[sleepypie]

Hi everyone.
I’ve graduated from the 8 week sleep course with Martin and I can honestly say that the course has changed my life. I have battled with insomnia since my first born 5 years ago and I was taking sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication to help me sleep. It felt like I was never going to sleep on my own again so when the pills stopped working for my sleep, I had to find another way. I am extremely grateful to Martin for everything he has taught me, I’m now able to get atleast 7-8 hours of sleep each night without worrying about my sleep at all. I used to spend every day panicking about how I would sleep that night and became extremely anxious an hour before my bedtime. Now I don’t ever think about sleep and if i do have the odd night where I battle, it doesn’t phase me at all, because I know i’ll have a great sleep the next night, and I do 🙂

I came across this course a year ago but for some reason I decided to try and get over my insomnia by myself. After a year of trying I had finally given up and decided to enrol in the course. It was one of the best decisions I ever made and my only regret is that I didn’t enrol sooner. Having Martin’s support made a huge difference and I would highly suggest that anyone who is thinking of enrolling, should stop thinking and just do it!

Good luck to everyone out there who is battling, it’s not a very nice place to be in and I sympathise with how awful it is. But with Martin’s help you’ll soon be able to sleep peacefully again, and without any medication!

[Chee2308]

Thanks for sharing your inspiring story and your success is truly well-deserved.

[Trish]

Hi Chee2308,
I have read a lot of your emails & you inspire me & give me a lot of hope. I’m using the sleep restriction technique & feel as if my sleep is improving & my anxiety reducing. But just when I think “I’ve got this”, I experience a night of taking hours to get to sleep & even though I don’t go back to square one, I lose confidence & wonder if I’ll ever get to where you are at. Did you ever feel like this? Do I just need to be patient & realise that it probably takes different amounts of time for different individuals to reach true acceptance & to eventually not place so much importance on how much sleep I get?
I really appreciate that you take the time to respond to people’s sleep concerns even though it is evident that you have recovered or are in a “good place” as far as your sleep goes. Very caring. Thanks
Trish

[Chee2308]

Hello Trish
Thank you for your kind comments. Have you been sleeping in lately? Because you were told that not caring about sleep is the solution to sleep anxiety and sleepless nights, are you now sleeping more than you usually do? So therein lies your “problem”. You are simply too well-rested! I see these events manisfesting themselves all the time, people developed some sleeping problems, managed to recover, begin slacking on the discipline and ultimately finding themselves back to having problems again because it becomes way too easy to oversleep when you start letting go and thinking you are recovered. So stop spending too much time in bed and being too relaxed about your wake up time. Or taking naps during the day. Or that if you can choose to be liberal about your sleep then you will find sleepless nights manifesting more often. There is no right or wrong because your average sleep duration will stay the same over the long term. If you prefer to have a decent amount of sleep consistently, you should stick to a similar waketime every morning. Everyone wakes up with a little bit of sleep drive left. That initial grogginess is normal and it takes a bit of time to go away, just make yourself your favorite beverage, head out and get some light exposure and start your day! Your sleep should get back on track when you consistently do this and then future sleepless episodes won’t bother you as much anymore because you then begin to understand exactly what’s going on and there never was anything to worry about. Good luck and best wishes to you.

[Trish]

Hi Chee2308,
No I haven’t been sleeping in or taking any naps. I get out of bed the same time every morning. I’ve been very disciplined in sticking to my sleep restriction times. I’m just not getting any consistency with how long it takes to go to sleep. Sometimes go to sleep quickly, other times it takes hours which makes me feel a bit disillusioned. Sometimes I feel hopeful & other times not so was wondering if you ever experienced this, especially in the early days. Thanks
Trish

[Chee2308]

Hello Trish
Everyone’s journey to recovery is a bit different but ultimately the destination is the same: you started to care less about sleep and it just doesn’t bother you anymore. Or it can be said you simply got bored and fed up over it. For me, the initial stage of recovery was falling asleep really fast at bedtime, maybe I was so sleep deprived then and I would get really sleepy way before bedtime. Then as I slept more, I was alert longer into the night and this evolved into waking up earlier like one or two hours before my scheduled wakeup time, initially I thought I couldn’t sleep further so I just started my day early. But one day I decided to just sleep in because my bed was so warm and comfortable and I fell asleep almost effortlessly. Initially for 5,10 mins then slowly grew into 1-2 hours. So right now I am sleeping straight for 5-6 hours before waking up to use the toilet then going back to bed to sleep for another 1-2 hours. Occasionally I would also find it difficult to fall asleep initially, it would manifest as just light sleep for the first few hours of the night with frequent awakenings. This is just a sign of sleeping really well! Sometimes they happen several nights in a row but I am not bothered by them anymore. I think the more those difficult nights happen, the faster you get used to them, it’s just a fact of life. You may still think a lot about sleep at this point, probably because difficult nights haven’t occurred frequently enough to you yet but that sleep is still going to happen regardless of what you do or think. Eventually you come to a realisation like I did that obessesing over sleep has been a complete waste of time and effort.

[Boylston]

Trish, if it is any comfort, I too have nights of taking a long time to fall asleep and then disrupted sleep throughout the night. I have recently completed the course and am into the second week of “being on my own” with some difficult nights. I have read elsewhere in this forum that patience is key as you continue to follow the restrictions and as you continue to learn that sleep should not be the focus of our lives. Believe me, I am in the midst of these learnings.
Chee, thank you for your answers here! I too take inspiration from what you describe about your own sleep and what you advise on how to think about it.

[Trish]

Thank you Chee for your reply. That information is very helpful even though your sleep issue may have been the reverse of mine.
Thanks so much Boylston for your reply. It is very comforting to know that you still had some difficult nights after completing the program. To know that some people still experience “hiccups “, doesn’t mean that the sleep restriction technique isn’t working. This makes me worry less which is key to it’s success along with patience. I think it is important for me to reinforce that “what happened the night before, doesn’t matter”.
Cheers, thanks again and wishing you both continued good sleep.
Trish

[Author]

Posts