[lisatwjones]

I’ve struggled with insomnia for 3 years now. I used to have nights upon nights when I couldn’t sleep at all. Here and there, that still happens. But every night I experience light and interrupted sleep. I developed this awful compulsive habit of checking my clock every time I wake up–up to 7 times, and counting down how many hours I have left to sleep. During the final hour, I count down the minutes, terrified of having to get up from bed and face the day. I literally have anxiety attacks over this. Every day. Wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience. Because now I feel like this is particular to me.

[Chee2308]

Hello and welcome to the forum

If you realize clock watching increases your stress about not sleeping well, so why not stop?

[lisatwjones]

Thank you for replying to me. The whole idea of compulsions is that they’re incessant, irresistible, and hard to discontinue. I was just writing to ask if anyone else experienced something like what I’ve gone through so that I wouldn’t feel alone in it. I literally would count down to the final minutes of being in bed because of the anxiety associated with getting up. I would also leave my bedroom, go to the futon in my living room and often end up napping, which defeated the purpose of getting up.

However, recently I came up with something of a solution. I decided to set an alarm, and to keep my phone in a separate room, so I can’t check it, and also so I would HAVE TO get out of bed to turn it off. So now I also get up and stay up. I have almost completely stopped trying to estimate in my mind what time it, and have instructed myself to “just wait on the alarm.” The only thing that’s kind of gone wrong is that I’ve been waking up before it goes off.

This process is very new to me and I was worried that somehow I might fall back into my old habit. So I was asking if anyone else goes through the same thing.

[Chee2308]

Waking up is okay. It’s also normal. Because even normal sleepers wake up before their alarms!

Be okay with waking up. Expect and welcome them even! How you respond shapes your recovery. If you keep reacting explosively and keep thinking that waking up is frightful and needs to be avoided at all costs, then you will continue to struggle. But if you respond gently and continue to be calm, patient and disciplined, there is almost no way you can’t recover.

Do something fun with nighttime wakefulness. Do you lie in and just get comfortable? Or get up and do something else enjoyable? That is entirely up to you, a good baseline is to do what you always did before your insomnia. Just having a regular bedtime schedule is almost always all that’s needed for recovery.

Good luck and I hope you overcome your struggles soon.

[Author]

Posts