[delv-x]

Hi Mac,

It’s when I am in the good phase I am like “forget meditation” because before all this started I would just do whatever and not care which works to a point until my brain gets stuck in the stress/arousal mode. I’ve been there many times and know it passes. It can take a few days before it starts to swing back.

I was going through your to bed and wake up. 10:30 – 4:30 without noticing you arose is actually not bad. Everyone has their bar of success but 5.5-6 hours means almost all of your deep restorative sleep has been met. From 4:30 to 6:30 (if that’s your wake up) is light and normal. Some of us going through this will over analyze that. The last 2 hours will mostly be REM and in and out sleep. I just accept it and know that tomorrow I may get less or more.

For us with sleep maintenance, what I say to myself to make me feel better is if I go to bed and wake up 4-6 hours later and either fall back or not, I know that a good chunk has been met and not to worry. Some nights I fall right back which is wonderful and some nights are just not happening. It’s those odd nights like last night where onset (rare) was a problem and then maintenance was a problem an hour after I fell asleep so it was just all whack.

[Deb]

Nik – I’m thrilled to hear that you have recovered! I was wondering how you were doing. I was aware that you did a lot of overthinking and was wondering if you ever learned to “do nothing.” Thank you so much for sharing your testimony and giving others hope.

Each one of us has our own journey, as Martin has said. For myself, getting into the accepting state of mind was fairly easy. Like Borgesbi said, I could “push the acceptance button” and get right back into that state. But then I had other barriers to deal with like during this recent relapse, worrying that ACT wasn’t going to work for me like it did before. For others it may be not sticking to it long enough, or maybe a mind that ruminates instead of relaxes in bed. So we each have our own journey.

Taylor – When my anxiety was too much for me then I would get out of bed. Usually I would journal for awhile and then realize that I was struggling again instead of just accepting. Then I would gently laugh at myself thinking, “Oh, there you go again” and go back to bed and fall asleep. If you can let go of the anxiety and calm yourself in bed, that’s great. But if you just can’t, then get up and do something to calm yourself down. I usually was never up that long, maybe 30-45 minutes at the most.

[burn]

Mac,

For me sleep onset was the major issue. I do have middle of night awakenings, but I had them even before insomnia, so I don’t consider them as a problem, as long as I am able to fall back to sleep in a reasonable time. Somehow, I still managed to largely retain sleep confidence for middle of the night wakefulness. Plus, I knew that even little bit of deep sleep makes huge difference for the daytime feeling, so after getting even little bit of deep sleep I already felt more at ease. Sleep onset was perceived as a challenge, and I knew that when I went through at least one cycle of deep sleep, I will fall asleep again after awakening. This sleep confidence for middle of the night was eroding slowly however, so I now rely on mindful ‘do nothing’ approach for middle of the night awakenings. I would say that for sleep onset my current formula is 80/20 – 80% of doing nothing and 20% sleep confidence. For middle of the night awakenings it is 40/30/30 – 40% sleep confidence, 30% mindful doing nothing and 30% of ‘I don’t care that much, I already got at least some sleep for tonight’ mindset.

Borgesbi had sleep maintenance insomnia and she pretty much relied on ACT to overcome it, so ACT should work for your type of insomnia. Her recipe was pretty simple: no sleep expectation, thought welcoming and consistent sleep schedule (you can call gentle sleep restriction or simply being reasonable with your sleep schedule). I guess one hurdle of middle of the night awakening is that it catches you off guard. For sleep onset, I can give myself wind down time in bed, acquire right mindset and slowly get into pre-sleep phase. For middle of the night awakening, it may be harder to reach this state if you wake up with rush and agitation. Perhaps, short bathroom visit to reset you mind before going back to bed can help? If anxiety if overwhelming, I think it may be helpful to interrupt it with a short break. I am not suggesting to do stimulus control and stay out of your bedroom until sleepy etc, but I think short break from being in bed can help to reset your mind and remind yourself that you should behave just like during the beginning of night. You have no problem falling asleep in the beginning of the night, try to bring the same mindset to the falling in the middle of the night.

[Deb]

Nik, I really like this quote you posted from the book – “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.” I would also include in that list FRUSTRATION. I think this is what happened to you, Mac. Although you’re much better than last year (thank goodness!) you get impatient and frustrated and as a result, the fear creeps back in. So then your whole nervous system gets stirred up again and of course, you can’t relax and sleep. I’m glad you slept a little better last night, Mac. If you can, take this as a sign that you can sleep and can get better, and try to relax. Your progress may not always be a straight line going upward, but instead with ups and downs with gradual upward progress. Or go back to SRT if that’s what you think you need to do to calm down your system.

[burn]

Thank you Deb.

Overthinking and sleep effort were my thing, my major challenge. It is surprising that even small amount of mental effort to fall asleep can lead to a no sleep night for me. In the beginning of my insomnia, when I didn’t understand what’s going on, I was trying hard (mentally) to force myself into sleep. I realized my mistake early on, but still during most of my insomnia, I did apply this mental effort to fall asleep without realizing it. It was a subtle effort and it was really hard to catch and yet it was enough to prevent sleep from happening.
In the beginning of my recovery it helped greatly to personify all my struggles (it was an invaluable advice from Borgesbi): I had ‘sleeper’, it is an entity which waits desperately for sleep to happen. And I had overthinker/overdoer. It is a creature which wants to do something about sleep. Sometimes I was seeing pressing hard on my mind trying to force me into sleep, sometimes I was hearing it asking whether I am doing it right, whether I need to accept better, whether I need to think about something, whether I am applying sleep effort etc. Watching my mind interacting with these creatures (like if I was sitting in a theatre) and doing nothing, gave me my first experience of doing nothing and welcoming during my recovery.

[taylor45]

A big thing I’m working through on acceptance is accepting everything. Originally through accepting i thought this meant I should feel calm. In my mind it was like “I’m accepting that I may not sleep so I should no longer feel anxiety.” I don’t think this is true though. Of course I feel anxiety. This whole thing has been traumatizing as sh**, and my brain is not just going to suddenly not be anxious about it. So this means also accepting the anxiety as well. When the rush of anxiety hits me as I drift off, accepting that’s what’s happening right now. Trying to stop that rush doesn’t work and makes it come more, just like trying to sleep doesn’t make sleep come.

[Deb]

I love the way that people help each other here. Like Borgesbi sharing how she personified her struggles with you, Nik, which helped you. This might be something you may want try, Taylor. Dr. Guy talks about this in the book in the chapter on “Welcoming.” Think about your anxiety as a feeling separate from yourself, like some creature that gets anxious a lot but just can’t help it. You might end up feeling sorry for the poor anxious thing. Welcome and accept him and then this will create some distance from the feeling instead of it overwhelming you. This is also where mindfulness helps. Through practice you begin to recognize that your thoughts and feelings are not “YOU” but just thoughts and feelings. So you can do something about them. Here’s a great quote: “Don’t Believe Everything You Think.”

[burn]

Taylor, don’t confuse acceptance and resignation and don’t overthink it. Just be a neutral observer of your thoughts and feelings at night like if you are not there to sleep at all. If course you are there to sleep, don’t lie to yourself, but practice to be an observer. Your goal is to give your mind no job to do. Whenever, you want to react to your insomnia, you are giving your mind a task pushing it away from sleep. If you try to distract yourself from being awake, try to deny feelings, suppress thoughts, change thoughts etc, you are doing a mental job. It helped me greatly to personify my internal overthinker: whenever I had an urge to do something or I started questioning whether I do acceptance right, I knew it was my overthinker which worries about me. This overthinker wishes me well and does its best to protect me. So personify it and attribute all your doubts to your overthinker. It was important for me at some point to realize, that these anxious feelings and thoughts ARE in fact my allies, my friends that worry really bad me and trying to help me. Thank them wholeheartedly, in heartwarming manner and let them be! As I said the book should be just taken literally. Personify your struggles, thank them for being there with you and for you in this difficult night and let them be.

[taylor45]

Yes, you both are right. I’m not thinking of it in terms of resignation tho, it’s just an acceptance that the anxiety isn’t just going to disappear. I do interact with it, think of it as something to feel sorry for because it’s trying really hard to keep me safe.
But before I was so afraid of the adrenaline rush or stomach butterflies when trying to sleep that I would focus on breathing or make sure I was belly breathing because that’s the only thing that held it off. But low and behold that didn’t work.

[burn]

Do you have anxiety in the beginning of the night or after awakening in the middle of the night? In the beginning of the night give yourself some time (~20 minutes or more) to just lie there and not trying to sleep. Just reserve this time for light pleasant thoughts or for just calming down and allow yourself not to sleep during this time. See if helps to reduce anxiety before sleep. In the middle of the night, try a short break like a bathroom visit to reset your mind, and then go to bed like if it was a beginning of the night: give yourself 5-10 minutes of allowed not sleeping time and then try to sleep (but don’t force sleep). See if it helps. Consider your bed as experiments in which you are trying to dial things right.

[taylor45]

Nik,
Are you asking me? If so it’s at the beginning of the night mostly. But if i allow myself to get too stressed or anxious because I haven’t fallen asleep in a certain amount of time or something, then if I do eventually drop off into sleep I’ll wake up an hour or two later with the intense anxiety still there.
Mostly however it’s sleep onset that will get me.

[burn]

Taylor,

Then indeed try this exercise that I suggested. Even without mindfulness and anything else, reserve first 15 minutes in bed for just being and not planning to sleep. Just lie with your eyes open and allow your mind to bring you worrisome thoughts whether you are going to sleep tonight. If your mind does not bring any thoughts, perhaps you are thinking about not having thoughts and that is the thought as well. Notice it and just stay calm. See if it helps you to calm down, and when you are calm and sleepy, close your eyes, and see if you can remain in this calm state.

[Deb]

I did something a few nights ago which has triggered another relapse. Dang it! And just in time for a trip this weekend visiting family in another state. The first night I ended up taking an Ambien around 3:00, hoping that the next night I would fall right back into things and recover quickly. But the next night was a long night. I accepted things, but it was long with maybe a couple hours of sleep in the early morning. Last night was long too. At around 2:00 I found myself getting frustrated. I knew that frustration wasn’t going to help and would just prolong my recovery, but it was hard to let it go. Finally I got up, journaled for awhile and settled down. I went back to bed and had light sleep for the rest of the night. I’m tired today.

Oh well, I guess I’ll be “learning” something again from this relapse. For one thing, when my recovery is still fragile, don’t do anything stupid. I had only been insomnia-free for a month. Also, try not to have any expectations, which just leads to frustration. This only gets in the way and slows down the recovery. Not so easy to do though. But I’ll do whatever I need to do to let go of any negative thoughts so that I can relax again, whether it be journaling or something else. I have no other choice if I want to sleep well again soon.

[Mac0908]

Delv – This is with no offense whatsoever, but more of just a friendly rant… Unfortunately your understanding is where you (and many others on these forums have been) are wrong. Just because I slept my first 5.5-6 hours before an awakening does not mean anything in an insomniac’s world. First of all, if it *was* such good/deep sleep as you implied, why am I a zombie after I am up from these 4:30am-ish times? It’s because those 6 hours aren’t a normal 6 hours. They are with a “hyperaroused” arousal system that doesn’t truly give me the normal deep sleep I should be getting. This video below explains every single thing an insomniac deals with and then some. It is a must watch….

[Mac0908]

Wow Deb, very sorry to hear about what’s happened for you the last few nights. But, you kind of lost me when trying to figure out what “triggered” things. You said how your first night you took medication after not being able to sleep. Just an off night with no real explanation. Second night, long night, no explanation. Third night was frustration. That is a problem but what really started this? No real explanation that you noted. Sometimes, as we all know, there really aren’t any. That’s the worst part about this. You could be doing well for 2-3 weeks straight and then bam, you have a bad night, or two. Let me ask you this, after that first bad night and the meds, how did you react/handle it during that day?

[Author]

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