[Hopingforzzzs]

Hi everyone, my first post here. Insomnia has been a feature of my life for awhile now.

I’m starting to realize what a tendency I have to ‘catastrophize’ things in my life – not only with insomnia, but with everything. Not sleeping has caused me to imagine the worst case scenario over and over again – especially when it happens 2 or more nights in a row. I really notice how I project my fears onto either my work life or my romantic life, feeling a huge sense of URGNECY that I have to CHANGE somethin in order to sleep. My mind creates a very strong story that the REASON WHY I’m not sleeping is because of a HUGE PROBLEM in either one of my relationships, or in my work life. And then I start imagining that, in order to fix my insomnia, I have to make a change to either my work or my relationships: I have to fix something in a relationship, or call in sick, or do something even more drastic like change careers or leave my partner.

Today is a challenging day because I had insomnia for 2 nights in a row, however I’m determined not to believe these catastrophizing thoughts. I don’t believe there’s actually a problem or that either I, my life, my career, or my relationships is/are fundamentally broken… I think my mind is just very afraid, and has a habit of creating these kinds of stories that then propel me to take actions that actually run counter to my goals and values.

Any encouragement would be very welcome and appreciated! Glad to be here.

Cheers,

Ryan

[Chee2308]

Hello Ryan and greetings to you!
My thoughts about sleep changed dramatically when I started realising that it is just a homeostatic process in the human body in the same way as eating, breathing, sweating, body temperature regulation, removal of waste products like urinating & defacating and of course sleeping (your body just takes care of all those processes by itself so there’s simply no point trying to control it because it would be like forcing yourself to breathe 300x per minute or eat 10,000 calories per day because you somehow became convinced that horrible things will happen to you or your health if you don’t). Instead the mistake that most insomniacs do is endlessly forcing themselves to control sleep as if it was a voluntary action like flexing your arms, walking, chewing etc). If you just allow sleep to happen, it just takes place naturally and only if you are sleepy enough which comes from being awake long enough. So the only explanation for not sleeping is you are either not sleepy from being too well rested or you are worrying unnecessarily and needlessly about it because you simply just can’t let go of control and are actively trying to override your own body. I hope this helps and best wishes to you.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Chee2308.

[hiker]

Hi Ryan, actually I think you have a lot of good insights into your sleep problem. Seems that you intellectually understand that your thoughts are sort of running the show. And no doubt just letting go is easier said than done.

When I find myself obsessing (which can take a while to realize sometimes, we can get so caught up), I do best when I can just observe the thoughts rather than trying to control them. This is true even when the thoughts are unpleasant (“I’ll never get over this” etc.) Watching my mind like this does not mean instant peace and sleep, but over time I have found it is a good way to sort of emotionally stay in shape.

A good example is Martin’s 6/30/21 email about a woman named Celia Gordon. Perhaps contacting his site will lead you to it.

Take care.

[Author]

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