[agillhoolley]

I’ve been struggling with not sleeping through the night for about a month.
Every 2-3 days I have one good night of 6-8 hours, and then it’s right back to struggling again. If on my good night I sleep at 11 pm-6 or 7 am, the next night I think ‘Ok, let’s do this again.’ I feel sleepy, so I lay down. And then…nothing. In fact, I often can’t get to sleep until 4 am and still wake at 7 am.
I want out of this cycle, but the one good night feels so good!
How do I correct this to get consistent sleep each night?
I am working on acceptance, but I got 2 kids and a job. It would be one thing if I got to sleep easily and woke up in the middle of the night, but I don’t even know if I will even fall asleep at all sometimes.
Do I forgo my sleep signals on my good nights and push through to stay awake until like 12-6? How the heck do I stay awake?
No matter what night, a good or bad one, I’m struggling to understand what to do. It feels good laying in bed, but when I’m hitting the 4 hour mark of no sleep it’s like ugggghhh. I don’t want to get up but I don’t know what to do
My family goes to bed around 9:30-10. What am I going to do for those hours? I’m so not used to this. I used to go to bed no problem at 9:30-6.

[Martin Reed]

Welcome to the forum 🙂

Sleep isn’t happening as you want it to (and as it used to happen in the past!) and that has generated some concern. As you try to fix this problem, you find yourself struggling.

The “good” night that’s happening every few days is evidence that your sleep system isn’t broken — you can still generate good nights of sleep.

So, perhaps something has changed in terms of how you are currently approaching sleep and how you are responding when sleep doesn’t happen as you want it to.

As you reflect on your experience over the past month, what changes — if any — have you made to how you approach sleep and how you respond to being awake at night and what have you learned from that?

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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.

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[agillhoolley]

At first I was extremely anxious and googling constantly about this, but I have since adopted the sleep window and am not doing the things during the day to induce sleep later. I just do them for the sake of doing them. I’m trying to fill my days with other things to occupy my mind and waiting until I feel tired. I have gotten up to watch tv and stuff.
I’m just so fatigued and not feeling well each day. I had fatigue issues prior to all of this starting so I’m like not certain what is causing that. People tell me chronic stress or perhaps a viral infection but I don’t know.
I just don’t know how to get consistent sleep. It would be great to get 6-7 hours every night

[Chee2308]

The final piece of the puzzle is becoming convinced you are already getting all the sleep your body needs.

That final step is truly letting go. Not chasing sleep anymore. Not becoming afraid anymore. This is the key to a long term resolution. When insomniacs recover for good, it doesn’t mean they get consistent 6-7 hour sleep all the time without fail. It just means they are no longer worried and have given up chasing perfect sleep.

When you drop all expectations and are no longer afraid, that’s truly when sleep comes. Because at this stage, you are essentially losing some sleep over sleep itself. So how to not let worrying about sleep get in the way of sleep happening? That’s the key to the problem. You have to really let it go. Not by pretending and fear. But with conviction and faith. Good luck.

[ktMD]

Chee2308, I think you’re on to something. Letting go and accepting wakefulness is the hardest part. For a while I have awakened at 3am every night. I was resistant to this and developed hyperarousal. Last night I awakened at 4:30 am. I tried to do the AWAKE exercise but just decided to get up. It is still challenging to acknowledge and allow these thoughts/feelings!

[agillhoolley]

Acceptance and being entirely ready for the change seems to be a massive theme in my life right now – I have to just accept that my body crapped out from exhaustion and sleep was affected. Letting go of outcomes and fear is the key. Thank you all

[Chee2308]

Hi all

I think you get the idea but the being convinced part is probably not there yet. Yes acceptance is key but how to be convinced?? That is usually the major hurdle and I admit it won’t be easy, it wasn’t for me and everyone else. We all want to be in control so giving up that control appears counter-intuitive. But that is exactly what needs to be done if you want to beat this thing called insomnia. You have to give up the struggle fully and voluntarily. And you must also be prepared to accept some bad sleep whenever and wherever it happens.

Insomnia is usually an unhealthy obsession with sleep. The human mind can be obsessed with anything under the sun as long as you provide a stimulus for it. For many people, having just one or two nights of poor sleep is enough to trigger a lifetime obsession with sleep which then completely takes over your life and becomes the main focus of everything you do, think or decide.

Insomnia is kinda like believing you need to breathe 1000x per minute or something bad will happen. Or believing you need to eat exactly 2,500.01 calories per day or something bad will happen to your health. Or whatever other things you give your brain to zoom in on. In this case, it’s believing you need X hours every night.

So how to get out of this loop? Well stop obsessing over it. But for sleep is not that easy because you do it every night and you are forced to confront this nightmare over and over again.

You need patience and discipline. Do it one step at a time. For example, if you take pills then try to wean off them. If you have a bunch of sleep rituals every night, then reduce them one by one. Eventually, your sleep confidence grows and the obsession wears off. Remember insomnia feeds off your obsession, when you cut off the obsession, the whole thing dies slowly. Good luck.

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