[Mira]

Hey you lovely people 🙂

I’m  Mira from Switzerland and I would like to share my story with you.

I always had sleeping problems, since I was a child. It never bothered me too much, it was only some times it didn’t  bother me much. Since I entered professional life this is a different story. Since about 6 months I  have severe sleep-maintenance difficulties, I was uplanning around 4 or 5 and can’t fall asleep again. Since I can only sleep until 6 due to 1 hour commute, I get during the week around in averase 5.5 hours of sleep. I  can sleep 10 hours during a weekend day though!

I am soon starting a new job in May and I really need this to improve, I want to be my healthiest fittest self when I start my new career! This is why I looked for this forum.

I also went to the doctor’s and she diagnosed strong iron defeciency and beginning anemia. Apparently there’s  something called iron deficiency insomnia! I now get iron injections next Thursday.

Meanwhile I am trying to follow the two week”s sleep course advice and I try not to drink coffee, as it lowers iron absorption and prevents me from sleeping.

Now my colleague today said I  was tired the whole week. I always am tired, just normally coffee covers it! Do you have some advice for me how to deal with my hopefully only temporary tiredness during the day? The sleep restriton therapy kind of automatically makes you tired right?

PS. : I’m also a HSP (highly sensitive person) and I tend to worry about what others might say or think, although I know I shouldn’t.

Thank you so much for your help guus!

 

[Martin Reed]

Welcome to the forum, Mira. What a wonderful part of the world you live in!

The fact that you are able to sleep for ten hours on the weekend is proof that you are capable of sleep, and that your body wants to sleep, and that nothing is wrong with your sleep system. From what you have outlined, it sounds as though your priority should probably be observing a regular and appropriate sleep schedule on every day of the week. This will actually have the effect of improving your weeknight sleep and help you get through the work days.

Try not to put any pressure on yourself to improve your sleep by a certain self-imposed deadline. Doing this only makes sleep more stressful and difficult — and such a goal isn’t really constructive because sleep cannot be controlled in this way.

Sleep restriction might leave you feeling a bit more tired over the short-term, but since it involves allotting roughly the same amount of time for sleep as you actually spend sleeping, it rarely leads to less sleep.

—

If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Mira]

Thank you Martin for your advice!

Yes Switzerland is beautiful, I prefer the summer though cause I love hiking in the mountains. Now it’s  snowy and cold but you can go skiing which is also nice 🙂

Yes I understand what you mean with the sleep restriction approach. I guess what is most hard for me is getting up at 6 on the weekend, as I use it to catch up with sleep. My bf is sleeping in until about 8 or 9 and it’s still dark outside.  But I will try to be persistent!

Greetings to US from me 🙂

[aquarius740]

i’ve been doing that for years – if i know that i have to get up at 6 for work, i’ll wake up early and lie there waiting for the alarm to go off. sometimes i can fall back asleep but most of the time i can’t. i’d really like to learn how, though, lol. i don’t think i have an iron deficiency; i think i just subconsciously worry about oversleeping and being late (the same thing happens when i have to get up early to go to the airport, and i know a lot of people who do this). i don’t have this problem when i don’t have anywhere to be in the early morning.

i’m starting to realize that there’s actually very little that we can control when it comes to being on time. say you woke up exactly at 6 and got ready for work in plenty of time to leave by 7 (or whenever you have to leave). you leave your house right on time only to get stuck in a traffic jam (it’s happened to me a bunch of times, and always on “perfect” mornings, lol). there’s nothing you can do about it except go with the flow. (i’m not trying to make you worried about traffic jams; i just want you to see that things often don’t go according to plan.) this is tough for me to put into practice and i’m still struggling with it because part of me always wants to be in control, but i hope that this will help you a little bit 🙂

[Mira]

Thank you Aquarius740 for your help! Only thing is, I don’t worry about that I won’t be on time when I wake up. Sometimes I start worrying that I won’t be able to fall asleep again, but other times, not even that. That’s also why I struggle to get out of bed and read a book, because often, I am tired and don’t worry about anything, but still can’t fall asleep again. Sometimes I get very warm when I wake up and start to sweat, and I have learned that getting up when this happens does help me. What helps me also a bit is thinking about that I should just accept what comes, like if I sleep it’s ok, if not then it’s also ok, I will be able to deal with it. That takes the tension about it a bit, but until now hasn’t solved the problem.

[aquarius740]

that last part – “if i sleep it’s ok, if not then it’s also ok, i will be able to deal with it” – is very reassuring to me and what i’d like to work on 🙂 maybe you’re just worried about your work performance?

[Mira]

Hey aquarius740, I am happy to be able to give you some positive thoughts. Yes you’re right, it started with me being worried about my work performance. But now I quit my job and will start a new one in May. Might be that all the change made my insomnia worse. But shouldn’t I be happier now that I quit, as i  wasn’t happy at my current job? I’m  a bit annoyed because my sleeping issues are getting worse, if anything. What I do:

1. I stopped drinking coffee on a regular basis
2. I banned my phone from my room and now get woken up by an old-fashioned alarm
3. I try to not watch TV one hour before bedtime
4. I tried CBD and a sleep tea. They help me to fall asleep but not when I wake up too early
5. I try to stick to 11 to 6 sleeping frame
6. I even forced myself to get up at 6 on the weekends,  which led in me waking up too early again (4 or 5)
7. Now I wanted to try sleep restriction. But I’m now super tired at 10 already. So I  went to bed at 10.45 but woke up at about 4 again.

I feel like now that I don’t sleep on the weekend either, I can’t  catch up my sleep. Also for sleep reduction, how can I know my efficiency,  if I shouldn’t look at the watch?

I’m a bit stuck.

[aquarius740]

hey, mira – i’m in the same boat and i’ve done most of those things, too. it’s really frustrating because i don’t know what to do, either. if i get myself out of bed when i don’t feel sleepy, go do something else, and get back in bed only when sleepy, then i do fall asleep until 6 but i’m exhausted because it’s so late when i finally do get back in bed (i think i fell asleep for good at 1 am this morning).

a couple of things that i’ve noticed about myself that might help you – i have trouble if i’m too hot OR too cold, and sometimes i need a little snack (like a tablespoon of peanut butter) to help myself fall back asleep.

[Author]

Posts