[Ines_I]

First of all, hi. I’m new here, and I would like to start apologizing because English it’s not my first language and for sure there will be tipping mistakes.

I came here looking for some advice since I’ve been having big sleeping problems for a few months. Reading and reading, and watching Martin’s videos on youtube (thanks a lot for your work, Martin! It means lot for people who are struggling) , I realized that what I thought it was some kind of unusual type of insomnia it’s quite common, which kind of gave kind of relief.

My main problem, which took me a while to understand, it’s:

1. I fear the consequences of sleep deprivation. Like really really scared. Not health problems in a long-term, but the sleepiness , the headache, the inability to go throw at work (it’s been happening from the beginning, that wouldn’t be a surprise if they got me fired)… I feel so so bad the nights I don’t get sleep.
2. Since the consequences of not sleeping are really causing me a real trouble (specially at my job, and in my head), and it’s not not just the anxiety of a thougt about a possibility, I’m worried about my sleeping.
3. That worry keeps my arousal system so high, and even if I’m so so sleepy, the moment I go to bed and try to relax, it’s like a jumping of adrenaline, or even If I get to fall sleep, I wake up the very next moment. Anxiety, fear, worry, crying… The sensations and manifestations vary.

I have no clue on how to break that cycle. I know that I can sleep, I really do know, but I just don’t know how to. I don’t know how to low this fears nor how to not be afraid of the following day since I know the consequences of no sleep. I t doesn’t matter if one or two nights I sleep well, the fears are still there, just the same.

I’m taking currently sleeping pills. I’ve been taking them for the last month.

I’ve been trying mindfulness too, but it’s hard. I get more anxious and I feel pressure, even though I try to repeat myself that this is not just because of sleeping. The acceptance thing it’s not getting throw me, and I don’t even know if I’m really accepting the situation, or if I’m doing something wrong…

I also tried sleep window of five hours, without pills, but after two nights in a row of maybe half an hour of sleep, I got really scared, exhausted, feeling that I can’t… and I come back to the sleeping pills.

I don’t know how to not put pressure on myself to sleep, I don’t know how to eliminate efforts to sleep, and I don’t know how to get rid of my main fear, which is the consequence of no sleeping night.

Right now I feel so lost, and I would love and really appreciate any kinf of advice. This is being hell.

Thank you very much for reading me, guys, it means a lot.

[vmr]

i feel exactly the same, does the sleeping pills helps you sleep? because in my case, they only give me some hours of sleep with constant awakenings

[Ines_I]

Same, verte little hours (between 2h – 5h) with awakenings in between

[Martin Reed]

I sense that you’re really close to a breakthrough moment, Ines_I, because you have managed to get so close to proving to yourself that you have a natural ability to sleep by giving a sleep window a try to build more sleep drive.

The fact of the matter is, sleep drive ALWAYS wins in the end! When we’ve been awake for long enough, we will always sleep. It’s impossible to remain awake indefinitely.

So, if we allot an appropriate amount of time for sleep and only allow ourselves to sleep during that sleep window, that is when — sooner or later — we will sleep.

After two nights of around half-hour of sleep, sleep drive is going to be very strong indeed. So, I have a very strong feeling that the sleep you got after taking a pill on that third night was sleep that occurred because of your intense biological sleep drive (rather than the pill itself). On that note, if sleeping pills actually worked, you probably wouldn’t be posting in this forum!

From reading your post, it certainly sounds as though arousal is your main challenge at the current time. The good news is, there are many things we can do to reduce that arousal and create better conditions for sleep!

A few things that might be helpful to start with include adding some “good stuff” to your days so they aren’t consumed with endless thinking and worrying about sleep (this also helps you explore the accuracy of the belief that a difficult night of sleep leads to the day being 100% awful, 100% of the time), remaining active during the day (this also helps lower fatigue), implementing a sleep window to reduce the opportunity for extended nighttime wakefulness, and getting out of bed to do something a bit more enjoyable whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good.

I hope this helps!

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[Ines_I]

Thank you very much do your response! I will try yo keep in mind this! I’ll keep going through!

[Author]

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