[lynnbet]

Could you please try again? I don’t seem to be able to find your reply! I slept well last night:)

[Mr.Sandman]

Hey Lynnbet

I’m not sure why my message didn’t go through. Anyways, congrats on your success so far!! Staying consistent with cbti techniques definitely helps retrain the mind but just like anything it takes time. As for intrusive thoughts, you asked how I observe, acknowledge and accept them. I don’t! Haha . Here’s the way I like to think of it, pretend a salesman comes to your door while you’re sitting on the couch watching tv. You have 3 choices, You can either 1 open the door and acknowledge him or 2 open the door and argue with him on why you don’t need what he is selling. Or the third and best option, don’t open the door, don’t acknowledge him and keep watching your show. When I lay down and have an intrusive thought I just let it pass by and clear it out. I don’t acknowledge it. I think of it as a rain cloud just passing by. It’s because I know now that intrusive thoughts only affect my emotions if I let them.

Thoughts are thoughts, nothing more. Thoughts don’t control you but how you react to thoughts determines the outcome. Learn to not react to intrusive thoughts by blocking them. Practice meditating with your eyes closed for 5-10 mins at a time. Try to block out all sounds, thoughts etc. If a thought comes in try to either let it pass or accept it as just a thought and nothing more then clear your mind.

Hope this helps!!

[Mr.Sandman]

Also wanted to add.

Alternatively,If blocking thoughts out is too difficult, you could also try just accepting them and let them pass. See what works best for you. Don’t ever think past the initial thought. Never add to the thought. Never challenge a thought.

For example, you lay down and the intrusive thought is “you’re not going to sleep tonight and tomorrow is going to be horrible”

At that point, you accept that it’s just a thought and let it pass. No other thought given to it. You understand that it’s a thought but that’s the extent. Soon enough you’ll probably get the point were you can laugh at intrusive thoughts because you realize thoughts don’t control you. You are in control of how you respond

[Chee2308]

Hello lynnbet!

Sleep isn’t your problem and isn’t the solution either! Because no matter how you slept, you are always gonna worry what the next night will bring. So this is an ongoing tussle with your own thoughts and has nothing with sleep. As long as you are unwilling to give up the mental battle and keep engaging in it by trying to figure out things related to sleep, go on forums like this one and asking endless questions, you will continue to struggle with no end in sight. Look, you just slept well recently, so what are you still complaining about? You will keep complaining regardless of how you slept anyway, so at what point will you resolutely and steadfastly tell yourself, enough is enough and that you will move on with this regardless of what happens?

[Chee2308]

Excellent post from @Mr.Sandman and thank you for sharing it. It’s really heart-warming to read about success stories like these and deriving inspirations from them. I am a recovered insomniac myself so let me share my experience in a nutshell:

1. Insomnia is mostly a problem from overthinking and overdoing.
2. Sleep isn’t the problem nor the solution either. Thinking there’s a problem when there’s none becomes the problem. And it can quickly become self-sustaining, if you haven’t deconstructed yourself from the harmful thoughts and misconceptions about sleep.
3. Insomnia is basically losing sleep over sleep itself.
4. Your best sleep happens when you don’t try to fix things or go all out to make all the problems go away. The things you try to do often make little difference, if at all, but can be mentally stimulating enough to keep you awake because they cause you to go in self-vigilant and self-monitoring mode.

When it comes to psychophysiological insomnia, just set your bedtimes and forget all about it. Get on with your daytime activities and take it one night at a time, sleeping badly on one night means absolutely nothing and it won’t be the last time you slept either so stop setting imaginary and unnecessary sleeping goals for yourself. Don’t fret!

[Mr.Sandman]

Hey Lynnbet,

I’m so happy to hear my story was able to help you! The fact you’ve been sleeping 6 hours for five months is incredible 👏🏻
I will say that I no longer focus or give thought to sleep hours or quality. Time slept doesn’t always equate to sleep quality and I’ve found that not worrying about those things really help. For instance, I probably get around 6-8 hours of sleep but I don’t care or track it whatsoever. I just go to sleep whenever i start to pass out watching tv then I go lay down. I always wake up at the same time no matter what.

You said “ I am suddenly finding it a little hard to accept the difficult thoughts”. The thing is you don’t have to accept them! When I have an intrusive thought, I just clear it out. I don’t accept it or even acknowledge it. I definitely don’t battle it .

I had another ah-ha moment that may help you. My wife almost couldn’t sleep. I think that all the talk of my insomnia scared her. She started to get anxiety and when she laid down to sleep that night she couldn’t! She came in scared to death. I told her don’t worry it’s ok! It’s literally just a bad thought keeping you awake nothing more lol. When I said that out loud it kinda sounded so funny. Like months of no sleep and I’m letting something as simple as thoughts control me enough to stop me from sleeping 😂. That night she laid back down and went to sleep. Seeing her in my same predicament but being able to clear the thoughts and go to sleep after being scared to death gave me an incredible boost of confidence!

I still get negative thoughts before bed. Sometimes they are stronger or worse than other nights depending on how tired I am. The majority of times I just clear it out and think of something else other times I’ll even laugh at the thoughts. I laugh because I find it funny that I let an untrue intrusive thought create enough of a reaction to prevent me from sleeping for months.

When you go to lay down and you have a negative thought. Clear it out! Remember that it is just a thought nothing more. Don’t let thoughts control your emotions! Easier said than done of course but with practice you’ll find that you’ll be able to clear everything out. Bad, good, everything. Literally thinking of nothing before bed helps me fall asleep within minutes.

I hope this helps!! Let me know if you have more questions.

Sleep tight,
Mr.Sandman

[lynnbet]

Hi Chee, thank you for hour very frank comments! I totally agree with you! Yes I am aware I am almost a bit obsessed with this sleep thing, and even after a strings of relatively good nights, I am still a bit worried. Perhaps it is a bit of ptsd? After completed from Martin’s course, I kind of stopped looking at this forum for a while and it’s only after last week’s bad nights, I started coming back to this forum and I guess looking for some assurance. You are right, if I don’t rise above these thoughts, it will never leave me alone! I just have to not give damn about my sleep for while! Thank you!

[lynnbet]

Hi Mr. Sandman, thank you again for another super helpful msg. It is very clear to be that these thoughts are just thoughts, nothing more nothing less. What I am going through now is: like you I have these thoughts before I go to bed (day time is already much better, I hardly think about it), I am still trying to find my own method, to either gently brush the thoughts away or like you suggest too, ignoring them. You have used both methods? There is a saying that by ignoring them, they will constantly be coming back. Therefore I am slightly confused of how to deal with the thoughts. I know it’s not the sleep itself, but finding the the best way to deal with the difficult thoughts is what I am going through! Anyway, I guess bottom line, let’s not be tangled in them! Good night to you all!

[Becc]

Hey Chee, I really like your positive but straight forward take on this. I do agree with you – that insomnia is primarily based on overthinking and overdoing. It’s hard when you’re in it though to see it this way. You think there is something wrong with you. Did you always think like this or was it after doing the course that helped you? I’m new here. This is my first week and struggling with the catastrophic thoughts. Interested to know how you dealt with this and got yourself to this mind set. Thanks!

• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by Becc.

[Chee2308]

Hi @Becc!

Welcome to this forum. I reached this conclusion after periods of deep reflection and eventually I just saw the light. As far as insomnia is concerned, there is nothing to fix here. You are just being flustered and jerked into action by an over-protective mind and you eventually just let go until it doesn’t bother you anymore. When you were a child or a baby, did you think about sleep, ever? Surely there were times when you slept poorly as a kid, but did you think anything was worth fixing then? You need to start being that kid again, be blissfully ignorant about your sleep problems and when you no longer think there’s a problem, it no longer is one, that’s the weirdest thing about insomnia, when you forget about it, it’s no longer there.

[BorgC]

This is very helpful, thank you.

[afshar]

Also, thanks for the comments you have shared, it is very constructive.
But forgetting insomnia is very difficult. I have been involved with it for years. When there is bitterness. A mind that sets a pattern

[afshar]

Greetings and Regards
With regards, why remembering the bitter memories of the past, such as financial failure in the past years, causes sleep disturbances at night?
And how is the method of defending this case?

[Packer Fan]

When you say CBT-1, what do you exactly mean? I am confused with this part.

Thank you

[BorgC]

I typed CBT-1 by mistake, sorry, it should have been CBT-i the i stands for insomnia. I tried a sleep app before doing this course and the CBT-i was too restrictive regarding following set rules and the sleep window was rigid and they worked out for me when I had to go to bed and for how long (after I had to estimate how long I slept for every night and how long I was awake) and I had to get out of bed if I didn’t sleep in 10 minutes. This course uses ACT-i which allows you to stay in bed as long as you’re not struggling with wakefulness or even get out of bed and listen to music or even stay in bed listening to music or reading etc as long as you’re not struggling with being awake. ACT-i suits me much better.

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