[Hopeful Henny]

Just wanted to drop in and share some inspiration in case this might be helpful to others that are in the messy middle right now.

I started the course in November of 2022 because I was at my wit’s end with insomnia.

A little backstory, I started taking Ambien in 2017 because I was not able to fall and stay asleep. I started on 2.5 mg nightly. By November of 2022, I was taking 10 mg Ambien and CBD sleep gummies and STILL NOT SLEEPING. At that point, I started having panic attacks during the day. I felt completely out of control and powerless over what was happening to my mind and body.

I found Martin’s podcast, listened to people’s stories, and felt a glimmer of hope. I could hear my story in their stories.

I started with his free 10-day course and before it ended, I decided to sign up for his paid course so I could get his personal support.

I am not going to tell you that my journey with the course was easy, because it wasn’t. At times I felt like I was free-falling into an abyss of alligators. I seriously wondered if I had some special type of incurable insomnia and nothing was going to work for me.

But over time, I started to notice small improvements. My first goal was to get off all sleep aids. As I started to reduce the sleep aids, I was waking up in the middle of the night and was unable to go back to sleep. My first lesson was to not struggle with that wakefulness. I literally repeated the mantra, “Don’t struggle. Just allow it. Wakefulness is not dangerous. It is normal.” So I stopped fearing middle-of-the-night wakefulness (so my fight/flight response stopped getting activated) and the middle-of-the-night wakefulness was not a problem anymore. I would wake up and fall back to sleep.

I continue to titrate off my meds and all was fine until I was off the last of the Ambien and then all hell broke loose. I then had all kinds of disruptions. I had trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking up too early. By this point though, I had been keeping good records of how I was feeling and I realized that even after a crappy night’s sleep, or even after 4 nights in a row of terrible sleep, I STILL FELT BETTER THAN I DID AFTER TAKING MEDS. I wasn’t having panic attacks, I was just tired.

I told myself that if this is as good as it gets, I am still better off than I was when I was taking meds because at least I wasn’t having daily panic attacks. So I stopped trying to make sleep happen and sort of accepted that my current situation was good enough. All of this allowed my nervous system to settle and slowly but surely sleep started happening.

Now here I am approximately a month after completing the course and I sleep about 6-7 hours a night most nights without any sleep aids. Occasionally, I will have a poor night’s sleep but I can recognize that stress on some level is the cause. Because my norm is to sleep well, I trust that I will sleep well the next night. Rarely do I have two nights in a row where I don’t sleep well.

I actually never came on this forum when I was going through the thick of it because I didn’t want to read anything that would trigger my stress response regarding sleep, so if you’re in the messy middle and you’re on here, I suggest only reading the success stories :).

Getting off of sleep drugs was one the hardest, yet biggest accomplishments of my life. I still wonder if I am dreaming :O).

If I can do it, so can you. Trust the process and just keep putting one foot in front of the next.

Wishing all of you the very best with your sleep. Sweet dreams :).

[Chee2308]

Just one word to describe your incredible story. WOW! Thank you for sharing it. Wakefulness isn’t the enemy or dangerous, a powerful message right there. Don’t struggle, let the body take over naturally. I suppose insomnia itself needs a whole new definition too, it really isn’t about the inability to sleep, because at its core is the misguided struggle with wakefulness.

[BBS]

I’m starting my journey to cure my insomnia and this was very inspiring to read. I became dependent upon vodka and trazadone and just this week dumped my vodka and threw the trazadone down the toilet because as you said non natural sleep methods make you feel AWFUL! Way worse than a sleepless night. Thank you for sharing.

[Lee]

That’s great news! once you started the program before you began seeing results (mor consistent sleep) ?

[Lee]

Typo above! I mess as mt to say how long did it take to start seeing results from the program? Weeks or months?

[Hopeful Henny]

Hi there,

I started seeing results immediately. Sleep Restriction really helped me consolidate my sleep so I was getting better quality rather than spotty quantity. However, I had a rebound effect when I stopped taking Ambien so the insomnia came back with a vengeance. In essence, I took 2 steps forward and then 4 steps back. By the end of the 8th week, I was sleeping 6-7 hours a night.

[Lynn M]

Thank you for posting about your issues with medications. I’ve been on meds for insomnia for 30+ yrs. The dr kept increasing it or adding to it. Getting off of 1 prescription a year ago increased my insomnia and I never really recovered. Like you I was ok until I got off the last of it. I’ve just started this program and your post is very encouraging that I will make it if I persist. When I start getting off the other medications I will remember that it wasn’t always smooth sailing for you but it was worth it!! Thanks again for sharing!!

[Pauline N]

Thank you! I want to cry. That there is hope to be able to sleep!
So scared right now. Feeling like this will never end.

[Hopeful Henny]

The journey of facing insomnia has been one of the most challenging yet. It is not for the faint of heart. For me, insomnia became the big huge monster under the bed. The more I feared it the stronger and more powerful the monster became. Not only did the insomnia monster monopolize my nighttime, but it eventually took over the daytime too. It was ruling over my life. The more power it had, the more I fear it, which gave it more power. It was a vicious cycle. It took me nine years to build up this big scary monster.

This program allowed me to begin facing the monster one moment, one night, and one day at a time.

In my opinion, Sleep Restriction reset my body which was incredibly helpful. But that was the easy part. The biggest hurdle for me was resetting my mind. This is where Stimulus Control (getting out of bed when I was stressed out) and using the other thinking strategies came into play. I had to rethink how I thought about sleep, wakefulness, my bed, etc. I really really struggled with this. My mind wanted to keep fearing the insomnia monster, as it had been doing for nine years. But the strategies were encouraging me to think and do things differently.

My mind was like the scared 4-year-old little girl that did not want to look under the bed at the big scary monster. The strategies were like the loving adult coming to show me one moment at a time that there was actually no scary monster.

I literally learned to be very kind to the scared part of me. I couldn’t wish that part of me away. She was coming with me and I just decided to be kind and loving to that part of me.

There came a point in my journey when the struggle shifted from not sleeping at night to actually staying awake during the day, especially after the sun went down. It felt like torture trying to stay awake. I was so freaking tired, all my body wanted to do was sleep. At that point, I was fighting to stay awake. It was a quiet the paradox. Where I had been trying to sleep before and felt unsuccessful, now I was trying to stay awake. I would doze off if I stopped moving. I felt like a walking zombie.

That particular night when it was time to go to bed, I remember telling myself that I don’t care if I sleep or not, that I just wanted my body to relax and stop working so hard to stay awake. That was the point of total surrender. I gave up fighting it all and I slept. That night, my brain and body learned that it could sleep. That was the night that I realized there was no monster under the bed.

Facing insomnia is no joke, y’all. Keep trudging the road. The only way past is through. It will eventually get easier. Keep listening to the success stories and allow others’ strength and hope to be the beacon of light on those lonely dark nights.

[Author]

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