[sg17630]

Hi. My name is Serg. I’m 36 and I have partial insomnia. Especially early awakenings.

My typical night looks like this. I go to bed at 10:30-11pm and every day I gets awake at 3-4-5am and cannot manage to fall asleep again. Therefore I often feel not very good through the day: my muscles don’t recover, I have “stupid” head (it feels like somebody hit me in the head, sometimes i have headache), ear ringing and feeling dry eyes constantly.

Cannot nap at noon as well – cannot manage to fall asleep. I feel tired but not able to fall asleep and just lay in a bed for some time.

Physical activities aren’t helpful, but vice versa: they tend to worse situation, they lead to less sleep at night, and having exhausted feeling next morning. I tried many: workouts, running, various distances – 5 to 20km running, as I said: the more activities – the worse sleep.
Alcohol. 0.5l beer at evening – no help but even worse sleep.
Coffee/tea withdrawal – looks like no effect at all. So, I’m still drinking 1-2 cups of coffee/day because withdrawal takes no effect.

Medications:

Fluoxetine – feel better through the day but no effect on sleep, still wake up early. Stopped taking it.
Mirtazapine 15mg – had helped me for 2 months and stopped its good effect when I started my physical activities again(running and workouts). I’m taking mirtazapine 15mg at evenings bot it feels like it does not help anymore.

Fenazepam (benzodiazepine drug). I took fenazepam only recreational and always had very good effect: at least 8 hours of sleep. But I don’t want to take it regularly because of its benzodiazepine-related withdrawal effect and possible tolerance effect (one time in the future it can stop its positive effect as well).

GP tests showed that I have high systolic blood pressure. Typically 140-90 all day is ok for me. I was prescribed with 5mg amlodipine at mornings for a long time and I’ve been taking it now for 1 year. No other disorders found. My blood tests are fine. My kidneys are fine. I tested almost all other subsystems and no other related disorders were found. One test showed semi-low hemoglobine with normal ferritine and normal iron – still nothing to worry about.

For me it looks like my body doesn’t allow me to function at high speeds. When I’m starting to do something that takes many physical or mental efforts, e.g. regular running, rock climbing, or even stressful work, my body says: “Hey guy you won’t be doing this. You are allowed to go at low paces: read the book, spend most time of your day in a bed, go to shop for 1-2 hours, but forget about anything related to normal active life. Because I just won’t let you sleep enough haha”.

When I read on forums about somebody have depression and don’t want to do anything, don’t have any motication to do anything I found that I have exactly the opposite: I’m full of motivation but unfortunately I’m too tired to do many things because of lack of sleep.

Anybody have the same experience ? What did you do to improve and was it helpful ?

[cat_ncsu]

Sorry for your challenges! Have you taken Martin’s free email course? If not, that helped me as a good first step.
I also have mixed results with exercise sometimes, but if I don’t have strenuous exercise within 3 hours of bedtime, that’s better.
Keep trying to live your normal life during the day and don’t make decisions based on how well you sleep the night before.

good luck!

[Martin Reed]

When you wake during the night (which is a normal part of sleep) why do you think you find it hard to fall back to sleep?

In terms of your body functioning at high speeds, if you were being chased by a bear and your only route of escape was up a rock, would you be able to scramble up that rock or would you simply lie at the bottom of the rock and wait to be mauled?

If someone you love has just been kidnapped and you have to run across town to save them, would you be able to do that or would you have to leave them to their fate?

Our thoughts can be strong and feel like absolute facts. That’s not always the case, though! Recognizing thoughts for what they are (thoughts) can help lift a barrier that might be preventing us from living the kind of life we want to live.

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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.

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