[anmareta]

I am struggling with insomnia at the moment as I stop taking medication. I feel like a failure and sad about it. I am just needing some support and hope from others that deal with insomnia and want to try to overcome it without medication.
Today, I saw a video from Hannah about her experience in overcoming insomnia and I could so relate to her experience. The only thing is that I just have not done the course yet.
I am in my early 30s and living in the Netherlands. I live alone and do not have children and have the time to invest in learning another way to deal with insomnia without medication.
I was thinking of giving it a try, but I am a bit nervous and needing some ecouragement.

[Scott]

Hi @anmareta!

Welcome to the forum! It’s not uncommon for people to be nervous and apprehensive when they begin something new (new job, relationship, etc) so what you’re experiencing isn’t too surprising. I compare beginning CBT-I techniques similar to starting a new exercise routine – you may not see immediate results, but consistent implementation of the techniques will result in long term benefits.

What’s causing your nervousness about exploring CBT-I?

Scott J

—

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.

[anmareta]

Thank you for your message Scott. I think what I am nervous about is not being able to cope with my emotional state when I get one hour or no sleep at all.
When I get 5 hours or 4 is doable for me, but sometimes without meds I can have a couple of days of one hour or less and I find it hard to cope with my mood and state of mind.
But I am trying to stay open to it and this forum seems to be supportive in that ?

[Scott]

@anmareta – that’s completely understandable! What if you slept poorly the night before you won the lottery, do you feel like the quality of your day would be poor that day? Are you active and engaged in enjoyable daytime activities that would enhance the quality of your day?

Since you’re exploring the idea of implementing CBT-I techniques to improve your sleep, and if you haven’t already, I encourage you to review some of the resources on this site and on Martin’s YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/insomniacoach – I think you’ll find them beneficial.

Hope that helps,
Scott J

—

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.

[Jaran]

Anmareta, I am no expert. I can only speak from personal experience.

I have taken prescription sleeping meds for about 15 years now. At first, they changed my life. But gradually, I had to take more and more and they worked less and less. By now, a normal dose really has no effect. It’s just a psychological dependency. And I don’t feel real good about that.

I only learned about CBT-I a month ago. I decided to give the techniques a genuine try, but not to stop the meds right away. In the short term, what I’m taking isn’t hurting me. And I didn’t want to change anything while I took a new approach, because then there’d be no way to know if any set-backs were due to the change in meds or that the new strategies didn’t work for me. I also didn’t want to reach for the meds if I had a ‘bad’ night, only to eventually fall asleep and reinforce my “need” for them.

Now a month later, I’m having good success with CBT-I. I’ve re-framed the way I think about sleep and all the anxiety that goes with it. I’m more confident that natural sleep is possible, so I’ve started tapering off the meds. Someone on this forum mentioned the strategy of taking it earlier and earlier while tapering, and when nothing happens, it just reinforces the fact that the meds really don’t do anything anymore. I will give that a try. But that’s just me. Others simply stop. Others have made the decision to continue.

I hear your frustration and anxiety. I felt like “Why can’t I ever sleep? There must be something wrong with me!” And I personally didn’t like the path I was going down with more and more drugs (meds) and alcohol. I hope you will take a look at why you feel like a “failure” though. Those of us who’ve suffered with insomnia and all that goes with it know, it’s very real and very stressful.

Best wishes.

[Scott]

Jaran makes very valid points about different methods of ending the dependency on sleep medications. It’s similar in comparison to stop smoking – some can quit cold turkey (and be successful), while others need support groups and some need a slow tapering using a patch/pill to experience long-term success. If it makes you really nervous to stop taking the medications when you begin CBT-I, have you thought about continuing the use of the meds while using CBT-I? You might find that implementing CBT-I builds your confidence in your ability to sleep and allows you to withdraw from the medications at your own pace.

Scott J

—

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.

[Chee2308]

Hello everyone!
As someone who’s completely recovered, I can tell you sleep ability is all about self-confidence or a lack of it. If you think you can’t sleep, are abnormal, are unlike other normal sleepers or need to do a ton of things like taking meds, then you won’t sleep. The story you tell about your sleep is self-fulfilling. Normal sleepers are able to go to bed and sleep because they are confident of it and expect to sleep, therefore absolutely nothing to worry about. Then falling asleep becomes natural and effortless. This is what everyone with sleeping problems needs to work towards at, regaining that confidence. Therefore anything that undermines that confidence like taking meds, and endlessly seeking so-called cures are counterproductive and will needlessly prolong the recovery. A complete lack of effort towards achieving sleep, staying awake for the sufficient amount (16-18 hours) and developing an optimistic, carefree attitude towards how you slept and feel during the day will work wonders. In my worst, I could go for 2 days without sleeping, now I’m doing 7-9 hours every night and wake up feeling I could sleep more!

[anmareta]

Hi all,
I am so grateful for all your messages. I feel super supported. Thanksssss!!!! 🙂

@Jaran
In terms of medications, indeed I have tampered then off with the help of my GP. It was challenging but now I feel more grounded which is great! Because the withdrawal period was quite something. It was a roller coaster. Even though during that time I was sleeping, I would wake up and had no energy to do anything or not even wanted to.
Now sometimes when I sleep like 4 hours, I feel energized and enthusiastic about life. However, my mind is like you should not feel like that because you only slept 4 hours.
Indeed, I noticed that being on medication for 2 years has affected my sleep confidence and carefree atiitude about sleep.
Today I woke up with 2 hours of sleep, I feel tired, but I feel myself which I am really grateful for and the challenge is to remain calm and letting go of controlling sleep. However, I think this will take time.

@Chee Hiung Yong how many weeks did you take the course for?

@Scott definitely will check a YouTube video today!

[Chee2308]

Hello Anmareta

I did the course for the full eight weeks. I was sleeping better on week 1 already which got me excited but I kept adjusting my sleep window because I was chasing sleep. The thirst for further improvement made me regress a bit by week 8. I had one completely sleepless night in week 8 so I was like, why is this happening all over again? Only then, I realised I was still anxious about sleep, was doubting my own ability and still doing quite a bit of sleep efforts like all those breathing/relaxation/yoga exercises, downloading a ton of sleeping apps on my phone and organising my day around the insomnia. I now realise where I went wrong, all that stuffs I was doing was only reinforcing the insomnia by giving it too much attention and by doing other stuffs I was actually hurting my own confidence. I now think of sleep as just a biological process, which to me, happens after being awake for 16 hours and waking up during the night is normal. As I removed the efforts one by one, my confidence steadily improved then my sleep improved even further. Now I have complete confidence in myself and know my body will let me sleep after being awake for 16 sometime 15 hours and haven’t had a single sleepless night in months. I go to bed expecting to sleep and always get it, sometimes even more than I wanted. For me, sleep is all about confidence in yourself, if you believe and think like a normal sleeper, then you will sleep like one.

[anmareta]

Thanks for your response! It sounds great! I am struggling during this first week, but I thought I would give it a try and still stay open and committed and see how it goes.

[Hbhigg]

Hi Anmareta
I am struggling too. Have had the 2 week e-mail course and have done the sleep diary but am struggling to implement the sleep window and stimulus control.
Last night I decided I have to try to do it properly, my sleep window is 5 1/2 hours but have only slept 3 and now am up, I didn’t get up when I couldn’t get back to sleep as I felt relaxed but I was thinking about sleep so am not sure if I should have got up. Not sleeping seems to give me pains in my wrists and ankles where the skin feels tingly which seem odd.
Hope we can both get through this.

[anmareta]

Hi Hbhigg,
Thanks for sharing and let’s keep sharing. Keep me updated it. it’s better to go through a challenging time with others than alone.
When I get so 2 to 3 hours of sleep I struggle with pain in my back specially my upper back. Additionally, my motivation is really affected and my thoughts are harder processe. This week most days I have gotten 2 to 3 hours of sleep and a couple of days 5 to 6 hours. The last two are a blessing, but It’s indeed a real challenge, so I think this forum is great to cheer each other up. I think just giving this a try with an open mind is great! I have learned so much about myself and my fears and things I run away from or fight.
Obviously, I want to run away from the discomfort of what comes with not sleeping and the anxiety feeling. I fight it a lot or avoid, but I am seeing this as an opportunity to learn to be with. They come at night, ok here they are, greet them and be with them while I do something nice, like read a book, watch TV, or if feeling low listenning to the podcasts of positive stories that Martin has in Spotify. It helps me through the night with thoughts that come up that trigger my insecurities and wobbly trust feeling that I is growing towards my natural ability to sleep.

I also have a sleep window of 5.5 hours and when I get up at 6:30 it’s super hard specially when I was just sleeping ?
I just do something small like brush my teeth and that helps me with the next thing.

I am stil committed today despite 2 consecutive nights of 2 to 3 hours of sleep. I am committed to get to know myself and give love to myself when I am wakeful as opposed to sleeping. I think I have tried it all to reject that part of myself (the insomniac side of me), so I see the idea of sleeping more as the cherry on top of the cake. Let’s see how it goes.

[Hbhigg]

Anmareta
You sound like you are really doing a great job I’m sure we will get over this.

[anmareta]

Thanks Hbhigg! You as well! Being open to this program takes courage so props to you too!
I also use a lot of ACT techniques so grow in acceptance of insomnia.
There is an app I use for acceptance of insomnia specifically, https://www.thesleepschool.org/
And the sleep book.
I find it complimentary to CBT-i
🙂

[Hbhigg]

Hi Anmareta
I have just downloaded the sleep school app but have not looked at it yet, also have just ordered the sleep book as well.

[Author]

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