[rachlexis13]

Hi to all,

I am new to the forum and writing my first post. I am someone who has also been a night owl. My parents even said that I was at a night owl when I was a baby in the hospital! My sleep schedule has gotten more regular though since being a student in college. Now though, it has went wrong since I have been done with school for the Summer.

I am in the search for a job right now and have turned in my application to places. Until I have a job though, there hasn’t been much to do. I suffer with depression and anxiety as well. So, I have to admit that my motivation is very weak for doing a whole lot. So, I do not if this has to do somewhat with not being very active, but my sleep has been absolutely awful. It got particularly awful around finals week when I wasn’t sleeping very well and was up late hours studying and has just gotten worse since.

At first, I was able to fall asleep around 12:30 AM and wake up around 8 or 9 AM. Now though, I have found that I will toss and turn in bed until around 3, 4 or 5 AM. I am lucky if I sleep 5 or 6 hours. This has caused my days to be absolutely awful. I often feel so tired all day until getting a sudden burst of energy around 8 or 9 PM. After this, I will be awake and not tired at all.

I have been to my doctor two times now. I wanted to make sure it was nothing physical that was possibly causing my sleep issues. So, I got two blood tests to check my complete blood count and my thyroid. Both of these tests showed nothing. I am beginning to suspect then that this must be psychological. My only symptoms really are daytime sleepiness and feeling like I have some brain fog due to the fact I’m not getting much sleep. It’s also affecting my quality of life. I feel super depressed and it can feel like a struggle to get anything done during the day.

So, I am thinking about going from here and asking my doctor on Monday(if I can get in for an appt) if I can get a sleep study done. I do not know if they will really find anything, but I just need some help I feel. I wear a Fitbit watch to bed and it records my sleep. Every single time that I look over my sleep pattern on the app it shows that most of my sleep remains in the light sleep phase. I do not know if that has anything to do with not getting enough sleep, but I thought I should say.

I am just wanting some advice from here of what to do so that I can hopefully try and correct this on my own a little. I am desperate.

[Alison]

I’ve been struggling with insomnia for about 3 years so I know how you feel! It’s hard! I have tried SO many different ways to get help, but I feel the information on this site has been the most beneficial and I’m so thankful to have found it, just a few weeks ago. I am doing Martin’s free course, but it sounds like the 8 week course is really worth the money. My advice is to read and implement all you can on this site, if you haven’t already, and sign up for one of his courses. If your insomnia is fairly new it may be easier to get rid of than someone who’s had it for a long time. Prayers for you.

[Martin Reed]

Welcome to the forum and I am sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep. The good news is, nothing you have shared in your post sounds unusual and follows quite a similar pattern to how insomnia usually develops.

Since you have always been a night owl and experience anxiety and depression, you may be a bit more predisposed to sleep disruption compared to others. When this sleep disruption occurs, you may also be a bit more likely to worry about it or become concerned about it. This, in turn, can make sleep more difficult.

In addition to the sleep-related worry, we can also try to compensate for sleep disruption by doing things like spending more time in bed, researching sleep and insomnia, canceling plans with friends, trying to conserve energy, etc — and all these behaviors actually perpetuate the problem.

Since you are now out of school for the summer, it’s not surprising that you have noticed your sleep has become worse. When we are less active and not following a schedule, sleep can become more difficult — so, again, nothing really unusual is happening here.

I doubt a sleep study would show anything unless your doctor suspects you have sleep apnea. It might be a good idea to avoid using the Fitbit to measure your sleep because they are notoriously inaccurate when used by people with insomnia and they are unable to accurately measure sleep stages since they do not measure brainwave patterns. Looking at the Fitbit data can increase sleep-related worry and could be making your sleep more difficult.

I would suggest looking into CBT-I techniques since these will help address the perpetuating factors of insomnia and help you improve your sleep for the long term.

I hope this helps.

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