[taylor45]

Sorry Mac, you’re right.

Deb- I would like to get in touch with you as I’m a college student and can’t afford getting direct help from guy or others that work with him.

I’m trying to find you but worried I haven’t found the right person

[Deb]

I am listed in Psychology today online as the only marriage coach in Huntsville, AL. But google “marriage counseling in Huntsville, AL” to find me. On my psychology today profile there’s a link to my website. Go there and then you can email or call me directly. But if you call, leave a message because I don’t pick up if I don’t recognize the number.

Mac – one more thing. Don’t feel bad about going back to SRT. Remember that I was a yo yo too. First I did SRT for 2 months, then tried to do ACT on my own for a month or so, failed and went back to SRT for another couple months, got frustrated again and went back to ACT again, this time with Dr. Kat’s help, and finally recovered. I remember Martin telling me that everyone has their own journey. So true.

[taylor45]

Deb- I remember reading at one point that sometimes when the anxiety felt overwhelming you would get up and journal for a bit.
Ive been really stuck to Dr. Guy saying to stay in bed and try to accept wakefulness. sometimes this works, but often the anxiety still finds it’s way in. probably due to my mindset during the day and the worrying over sleep that im trying to accept and work on.
Are you glad you got up to journal/ do you think I should maybe try getting up and meditating or journaling or something? Not strict SC or anything, just when the anxiety gets overwhelming.
Im a perfectionist so I always think of that olympic podium Guy talks about in his book and I always think to myself that I dont wanna be that person thats in the bronze category or the no medal category lol. But maybe im missing the point with that

[burn]

Hi everyone, I didn’t post here and didn’t visit for a while. I am doing fine now. I finally figured it out how to ‘accept wakefulness’ and do nothing about it and hence, to just fall asleep. So sleep is mostly not a problem anymore. It may take longer sometimes to fall asleep, if my mind is agitated by daytime events or future plans, but it does not worry me much. I guess this will be my farewell post here. This forum was increasingly supportive for me during my low times last year and I would like to give something back. I will share my experience with ACT and my understanding of it. Hopefully, it will be helpful for forum newcomers which still struggle to understand ACT.

My insomnia was a terrible sleep onset insomnia. On average I slept only every other night for most of the 2019, with occasional back to back no sleep nights. I tried SRT first, but I did it on my own, got even more anxious and dropped it. I did it few times actually but not for long every time, no more than two weeks in a stretch. I know that SRT is pretty much enough for some folks to improve substantially, but no sleep nights even with 5 hour sleep window really freaked me out. I therefore pursued ACT, but couldn’t figure it out for a long time. Deb’s and Borgesbi’s support were essential for me, but it still took some work to figure it out for myself completely.
Below I will describe you my experience and advice on recovery with ACT. After reading the Sleep book few more times and reflecting on things I missed and after experimenting with sleep, I can tell you that book should be just taken literally and it has all the tools you need. The essence of the book is pretty much summarized in these few pieces:
1) “The effort I was putting in to sleep had not worked and then it hit me: perhaps I was trying too hard. I rewound to when I slept well to figure out what I was doing. How did I do it? Really I did nothing special at all. The only thing I did to sleep was close my eyes”
2) “Any attempts to fight, avoid, change or get rid of experiencing your insomnia tell your brain that you are being threatened, triggering your innate survival response. In this moment you become mentally and physically alert as your brain prepares you to stand and fight or withdraw in flight.”
3) “The most important thing to note about a normal sleeper is their willingness to relax and be quietly wakeful in the presleep phase. They aren’t trying to force sleep upon themselves”
4) “Here you accept the fact that you are awake and are willing to ‘watch’ and ‘welcome’ any of your wanted or unwanted thoughts, memories, images or sensations that arise in your mind and body moment by moment. You take the position of a peaceful bystander who watches over your internal world without judgment or comment.”
5) “When you can let go of the idea that you need to be asleep, then you remove the obstacles in the way of falling to sleep.”

Some people (not me) are likely naturally more mindful than others and can figure out ‘do nothing’ thing even without ACT. Check two recovery posts on this forum (one from obriri and one from Rion123). In my opinon, the most important part of obriri’s story is this:
“When I feel ready, I make my mind go blank as if I’m meditating …. If you’re thinking about your mind being blank, you’re still thinking too much and you’re not relaxed.”
In the Rion123 story:
“Most importantly, don’t force yourself to sleep, dont put any effort into it, when you sleep just do nothing, think of nothing and you will sleep”

So it goes down to do nothing and think about nothing. Yet, it is so easy to overdo this! (many, many exclamation marks). That was my major roadblock. Without realizing it, I was gently trying to suppress thinking (so called self-monitoring). I thought I was doing nothing and yet didn’t sleep. I was afraid that I am broken now, and yet I was simply doing too much.

So I was putting too much mental effort into falling asleep without realizing it. And that’s where mindfulness helps. Mindfulness is useful in two ways: First, mindful meditation will remind you what it’s like to just be, to just be present. Second, it provides the best terminology to understand pre-sleep phase. First, about doing nothing. If you ever did mindful meditation after bad night, you might have noticed that you become sleepy during meditation. In my opinion, the reason is thatyou are not striving for anything during meditation. You are just being present, willing to feel and experience sensations of your body and thoughts in your mind. You don’t set goals for your mind to achieve something and if sleepy, your mind will tend to drift off. I find my pre-sleep state now to be very similar to meditation and it consistently sends me into sleep at night. Yet, don’t meditate to fall asleep! Meditation experience should give you an idea what it is like to just be. Then, when you are in your bed, just close your eyes and just be! Just be there, in you body, in you mind. Just realize that you are here, you are human being, suffering from insomnia, you are alive, you are present, you are awake and you choose to do nothing about it. Don’t distract yourself intentionally with pleasant thoughts and yet don’t try to suppress thoughts either. If you mind wanders off, you might fall asleep while being in a random thought (which you didn’t force yourself into). If you realize that your mind has wandered off and you are not sleeping yet, just return to the state of being present. Yet, it is not meditation. Don’t do intentional body scans and active thought watching. Just be there, whole, human, alive, awake.

Second, mindfulness provides great terminology. If someone just tells you: close your eyes and don’t think about anything to fall asleep, they will be absolutely correct. Yet, if a person with insomnia will try not to think about anything, he/she will be trying to suppress thinking altogether and force sleep. ACT reminds us what it is like to not think about anything: be willing to stay awake and just allow your mind to bring you random thoughts. Don’t worry about these thoughts. After all you may drift to sleep while being caught in a random thought. If you are still awake after realizing you were in the thought, return to just being awake and just being present without striving to achieve your goal.

With this being said, I want to comment on Deb’s advice to surrender desire for sleep. Just like a suggestion to think about nothing to fall asleep, it is absolutely correct! Yet, it will be interpreted wrong, if not through the prism of mindfulness. I was doing it wrong first. I was trying hard to reject this desire for sleep, and it did help partially since I was no longer trying to force sleep while surrendering desire for sleep. Yet by rejecting this desire I was putting me in conflict with myself. I am human being, I am here, in my bed, I am here to sleep. Then I realized, that I working too hard. So, yes, you need to abandon desire for sleep, but with mindfulness. It pretty much means just to realize that you have this desire and acknowledge it. Personify it, if necessary. The moment you look at your desire and allow it to be in you as an distinct entity, you are no longer trapped in this desire so tight and you don’t need to do anything about it. Just let this desire be. After all you are here to sleep, it is a normal human being. With your rational mind, however, do realize, that you might not sleep well tonight and it may take time to figure out ‘do nothing’ thing (it took me time for sure). Yet some people are naturally more mindful than others I guess. One of the comments on Sleep Book on Amazon, says that the woman cured her insomnia in two days after realizing that it’s just her effort that prevent her normal sleep. Consider your bad nights as experiments on your way to recovery. I did it. For instance, at some point I decided that this week I would be focusing on my breath and my chest as a way of being willing to stay awake and watching my internal world (as Guy Meadows puts it). Didn’t work well (see below), but this week-long experiment was informative to understand, what I was doing wrong.

I had some rough patches even after initial understanding ‘do nothing’ thing. It was happening when I was starting to overthink the process. Since it feels good to just be awake before sleep and not worry about anything, after first stretch of good nights with acceptance I started trying to achieve this state of ‘feel good and not worry’ instead of just being and not doing anything and allowing ‘feel good’ state to emerge itself. I realized that I was again doing too much instead of just being. Another patch of bad nights came, when I started to intentionally focus on my breath, thinking that it was ok way to accept wakefulness and be willing to watch my urges, feelings etc. It was not. I did it for about a week and I considered it an experiment. I realized I was again putting mental effort into sleep with subconscious self-monitoring kicking in. After I realized that, I returned to just state of being while being awake before sleep.

My current recipe for falling asleep is similar to obriri’s and is the following. When I get into bed, I give myself some cooling down time. I allow myself to not sleep at that time, while my mind is cooling down and I am slowly transitioning into the state of just being. After that I gently focus on just being here, alive, existing, in my body, in my mind and being awake and I choose to do nothing about it. I just allow myself be. With my rational mind, I tell myself that it may take some time until I fall asleep. Perhaps, my mind is still too agitated tonight (e.g. due to daytime events or tomorrow plans), then it may take me longer to fall asleep. I realize that maybe I will be awake for next couple hours, but most likely I will get some deep restorative sleep. Usually I fall asleep much faster, but I don’t stress if I am still awake after 1 or 2 hours, because I know that got the hang of acceptance and I know how to fall asleep, and it is simply my agitated mind that still needs time to wind down or it simply needs more time for recover from insomnia completely.

I hope this writing will be helpful for someone. Insomnia is a terrible thing. It was the worst and the most unusual challenge in my life, but I think it is mostly over now. I think I will be having short relapses here and there and occasional bad nights due to my awareness that such thing as insomnia exists and I am prone to it. But I think I mostly got the understanding of acceptance and of doing nothing and I will be fine in the long term. I will hang on the forum for a while, but I will stop attending it after some time.

Deb, I am forever thankful for your inspiration, for you being a personal example of ACT success and for all your support. My insomnia and recovery journey would be so much worse and longer if not endless, without you. Thank you.

Nik.

[taylor45]

Nik,
Thank you so much for writing this, and for taking the time to go so In depth. You made me realize things I’ve been doing just like you did through the early parts of your journey that I thought meant doing nothing or accepting, but don’t actually mean that. It takes time and practice to learn how to just be. In life we never just “are” or are ok with doing nothing. It makes us uncomfortable and we don’t understand it much haha or at least I don’t. But I’m going to save your post and keep coming back to it.
Thanks for the inspiration.

[Mac0908]

Very good, deep post, Burn. I am glad you have recovered. Sometimes I think that sleep onset and sleep maintenance are two VERY different types of insomnia. Maybe that’s just me, but it’s sometimes how I feel. You talk so much about and give details on how you ultimately got over your inability to fall asleep, but what about STAYING asleep like me? What about the early or middle of the night awakenings that many insomniac’s deal with? I’m sure all the mindfulness helps a great deal for both. I actually know it does. But I still feel like it’s just a different ballgame.

There were definitely a few points for me personally when I struggled falling asleep. Rarely this happened, but it did. I went through the whole “focus on your breath/body part” routine. Those days are gone now. Typically, as long as i’m at least somewhat tired, I’m asleep within a half an hour. But it’s the awakenings that have been my kryptonite from close to day one. Still in the process of trying to lower my arousal system, but its proving to be a “fight” til the very end.

[taylor45]

Mac- Despite my earlier panicked post I hope this helps you.

Yes sleep onset and sleep maintenance insomnia are different, but treating them/working with them is quite similar I would think. As guy points out in his book and much research has shown, middle of the night/early awakenings are actually really normal. It’s not necessarily to your benefit to think that the awakenings will go away. It’s how you handle that awakening that determines whether you fall back to sleep or stay awake feeling agitated. After all, whether its falling asleep originally in the night or falling asleep after being awakened, its still a matter of being able to fall asleep.

[Mac0908]

I see where you’re coming from Taylor, but at least for me it’s a whole different ballgame when I wake up at 4am as opposed to falling asleep around 10:30p. At 10:30p i’m at least actually tired, having been up since 6am or so. My body will eventually nod off. At 4am-ish, or especially 5am, the problem is now I HAVE actually had some sleep. I’m more awake and rested than I was 6 hours earlier.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Mac0908.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Mac0908.

[taylor45]

If you go to bed earlier does the wake time become earlier as well? Maybe you’ve answered this before but I’m curious

[Mac0908]

It’s really all a mess, Taylor. At this point now, in my relapse, if I go to bed early, around 10-10:15, I usually have an awakening, plain and simple. If I go to bed later, like around 11 chances are much less for an awakening. In my early days of ACT months ago, and even right through January, I’d have plenty of nights going to bed around the 10:15ish mark and sleeping through the night with very light awakenings where I’d fall back asleep quickly. So, go figure. Bottom line is it’s MORE than possible for me to sleep ok going to bed at the earlier timeframe. Pushing myself til around 11 is only gearing up for a more SRT-like mindset which really is not what ACT is about at all.

Bottom line is my arousal system is back in full gear right now IMO and all bets are off.

[taylor45]

I wish I had more to offer. I feel your pain tho about the Hyperarousal. It’s a vicious cycle for sure.
I really suggest daytime meditation. Studies have shown it shrinks the amygdala which is responsible for that Hyperarousal and for waking us up constantly or super early when you have that extra pressure of work.
Idk if you believe in that stuff but there’s science behind it so maybe give it a shot. I’m doing that right now and hoping it helps with this

[Mac0908]

I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve done some mindfulness today. Meditation I really do not do. Just hard to believe in general that my arousal system has been affected for this long. After all the work and things I’ve done you’d think by default this would have just gone away by now. Really seemed like it was going to a month ago. This has been the worst relapse for me mentally bc I thought I was so out of the woods, finally, after a good solid 2 months with ACT. Guess I just have to somehow keep my head up, somehow, someway, and see this all through. I have a week off work in 2 weeks which could act as a nice reset for me. We’ll see how that goes. But for right now it’s just continue to try and accept. Goodnight

[taylor45]

Maybe that’s true but wouldn’t hurt to try. No harm in setting aside 10-15 mins a day to meditate. Maybe even in those early awakenings.

But if not then I really hope you do find something that works

[delv-x]

Excellent post Burn. Honestly it makes sense and works. When I go to bed, close my eyes and just be, I drift off. When I wake up in the middle of the night if I am sleepy, Ill do anything I need (bathroom, water etc) and then go back to sleep. There really isn’t any effort needed to sleep and with a reasonable wake and bed time everything falls into place well for days/weeks and even months.

The hyperarousal is the beast. Each time I relapse, I feel tense, alert, need to take a nice deep breathe, worried for no reason or for silly things and then staying asleep is difficult. This is during the day and night. You would think it would pass after a few minutes but it lingers for days. The good news is how I react is less than before. I would try to fix it throughout the night by trying this and that and feel like the next day is a catastrophe. I rarely take anything to try to “help” but either they don’t do anything or just make things worse.

The past 2 nights were rough and although laying comfortably was comfortable, after awhile noticing that I am drifting off, I would wake up with a tense alertness. It is self monitoring but my brain is on alert for any sound. I guess more meditation during the day to calm the amygdala? I was contemplating taking a shot of something in homes to shut my brain enough to fall back asleep.

[Mac0908]

After really practicing some good mindfulness with regards to early awakenings, last night was a small improvement. I crashed around 10:30p and then as usual had my awakening probably around 430a. The anxiety was there, no doubt about it. Not overwhelming but it was there. At one point I almost surrendered and figure ok this will probably be another day up since 4:30am. I felt awake. I felt defeated again. But slowly but surely I accepted what was happening and just tried to relax and get back into a sleepy state. I then fall back asleep (albeit into light sleep) until my 6am alarm. Tired today of course, but not a zombie day like yesterday.

Delv – you are right in that during relapses the worries and anxiousness fills us not just during sleep but during the days as well. We often don’t take enough time to work on getting rid of them during the day. Probably bc we are so tired and burnt out from all of this. In turn our hyperarousal system stays in “high mode” for days if not weeks on end before we calm down a bit by default. I think this is why we see so many of us go in and out of good/bad phases. There’s only one solution and Deb made this clear – you MUST stick to whatever you are doing, whether it be ACT or SRT, for a lengthy period of time until it’s almost without question in your mind (and body) that you are healed.

[Author]

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