[Liam]

In the first two years of my insomnia, even when I could not sleep, I used to have these points of drowsiness I experience twice during the night, first at around 9pm and another one at around 5am.

Lately however, my insomnia is worsening with worried thoughts about matters I could not put a sure solution to or immediate action due to current life situation. These worries keep me up as well as my anxiety over being unable to sleep for an extended period of time.

Have I reset my sleep cycle to the point where I don’t get any of these moments of drowsiness anymore which in the past have helped to put me to sleep?

[Scott]

Hi @Liam!

There are three reasons (3 P’s) why insomnia is caused:

– Predisposing factors;
– Precipitating factors;
– Perpetuating factors

Based on your story, it appears that precipitating factors such as stressful life events that cause an occasional restless night has advanced to a perpetuating issue for you. Typically, once the stressful event (new job, new baby, moved to a new city, etc) has passed, sleep usually returns to normal. For some people though, one night of poor sleep can result in that person trying to compensate the next day by modifying their day/night (going to be earlier, worrying about another poor night, taking a nap, etc). When we change our behaviors in an attempt to improve our sleep, it makes the issue worse. Since sleep doesn’t respond to our attempts, it’s usually another night of restless sleep which heightens our arousal system the following day. Does that sound familiar?

As you mentioned, worrying about sleep usually makes sleep more difficult – which leads to more worry about sleep! One way to break the anxious cycle is to improve the quality of your day by keeping social events, eliminating daytime naps and exercising because the better you make your days, the less anxious you are about sleep.

Hope that gives you some insight!
Scott

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