[Tryingtosleep]

Hi,

I’m posting this to help my girlfriend. She suffers from insomnia (not sleeping at all or taking several or more hours to fall asleep) whenever she has to sleep around others. This has led to frustration for her when we share a bed together, and she can’t sleep and is exhausted the next day. On a normal night, she does have some trouble getting to sleep, but normally falls asleep in around 30-60 minutes she says. She does take a Xanax on occasion before trying to sleep, but that doesn’t seem to help in this case. I’ve done quite a bit of searching online, but have come up blank. It’s not related to my moving or snoring/noise according to her (and it happens when she shares a room with anyone, even if not in the same bed). It seems similar to “First Night Effect” but doesn’t seem to be going away. If anyone has ideas as to what this could be or some places to start searching for help, I’d greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

[Martin Reed]

It might be helpful to ask your girlfriend why she feels she finds it hard to sleep around others and go from there.

Some initial things she might try are making sure she isn’t going to bed before she feels sleepy enough for sleep (it can be tempting to go to bed at the same time as our bed partners even if we aren’t feeling sleepy ourselves) and to get out of bed if she wakes during the night and finds it hard to fall back to sleep. She might then return to bed when she feels calm and relaxed and repeat the process as needed (this can help address any conditioned arousal). A consistent out of bed time can be helpful, too.

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