[Outre333]

i have had trouble sleeping for two years now an it’s been the longest two years of my life.

[Martin Reed]

I hear you! Now you have found the insomnia forum, I hope you realize that you do not have to go through this alone. Do you know what triggered your insomnia? What is a typical night like for you?

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Outre333]

I get up to go to the bathroom around 2 AM. Are usually go back to sleep at that time, but I seem to wake up a lot throughout the night. I get mental when I can’t go back to sleep, my mind starts tracking the time. My insomnia started when everything in my life started falling apart. But now, even though things are a lot better, sleep still sucks. I’ve also always had inflammatory issues, so I’m getting tested to see if I’m pre diabetic. I ate so much sugar when I was younger. Thanks so much for writing back.

[Martin Reed]

Your experience is very common. Most cases of insomnia are triggered by a one-off event or a period of heightened stress. At this point, sleep becomes disrupted — and this is quite normal! However, what can then happen is that once the triggering event has passed we begin to pay a lot more attention to our sleep and even start to worry about it.

As soon as we pay too much attention to sleep and worry about it, we make it harder to sleep — and this makes us worry about sleep even more, making sleep even worse! Before you know it, you become consumed by a vicious circle of worry, stress, and anxiety about sleep and ever-worsening sleep.

The good news is these issues are usually addressed effectively using cognitive (thought-based) and behavioral (behavior-based) techniques, such as those used in courses based on CBT-I (such as my insomnia coaching course).

Have you looked into (or tried) CBT-I by any chance?

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Outre333]

I haven’t formally met with a cbt counselor, but I have looked up a lot of the  mental distortions and stuff. I’m very open to trying whatever. Last night was pretty good. I listened to a meditation the other day entitled, “extreme laziness”. Unlike other more focused meditations, it was more “lazy” and just allowed what was to just “be”. I’ve been saving your emails and following them. I totally see how my “head” gets in the way of my body. I woke at 4:30 this morning which was about 6 hours of sleep, after only waking twice! This was pretty good, but it was still dark outside, so I laid back down and just said, “I’m just going to rest and see what happens”. I think I went back to sleep for at least and hour and a half! I know all nights won’t be like this, but it was very encouraging. Thank you so much for all your help. Are there any particular email threads that you think I should read? It seems like many are very short and I would like to read the more encouraging ones, where people realize that progress, not perfection is the goal.

[Martin Reed]

It sounds as though you’ve found a good form of meditation that works well for you. Where did you find the extreme laziness session? I’m sure there are other members who might like to give it a try.

Since everyone finds value in different emails that I send, I would suggest reading through all of them and focussing on the ones that you feel will work best for you.

Good luck, and keep in touch!

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Optimistic zzzzz]

Hi there outre333,

 

My time period with insomnia is the same 2 years! I signed up for the two weeks of emails from Martin Reed but i just started. Tell me, have any tips or ideas worked for you? Either here on this website or other places?

let me know if you find anything good and I will post here as well. 🙂

thank you!

Optimistic zzzzz

 

 

[reneegavin]

The only thing that has been helping me a bit is picking a time to get up that I can live with 7 days a week (at least for now), and then trying to go to bed around the same time every night as well.   I had to play around awhile to find out what a good bedtime was, and for me, I actually started at my normal time, and added a few minutes every few nights (so it got a bit later) until I found one in which I started to sleep easier.  My sleep wake up time wasn’t crazy different before, but it would vary between 6:30-8:30 throughout the weekdays and weekends.  I found I can live with getting up at 7am every day to work for me.  I will eventually be trying to bump that back once the long summer nights start to dwindle and I can start getting to bed a bit earlier.  Good luck!!

[Outre333]

Hi Optimistic

I found a class on the “Insight Timer” mediation app that I liked a lot. It’s called, “10 secrets for deeper sleep” by Jennifer Piercy.

Also, I’m starting to do Dr. Andrew Weil’s breathing techniques and sticking to them religiously. He’s also worked with a guy named Dr. Rubin Naiman who’s cool as well. You can find a lot of their stuff on You Tube (or books on cd at your local library, which is what I did).

 

[Martin Reed]

I shared some breathing and relaxation techniques on the HealthCentral website. If you’d like to take a look, here’s a link:

https://www.healthcentral.com/slideshow/best-breathing-and-relaxation-techniques-sleep

Dartmouth College also has a good collection of relaxation downloads:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~healthed/relax/downloads.html

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Author]

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