[JakeAwake]

Hi folks,

First, big respect to all of you who post here. I’ve been quietly reading this forum since my most recent bout of insomnia struck, and I’ve been heartened by the similarities of our shared situation as dysfunctional sleepers. We are so not alone.

I’ve really a very simple question: What’s the longest that you’ve been continuously awake during a bout of insomnia, how do you cope with it, and how does it end?

I regularly go a full night without sleep (five nights for me, in fact, since the beginning of January), and am getting rather used to them. I must admit I’m a fan of ACT-i (and have read Guy Meadows’ book), so I usually stay in bed and mindfully attempting to not get too worked up. Acceptance and commitment can be bloody hard, and those dark hours can be long and lonely (particularly whilst my husband snores blissfully beside me), but I see the wisdom therein. I get up the next morning, usually feeling dreadful (both emotionally and physically), but, I go to work, and live my day as best I can. Though, I’m not always a ray of sunshine. It beats sitting at home panicking about it.

Normally, after I do an all-nighter my sleep gets back on track, and I may go a week to ten days before another one occurs. In fact, normally, I’m a brilliant sleeper. My head hits the pillow, and I’m out. That is until our old gloomy friend insomnia decides to visit (yet again).

One of the most frustrating things about my own insomnia is that it’s sporadic – it comes and goes. I had a bad month or two early last year when Covid hit, and things haven’t been good since the beginning of this year. But, I know it will, eventually, pass.

Getting back to my question, I’ve only ever gone one full night without sleep (so, awake for about 40+ hours), but there’s a part of me that lives in absolute dread fear of going a second or even a third night (as has happened to my Doctor, who suffers from sleep issues himself). It’s my personal idea of hell, in addition to the blight of insomnia. What’s yours?

I’m well aware that we will “always fall asleep in the end, as our bodies know what they have to do” – I’m just curious how long it takes for some of you to get there.

Jake ( :

[Martin Reed]

As you have experienced yourself, after a night of very little or no sleep, sleep drive becomes very strong and this makes sleep far more likely on subsequent nights (as long as we don’t do anything to reduce that sleep drive — for example, by spending more time in bed, napping during the day, being inactive during the day, etc).

With this in mind, it’s quite ironic that we become really concerned that a night of no sleep will increase the likelihood of additional nights of no sleep when, biologically, the opposite is true!

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