[znstandley13]

For some reason I find that the nights I only sleep 3-4 hours, I feel better the next day than I do when I sleep for 5+ hours. I notice that I have much more energy after sleeping that little of time, but I assure you that I am not one of those superhumans that can rely on 4 hours a sleep a night. When I didn’t have insomnia, I got anywhere from 7 1/2-9 hours, and it was perfect for me. Now I’m in this cycle where some nights I won’t fall asleep until 5am and get 3-4 hours (happened last night), and some nights I’ll fall asleep at 12am, wake up at 3-4am, go back to sleep for another cycle or less, and then another the next time I wake up. That’s the kind of day I feel awful. But today, I feel better. I’m confused.

But yeah I don’t really understand what’s going on here. Any input?

[Chee2308]

Hello!
Are you now getting out of bed at inconsistent times depending on what time you fell asleep and then at the next day you are going to bed at the same time or earlier? This is the classic reason why sleep problems develop. Getting out of bed at inconsistent times and then trying to sleep after being awake for less than 16-18 hours. From now, set a time where you get out of bed at the same time regardless of how much you slept. Keep your out of bed time consistent and that is your anchor, no more sleeping in, no naps during the day and no compensating for lost sleep by going to bed earlier. Do this for at least a few weeks and you should return to your 7.5-9 hours sleep routine.

[znstandley13]

At the time, I was getting out of bed randomly. I just wanted to say that this was helpful advice and motivated me to make that change- now I wake up around 7:30am (with the exception of today, I fell asleep at 5am last night, kept waking up until 8:30am). So thanks for that.

I was doing really well for a week. I’d get 4-6 hours a night and I felt great everyday. I think this is because I managed my thoughts; whenever the idea of not being able to sleep tonight crossed my mind, simply thinking “I’ll stay up all damn night, I don’t care” was sufficient to ward it off. However, 2 days ago I remembered the cause of my insomnia in the evening; sleep monitoring. I remembered the feeling associated with it (dread), and it turns out that I’m more concerned and worried about sleep monitoring itself more than I am of not getting a good nights sleep. Needless to say, I haven’t slept well in 2 days. Can you be sleep monitoring even when you feel like you’re not?

Also, I just wanted to add: also 2 days ago, I stopped taking melatonin. I was taking 4mg of melatonin for a couple of months every night. Do you think me quitting it has anything to do with my lack of sleep lately?

If this post doesn’t pick up any momentum, I intend on creating another thread. I really want others insight on how to manage sleep monitoring, and input on the melatonin situation.

[Chee2308]

Hello

Yours is a very typical story. When you’ve made progress, it becomes completely natural and humanly to want to protect that progress made so far plus the relentless drive to make further improvements becomes all too enticing. Your mind will come up with a million things that it thinks could affect your sleep and will keep asking you to take care of them. You then go down the rabbit hole of trying endless sleep efforts, as your mind bombards you with thoughts like “what if I do this or that” , “was it the melatonin that made me sleep well” and the list goes on and on. Then before you know it, you fall right back into that dark, bottomless pit of insomnia as you become completely consumed in your obessesion with sleep. My advice is to always ignore those thoughts and the temptations to try different things, and to accept whatever outcome you get. You can listen to your mind, acknowledge those thoughts but do not fight them because it is futile (you can never win a battle against your own mind). Just choose to do absolutely nothing. The key is always acceptance with whatever your mind presents you with. Accept whatever thoughts and outcome you get, so over time, you train your mind to not focus only on results and outcome, to become less attached to them. Then as you sleep better, your confidence will improve and thoughts have less power over you until you are not bothered with them anymore. Then comes the point where you know you can and will sleep no matter what your mind says. That’s when you know you are truly recovered. When you’ve recovered, you may even laugh at yourself when your mind tries to scare you into believing that you can’t sleep because you know it’s completely false. Building up your confidence is key. Good luck!

[znstandley13]

Your reply is very reassuring, thank you for taking the time in writing that. I finally slept well last night, but admittedly I was exhausted. However, I woke up this morning concerned and worried about tonight- usually this doesn’t happen. Typically I’ll start worrying about sleep as night comes closer. I think it’s because I just want to figure something out in particular that I haven’t been able to, and honestly I think once I conceptualize it accurately (and get your input on), it will be much less of a problem. What I’m about to write is what I think is the root cause of my sleep problem. It’s the thing I’m mainly worried about:

When I lay down to go to sleep, it doesn’t take me long to get into the first stage of sleep. The problem is, once I notice that I’m “pseudo-dreaming” or that I’m having dream-like thoughts, I get this wave of anxiety and wakefulness/awareness. I realize I’m about to fall asleep and I get scared/aroused, and this happens many times a night. It does stop at some point, but for some reason I remain awake (or I’m lightly sleeping and think I’m not). It kind of feels like a conditioned reaction at this point. Is the cause of this because of my thoughts, or is it an automatic reaction that I’ve unfortunately developed over time? How do I deal with this rush of wakefulness/awareness and anxiety as I’m on the cusp of sleep? Do I get out of bed and do something else? Meditate, or choose to ignore it? I think it was important to get more specific because my attention plays a role in this, not just my thoughts.

I feel that once I figure this out, my insomnia will be resolved.

“How do I deal with this rush of wakefulness/awareness and anxiety as I’m on the cusp of sleep?” That’s the question.. Thank you.

[Chee2308]

Greetings!
I do remember I had a similar episode like yours where during my drifting off to sleep, my thoughts and dreams kinda merge together and I couldn’t figure out when the transition actually happened. It’s like my thoughts started developing a mind of their own and began turning into stories all by themselves. I also remember getting scared of this transition because I was scared of getting bad or weird dreams (I once watched a video about Jamal Khoshoggi’s murder then early that next morning, I dreamt I was the one getting butchered and cut up like Jamal), but eventually I grew out of them over time. Now they don’t bother me anymore, I just my mind wander on its own, then inevitably would begin dreaming (thereby falling asleep) effortlessly without the need to monitor when that transition occurs because there’s no need nor any reason to. Now when I wake up, I don’t remember what I dreamt about anymore when previously I used to have really vivid dreams that could wake me up with my heart pounding. I think what you now need is to just relax and let everything fall into place. Hope you find this useful. Best wishes!

[Author]

Posts