[Sandysnore]

Hi. I have suffered from insomnia for over 40 years. I don’t remember a time when it hasn’t been an issue. There have been many times when it has completely dominated my life. I would often fall into a bad pattern of sleeping when I was stressed or when my sleep had been disturbed for some reason. These episodes could last for weeks or months. In between these episodes of insomnia I generally slept well and people often ribbed me for how easily I would doze off in-front of the TV. Insomnia has become particularly problematic in the past 6/7 years, partly due to the impact of other health problems and for the first time I ended up on a variety of medications (sleeping tablets and anti depressants). I have been following and listening to Martin for over 18 months now and did subscribe to his emails. I have found his talks/podcasts very informing and more helpful for my insomnia than the many years of therapy I have attended. Knowing that other people suffer as I do ( and have made massive improvements) and the fact that I don’t actually have to do anything (and sleep will come) has been tremendously helpful and encouraging. I have been free from all medication for the last 7 months. My struggle at the moment is that I feel I am having to face a problem that I have been running away from all these years believing that there was nothing I could do about it and that medication was the only answer. I now believe, most of the time, that I can overcome this. However, I find myself constantly waking up in the middle of the night and not always returning to sleep is a challenge to my (new found) positive belief. I realise that I am still judging my sleep and indeed my Fitbit tells me whether I’ve had good or bad sleep. Mostly I am able to continue and enjoy my day as planned which is a huge step forward for me. I just wondered if anyone had any advice on how to accept the negative beliefs (“I’m going down my usual spiral”, “I need medication to sleep”) without becoming overwhelmed by them and believing them. I do trust my body more that it knows how to sleep and when I do wake I tend to read or listen to a podcast or sometimes journal rather than panic. Generally this would help me nod off again at some point but this has now “stopped working” (and yes I know this is an unhelpful judgement). I get frustrated that I have to face yet another day feeling below par. Again I know that it is common to have poor nights (and days) and that it is part of the recovery process. But any suggestions/encouragement would be really appreciated. Thank you for reading

[Bronte]

Hi Sandysnore
You describe the torture of insomnia very well. Like you, I have had insomnia for over 40 years and can’t remember a time without it. Unlike you I never really had any times of respite when I slept well. I have always been taking some kind of medication to help me. Over the years it was initially sleeping tablets, which for me were the least useful as they made me feel so hungover the next day I may as well have been awake all night. Then it was amitriptyline, these were great until I realised they were causing me very bad gut issues. Then it was promethazine hydrochloride which were probably the best but I discovered long term use can cause dementia 😳.
So I have tried CBTi and paid for two sleep programmes, as well as Martin’s course. I found Martin’s principles and techniques to be the best and I quickly realised that insomnia is entirely about your mindset.
I also discovered during my research that it can be associated with trauma, particularly childhood trauma and the subsequent impact on your nervous system. I had emotional childhood trauma and prolonged stress in my adult life related to numerous bereavements and a highly stressful career in nursing. I believe all of this has disrupted my nervous system and caused me to be very hyper vigilant and to struggle to relax and ‘let my guard down’. Like you, in recent years, I have also suffered with a number of health issues that have left me with awful health anxiety. I have managed to escape most medications (like antidepressants) mainly because my gut won’t tolerate any of them.

After doing Martin’s course and listening to a lot of his podcasts I decided to give up taking the promethazine. Listening to peoples’ stories of how they overcame their insomnia helped me so much to get things into perspective and accept that there is nothing wrong with me, with my ability to sleep, with the mechanism that brings about sleep. It is all about giving it too much attention, focusing on it all the time and allowing the insomnia to dictate my life. It is overwhelming and it does make you feel awful. You can’t think clearly, it becomes hard to do your job efficiently, it impacts your social life, your happiness. However, in my opinion there are three main elements that cause it and perpetuate it.
1) FEAR – the fear of not sleeping and how it makes you feel the next day and then the terror of the complete and utter exhaustion and you still can’t sleep!!
2) ATTENTION – you think about it all the time. How bad will it be tonight? What if I don’t sleep again? How can I cope with an important event etc, etc….what is it doing to my health?
3) FIX IT – what can I do to fix it? What can I try next, meditation, podcasts, warm bath, hot milk, turning off phone/tv, other rituals. Which medications can I try? Calms, herbal, blah, blah

You have to find a way to turn all these elements off.
The first thing to realise is that people who can sleep well don’t need any rituals or habits, they just go to bed and sleep. None of it is necessary and in fact any kind of aid that you can use to help you sleep just holds you back and makes things worse.

I became so desperate. I stopped all medications and thought I would never sleep again! Sometimes I would be awake all night, for even 3 or 4 consecutive nights!! Never having more than 2 hours, never making up for sleep loss by having a ‘good night’. Sometimes I could get to sleep but then woke up numerous times in the night and by 4am that would be it, no more sleep. Other nights I could not get to sleep and I would read a book for hours. There are different theories about getting up and leaving the bed if you can’t sleep after 20 minutes, to break the association with poor sleep and your bed, but I didn’t find this worked for me (everyone is different). To me it told my brain, that’s it, it’s time to get up and get on with the day so I never felt sleepy again.
I discovered that if I just laid in bed awake and told myself I was resting and relaxed that I actually slept more than I thought I had (using a Fitbit).
So what I’ve learnt….. only go to bed when you are feeling sleepy (not tired) there is a difference. It doesn’t matter what the time is, in fact cover up the clock and don’t look at it at anytime. Obviously if you have to get up for work, use an alarm. I became so desperate that I actually stopped caring whether I slept, or not. There was nothing I could do to manipulate it so I stopped giving a **** whether it happened, or not. It’s one of the most powerful things you can do, but it’s not easy! It’s taken me a long time to get my head round this but when I go to bed now I think ‘it doesn’t matter whether I sleep, or not’, ‘there is nothing I can do to make it happen so I accept this in my life and I’m going to crack on anyway’.
STOP trying to fix it, STOP giving it attention and STOP the fear!!! It won’t kill you if you don’t sleep. It doesn’t matter. Take away its importance and reduce its power over you.
So…. I still, unfortunately, have bad nights and I never sleep more than about 5-6 hours. I still feel the hyper vigilance at times but I find meditation and journalling during the day really helpful. I don’t have to go to work anymore (yay!!) so I don’t put any emphasis on time. I don’t analyse my sleep, I don’t measure how much I’ve had, I just get on with my life and accept what each night brings.
Thanks for reading this. I hope it helps you to know that you are not alone with the insomnia misery and that you CAN sleep when you reduce its importance in your life.

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