[sleepyDeb]

Hello all, my first time here. Severe chronic insomniac for the past 4 years. Right now I’m averaging between 3-4 hours a night. My last 3 nights I’ve wrapped up less than 10 hrs total. I did the free 2 week sleep help and kept up with the SRT for 6 weeks. I never progressed past my 5 1/2 hr sleep window, maintaining a low 70% sleep threshold the entire time. I have really loved Martin’s videos. I feel I probably need to give it a go one more time. I’m considering doing his class, but it’s a lot of money; and yet getting my sleep back would be worth it. I’m going to try SRT one more time by myself. I don’t have a precise problem. One night it is a sleep onset issue, one night I may not sleep at all, more often I fall asleep within the hour and wake up 2 hrs later. Then I will either be up for a couple hours, maybe falling back asleep for another 1-2 hours, or not fall back to sleep at all. SRT for me was bed at 12 and wake at 5:30. So my frustration came if I awoke at say 2:30, I may not get back to sleep until 4:30-5, only to have to get up at 5:30. I just can’t stop my brain from waking up after a couple hours. My arousal alert is hypersensitive… Any help, or info on how working directly with Martin would be beneficial over doing this by myself? Thanks all!

[Martin Reed]

It’s great to hear you’ve been implementing sleep restriction, sleepyDeb! Have you also been implementing any of the other techniques you learned in the emails you received?

Sleep restriction helps build sleep drive and reduces the amount of time spent awake during the night — two issues that can perpetuate sleep disruption. However, there’s more that can be done to reduce arousal and increase the likelihood of sleep — one very helpful technique is to get out of bed whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good. Is this something you are doing?

You might also find it helpful to explore what it is about the idea of getting a couple of hours of sleep that generates such arousal/worry since the thoughts that generate worry are rarely accurate when we identify them — and this can strip them of their power!

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