[Hbhigg]

Hi
Am just starting to look at addressing my insomnia and would like some advice.
Ordinarily if I wake at night I often stay in bed and read my kindle paper white for about 10mins which used to work ok, but now after a severe bout of anxiety my sleep has got much worse.
My questions are
1. is a kindle paper white ok to use or does it have to be a paper book
2. Is it ok to sit in a chair in the bedroom to read it in the dark, or do I need to leave the room.

Also have so far altered my sleep window 11:30 to 6 am but may need to shorten as it seems only getting about 5:30 hours average.

[Chee2308]

Hello and greetings!
The choice should based on your preference. Between the two, do you prefer one over the other? Then take your preferred choice because in reality, what you do if you can’t sleep has no effect on your sleep at all and therefore is of no consequence. The idea is to take your mind off sleep and the associated anxiety because most people with sleep problems often get anxious when they can’t sleep. It also helps condition the mind to not view night time wakefulness as a threat and by spending most time in bed actually asleep rather awake helps rebuild that bed-sleep association. As a recovered person, I am personally tell you it isn’t what you do or don’t do that makes you sleep or not. It is usually the fear or anxiety of not sleeping that is keeping you up. Once you conquer that fear, whatever you do don’t matter anymore and you will find yourself waking up less, taking lesser time to fall back asleep if you do until you don’t need to leave the bed anymore to never remembering you ever woke at all! Good luck and I hope you find your way out!

[Hbhigg]

Thank you so much for your reply Chee Hiung Yong.
I must say that first I tried to follow sleep hygiene rules, they just made me more anxious and I do think made my insomnia worse as I was forever thinking I had to do everything in just a certain way.
I think the CBT-I approach seems much better.

[Chee2308]

Thanks for posting. You should enjoy your time awake and not feel like you are being forced to do something if it isnt something you enjoy. There is no fixed rule for what you can or cannot do in bed or out of bed when you cant sleep. Because nothing can generate sleepiness or cause you to fall asleep except being awake long enough which builds sleep drive. Good luck!

[Author]

Posts