. Yesterday I started to have a panic attack during the day, not from sleep issues but from being unemployed. I have not worked for 2 1/2 years, had to close down and sell a business due to husband’s health. For almost 27 years had to be on call 24/7 with very few vacations and feel weird not working. When the panic came, I recognized it and this time practiced accepting it, welcoming it and thanking it. It passed quickly, and then I got an email for a job interview, but it requires shift work, not the best for insomnia. I have also been practicing the exercises for mindfulness. If I forget to do them at home, then if I’m out in the car, when I get to my destination I will sit in the car for 3 minutes and focus on the breath. I’ll probably need another week of this to see if my sleep is the same or better than doing SC. I have a lot of external stressors unrelated to sleep that have probably prolonged healing from insomnia. I have tinnitus which can be annoying at night and I get songs in my head at bedtime. All week, Bring Me To Life by Evanescence has been in my head, I guess I should welcome it and thank it rather than following along.

[Steve]

Hi gsdmom. Glad to hear you had a good sleep last night. The dizzyness is definitely better since I stopped doing SC. For some reason I don’t get that and the buzzing in my head when I don’t have to keep climbing out of bed to practice SC. As for the dry eye syndrome, it’s too early to tell on that yet. I use the dry gel at night also but I ran out and I have to get more. I use the regular drops during the day. Because of the very poor sleep last night (and actually the last three nights) I am having a hard time focusing my eyes today. But that usually happens when I don’t get in the high 4’s of sleep.

So what time do you go to bed? I know you don’t do a sleep window but it sounds like you are staying in bed for over 8 hours. I’m glad you have more energy during the day and that is always a help. It’s funny but I think I have more energy as well since I stay in bed. I mean, I still feel crappy after a poor night’s sleep, but I can function a little better the next day. I am coming up on 10 months of insomnia. I was hoping it would be gone by now but I just have to keep following the rules and maybe in another couple of months, it will be.

Good luck on your job interview. Are you going to go to it or have you decided not to because it’s shift work? BTW, what does gsdmom stand for? I get the mom but not the gsd.

[Borgesbi]

Hi Deb!

I followed your advice and got The Sleep Book and feel that my sleep anxiety dissolved almost entirely after only 3 nights of practicing acceptance and using the techniques suggested. I also started experiencing light sleep quite a bit even though I was no longer having it. I wonder why everyone practicing ACT starts having light sleep with it? I’ll have around 4 hours of deeper sleep the first half of the night and from around 3 or 4 am until 5:30am (when I wake up for work) I get only very very light sleep. I’ve been waking up super drowsy and tired, which hadn’t been the case in a long time. How long did you go through the light sleep stage to get over it? Did you practice acceptance of light sleep by catching thoughts of frustration and resistance towards it?

[gsdmom]

Before insomnia I was fairly normal sleeping between 7-8 hours/night so that is still my goal for staying in bed. Last night I went to bed about 9:45pm and probably fell asleep 30min later. If I can, I like to stay in bed, even if wide awake until 6am. I have pets and I don’t want them to get into the habit of wanting to eat or go outside earlier than that. Once I’m up, they expect their morning routine, which includes walking two very large cats with my dog. The cats think they are dogs, if I walk too early then there might be coyotes outside (which is kind of crazy since I live in a mix of urban/suburban). So that brings up gsd. GSD=German Shepherd Dog. A large, 90lb female, black and red, my constant companion. Still undecided on the job, its a decent paying govt job, they interview the people who score top 10 on their assessment, but since its govt, a very slow process so I’ll have a couple weeks to consider it, and then of course I might not get chosen.

[Deb]

Gdsmom – Glad you had a good night. Also glad that you’re getting support through talking about it with friends. Insomnia is nothing to be ashamed of! We didn’t do this to ourselves on purpose.

I think making a decision about ACT after a week from now is way too soon, Gdsmom. Just like SR/SC, it takes time for it to work. From reading the book, I got the idea that the average time is from a few weeks to a couple months. Also, for myself, whenever I took Ambien, it was like I had to start all over again because taking the Ambien is teaching the brain that we can’t sleep naturally. So it’s a step backwards.

Borgesbi – Glad the book is helping you. Tell me one more time – do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? My insomnia was sleep onset and I could go hours without falling asleep. When I was consistent with ACT I finally started falling asleep within a reasonable time. But the sleep was light. I was very happy that I was finally falling asleep, but the light sleep worried me the first time I did this back in March. I think my worry about it fed my brain more anxiety and thus the light sleep kept up. When I finally learned from the sleep doctor what was causing the light sleep and that this was normal, I was able to accept the light sleep and just keep going with ACT. I was very lucky in that this resolved itself in less than two weeks, amazingly. It probably depends upon your overall anxiety how quickly your sleep normalizes.

Steve – Sorry you got hit with so much anxiety last night. When I get like that I get up and try to calm myself through journaling or something. Hope you have a better night tonight.

[burn]

I scheduled Skype appointment with Dr Kat from the Sleep School for August 29th. If someone has questions for her, you can drop them here.

Deb, were you able to split the first session into two 30 minutes sessions? I don’t think I need the entire hour, but don’t know if I can split the very first session.

[Deb]

Just ask her first thing about splitting the session. She can do it easily. But you may need the whole hour the first time just so she understands your situation completely, but maybe not. Before my sessions I would write down all my questions so that I could use the time effectively. She’s very good about using the time efficiently too. Also, I’m assuming you read the whole book, The Sleep Book, so she won’t have to reiterate stuff from there that you already know. Don’t want to waste your time. Of course you could always ask for more explanation about certain things.

Please ask her the question about combining ACT with SR. I’m very curious. Thanks!

[Borgesbi]

Hi Deb,

I used to have both sleep onset and awakenings, although sleep onset issues were less frequent. These days if sleep anxiety doesn’t kick in, I’m fine falling asleep, which is where ACT has been helping the last few days. So just relaxing into this light sleep should help, it seems. Sometimes I like to get out of bed at least once since it seems to help reset my “sleep system”. I’ll fall asleep into deeper sleep after getting out of bed, but if I stay in bed I go into light sleep for hours. If you don’t mind me asking, what did the sleep doctor say was the reason for light sleep happening?

[Deb]

I explained it earlier on this thread, but I guess you didn’t see it. It was very important for me to understand this because this is what derailed me the first time I did ACT in March. I was finally falling asleep but it was light sleep – either in and out of sleep all night, lots of dreaming, or thinking I was awake all night but was probably in light sleep part of the time because my husband told me he heard me snoring. In the mornings I would be tired. I got very frustrated and worried about this, thinking that maybe I was training my brain to sleep light all night. Then I thought maybe I needed to add sleep restriction because when I did SR before, my sleep was good and deep. But this just led me to more confusion and in the meantime my sleep was just getting worse. Eventually I gave up and went back to SR/SC.

I asked the sleep doctor this question a few different times but in slightly different ways because I really had to be sure I understood her. So if you don’t understand my explanation, please ask for clarification.

The background of the sleep doctor, Dr. Kat, is in sleep research. She said that research on the brain activity of insomniacs versus “normals” has been done. They found that the amygdala of those with insomnia are much more active than “normals.” The amygdala is in charge of the fight or flight response. So while we are sleeping, the amygdala is on the alert, ready to detect any danger and wake us up quickly if needed. That’s why the sleep is so light. So even though consciously we may think we are relaxed, our unconscious is not. I like to make the analogy of a soldier who comes home from war. Even though he consciously knows he’s safe, it takes awhile for his unconscious to believe that, so he may have trouble sleeping, relaxing, etc. We insomniacs have been traumatized by our insomnia, just like the soldier was traumatized by war. So it’s going to take some time for our unconscious to really believe that the bed is safe.

When I finally understood this, that it was just going to take time for the unconscious part of my brain to catch up with the conscious part, then I could finally relax and accept that this was just a normal part of the healing process and then I stopped worrying about it. So I accepted it and then just dealt the best I could with the tiredness the next day, trying to keep a positive attitude and not worry or fret. I knew anxiety during the day would just feed the brain more fear instead of calming it down. Does this make sense?

[Deb]

I meant to say that they did research on insomniacs and normals while they were sleeping.

[Borgesbi]

Deb – yes, that makes a lot of sense, thank you. I haven’t been following the thread as much anymore so I appreciate you repeating the information. This explains why sometimes I’m so relaxed but still won’t sleep well. Knowing this now will help me relax into the light sleep if it happens. Thank you so much!

[Steve]

Hi Burn. Yes, I second Deb’s response. Please ask her if ACT can be combined with SR. Also, what do we do if we wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and there are no thoughts or urges or anything to welcome but we still can’t sleep and we start to toss and turn? At that point, even though I am relaxed, I start to toss and turn. Thanks.

[Author]

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