[rjsf]

I may be an outlier here as my sleep issues are, shall I say, relatively minor. I sleep well like 2 weeks or so, then out of the blue I get a bad night, that sometimes blows up into a few bad consecutive nights, then I recover again and sleep well and the cycle continues. They just happen without any rhyme or reason. I can’t remember being particularly stressed out or in a different mood when those nights strike. I wonder if there’s any underlying cause at all apart from anxiety. If it were anxiety then how do I sleep well on the good nights? I just got a clean bill of health from my PCP, all my tests came out fine and I was very healthy according to him. Except I can’t sleep once every two weeks or so. It’s weird.

[Martin Reed]

If there’s no medical explanation for this, it’s probably not going to be too helpful to spend a whole lot of time troubleshooting — because that’s when we can get caught in a trap, trying to control sleep. Since sleep cannot be controlled, the more effort we put into it the more difficult it can become.

What’s most important is continuing to live the kind of life you want to live (and be the kind of person you want to be) even when those occasional difficult nights happen. In other words, if the difficult nights have less influence over us, they become less consequential and in turn they might become less noticeable and less frequent.

I hope there’s something helpful here!

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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.

[rjsf]

Thanks Martin. I do practice CBTi and have been working on it for years, and constantly trying to keep a positive mindset and acceptance of things that happen beyond my control. Initially, a few years back, I used sleep restriction but not anymore, in the sense that my sleep window is a full 8 hours now. Most nights I usually am able to get the full 8 hours. It’s just that at some odd night I am completely not able to sleep until daybreak, which I find rather distressing because when I get used to sleeping well for a while I get into a good rhythm in my life, and then it happens out of the blue. I’m wondering if I am sleeping too much and incurring a “sleep surplus” over several days leading up to a bad night, and I’m thinking about restricting my sleep again to 6 hours or so per night.

[Martin Reed]

We have good nights, just as we have good days. We have difficult nights, just as we have difficult days.

Problems usually occur only when we start to shift all our attention toward eliminating all difficult days and all difficult nights — since that’s just not possible!

More important are the things in our control — the things we can do (even during/after difficult nights/days) that keep us moving toward the kind of life we want to live and the person we want to be.

—

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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