[afshar]

Hello and with respect
Thanks for your tips
It reminds me, now I am in the third week of sleep restriction, I try to do everything carefully.
My average sleep in the first and second weeks was approximately 3.6. In the third week, it reached 4.5. This is a sign of improvement.
Our sleeping window starts from 10.5 at night and ends at 3.5 in the morning.
Dear Mr. Martin, in the evenings, before the start of the sleep window, i.e. from 5.5 or 6 in the evening, I fall asleep hard. And its severity is so much that I must go for a walk. Because I fall asleep as soon as I sit on the couch. As a result, I am under a lot of sleep pressure before the start of the sleep window. The question is, will this routine be fixed? And I walk Am I going right?
Thank you very much for your support. May God bless you.

[Chee2308]

Hello

The thing about feeling sleepy before your bed time is that you can’t control when your body feels sleepy or when it falls asleep when you finally go to bed.

There is no such thing as, I will set my bedtime at X and get out at Y and I expect to be completely asleep in between and be totally awake with zero sign of sleepiness outside of X and Y. The human body doesn’t work that way because it is not a switch you can turn off or on just because you are doing some things for sleep religiously! The human body works by hormones, and get cues from what you are doing or exposed to, for example, if you are relaxed and bored, doing nothing in a dimly lit room, you will naturally feel sleepy because the conditions are right for sleep. Whereas if you doing strenuous work like heavy lifting, go for a walk or are in an intensely bright room, then your body gets revved up and you become more awake. Stop having unrealistic expectations of yourself and your sleep. Sleep will always come regardless of what of you do or think, doing cbti or not doing it doesn’t make much difference, everyone will get sleepy as long as they have awake long enough and the problems start happening when people start “fixing” their times and expect to sleep X hours exactly and must stay asleep between whatever times they set themselves, because all these rigid rules only make it worse! Your best sleep happens when you do nothing, fix nothing, and expect nothing!

[afshar]

Thanks for your comment
He tells me that my sleep starter has not had any problems and does not have any. My problem is getting up early (2 am, 3 am, etc.) Ever since I was a child, I have gotten used to sleeping between 10 and 11 at night and falling asleep immediately, but I have trouble staying asleep.
In view of the above, in your opinion, how should I adjust the sleep window to apply sleep restrictions?

[Chee2308]

Nobody can control when they fall asleep or when they awake. There is no point trying to stop or prevent anything. Just spend total 6-7 hours in bed with consistent bed times is all you ever need. The rest is up to your body and not you. Good luck!

[afshar]

ok thanks

[afshar]

Greetings and Regards
In the discussion of stimulus control, it is suggested to get up after 20 minutes of not being able to sleep
On the other hand, some successful people announce in the podcast to sleep calmly and without tension in the bed
which one is correct? Should I get up after not sleeping for 20 minutes, or should I lie down calmly in bed and keep calm and rest without tension?
thanks

[Chee2308]

What did you do before you have insomnia when you couldn’t sleep in bed? Then just continue doing that. Your ability to sleep remains unchanged, it is independent of your actions and thoughts. Best of luck to you.

[afshar]

ok very thanks

[afshar]

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?

[BorgC]

I agree with this Chee. I like the version of a sleep window on this course. I tried sleep restriction on a sleep app that did not work for me because there were so many hard and fast rules with no exceptions and I’m a human being not a machine.

[Chee2308]

@afshar
It doesn’t really matter what you think or do, I already said it, your body ability to sleep is independent of all that. If you can’t sleep, the simplest explanation is your body just isn’t sleepy enough yet. So the only thing is to just wait, either stay in bed or get up, do whatever you like and try again later. The same scenario is like this: if you don’t feel hungry, but it’s meal time already, what do you do? So you can either just go ahead and eat first but you probably won’t have good appetite and the food won’t taste as good OR skip the meal, go do something else and then come back when you are really HUNGRY and by then you will likely have a roaring appetite and you eat a happy, hearty meal. The choice is up to you, you cannot control your sleep in the same way you can’t control your appetite. But the main point is sleep and hunger will always come to you the longer you have gone without them.

[afshar]

Thank you very much for the constructive answers. I am now in my sixth week of sleep restriction. The beginning of my sleep is almost constant and happens between 10 and 10:30 at night. But the time of awakening is not fixed at all. The time of awakening happens at 12:00 PM, 1:00 AM, 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM, 4:00 AM, or between these hours.
I try to follow everything carefully and during 5 weeks I slept well intermittently and 2 or 3 nights continuously and again I slept badly for 2 or 3 nights and this cycle is repeated (good bad and again good bad and repeat and repeat). And my sleep was not stable.
When do you think sleep reaches the desired stability?
thanks

[Chee2308]

If you slept well, of course you will start sleeping badly again 😂. What did you expect? Did you expect to keep sleeping well all the time just because you followed “sleep restriction”? Because I will emphasize this again, nothing will alter your ability to sleep, including doing sleep restriction. Your body is in total control not you. You won’t have any control over when you fall asleep or when you awake either!

If you have eaten, of course you won’t feel the hunger anymore, the same goes with sleep. What’s not normal is getting hungrier and hungrier even after having a large meal! Then that’s something wrong and you need to see a doctor immediately. The same with sleep, don’t expect to keep sleeping well after you have slept because unless you are sick or have an illness, that’s just not going to happen.

Go to bed at X and out at Y, the time in between should be around 6-7 hours. That’s it! Forget the rest. The rest is up to your body. Resist the temptation to keep “figuring it out”. Sure you can continue to worry about sleep, and ask endless questions about it, that’s your choice, but it won’t help you because there’s nothing else anyone can do including yourself. Whatever your state of mind, some kind of sleep will still happen for sure, but you’d have carried this worry and anxiety over nothing. You can only make it worse not better with worry and endless efforts! True peace is not achieved through sheer effort, but only through wisdom. See the wisdom in this, by not continuing the ignorance. Good luck.

[afshar]

yes thank you Thank you
Your answer was excellent. Of course, except for the sleep restriction, I follow all of the CBTI rules. If possible, please tell me when this incomplete sleep ring will be waxed? Sleep restriction is very hard and exhausting

[Chee2308]

The biggest step in my recovery were these:
1. Get off forums like these.
2. Stop asking too many questions.
3. Start accepting your situation.
4. And the final step: Stop doing sleep restriction. You can say to your insomnia, f*ck off and I will do whatever I want, sleep whenever I want, with no fear because I have been afraid of you and trying to run away for far too long, so I will not run anymore, and I will just sit here and let you do whatever you want and it will not affect me anymore.
5. Finally, laughing at yourself and others for allowing the situation to continue for so long.

Trust me, once you get into the correct mindset, you will get out on the other side with a smile on your face. Insomnia will no longer bother you because you realize it’s not an illness, there’s really NOTHING there, so there’s NOTHING TO FIX. I recommend you to watch YouTube under The sleep coach school, Talking Insomnia #39, interview with Sasha Stephens. After that, deeply reflect on it for a few weeks and go quiet for a while. Let everything settle down, okay? This will be the best thing you can do for yourself, less is more and doing nothing by going quiet is actually the best! Good luck to you.

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