[SpeedOfLight]

I’ve been trying the “let go” approach to insomnia for a month. I think I’ve made significant progress, but I notice that I still sleep poorly before a big day.
The day before something big happens where good sleep would really be nice (a 3-hour drive to a cousin’s wedding, an intense personal training day are two recent ones), my brain gives me worries of “what if I can’t sleep tonight? I won’t make the drive/my body won’t be able to handle the workout”. My approach is to simply let these thoughts be and not try to get rid of them. Just be like “oh, here’s my nervous system trying to protect me and exert control, although there is really no task here”. I find myself somewhat calm by bedtime, but I end up getting a poor night of sleep anyway. And my nervous system does act up when I know it’s probably been hours and I haven’t slept. Even though I don’t actively fight it, my brain still floods my conscious thoughts with worry about sleep. I’m asking if this is eventually going to stop (or at least quiet down a lot) and I just need to be patient with it.

By the way, I know that you do not need to 100% let go in order to sleep well. I have black paper taped to my bedroom window, I engage in basic sleep hygiene (though am not 100% rigid with it), and I take magnesium every night. A few simple things like these are okay; if your sleep system requires that you must 100% surrender and never put the slightest amount of effort into sleep then it’s quite weak. So I don’t think I’m trying too hard to “let go” either.

[Bronte]

That’s a difficult question to answer. Yes, maybe your nervous system could gradually get better and stop rearing its ugly head up. You are definitely taking on a good attitude by accepting your negative thoughts and not fighting them. I feel that the hardest nut to crack is training yourself to take away the importance of sleeping. Learning to gradually not care whether you sleep, or not. Remove its emphasis in your life and don’t analyse it. Don’t measure how much sleep you’ve had, don’t look at clocks, try to get on with life without giving it such a focus. I found that there was an overlap period of time when I wasn’t sleeping and I felt awful but I continued to practice moving my energy to other things and it gradually improved.
As far as hygiene is concerned you are doing the right thing by darkening your room but don’t fall into the trap of looking for any habits or aids to ‘help you sleep’ (doesn’t sound like you are).
None of this is easy. I find it’s all about anxiety and fear. If you can quieten that then the sleep becomes less of a problem. I can be ok for a while and then something in my life starts to increase my negative thoughts and then all of a sudden I can’t sleep and I’m back on the roller coaster of ‘oh no, I’ve got this again, I’m going to feel terrible tomorrow, I can’t cope with this anymore, what is wrong with me, why can’t I be normal, etc….
So I start to look at what’s worrying me and I talk to my partner about it. I journal my feelings and I usually start to realise that my brain is slipping into hyper vigilance and exaggerating thoughts and events. Talking it out definitely gets things into perspective and calms everything down. I’m beginning to realise that insomnia is my brains way of telling me that I feel unsafe and scared. Once I’m in that loop it takes a while to calm it all down, reduce the anger of ‘why have I got this again’ , be compassionate towards yourself and accept that your brain is scared and you are going to find the cause. I don’t even think it’s the actual anticipation of the events, like the drive to your cousins wedding, or the workout, I believe it’s a general heightened level of anxiety in your life, maybe emotions that you are suppressing that need to come out? Then you can calm yourself and the sleep begins to lose its importance for a while.
My partner helps me a lot. I didn’t think he would understand and I avoided talking to him about all my silly thoughts and worries but he has helped me so much. Try to talk to someone regularly and I hope it helps you as much as it does me.
For me, it’s all about negative childhood experiences and things happen in my life that re-open the wounds from the past. Certain emotions are triggered and I have to calm my nervous system to a level of safety again. Talking is my main and most effective tool.

Sorry to ramble and some of this may make no sense to you at all but it might help someone. Good luck – I think you are heading in the right direction, just enjoy your life and stifle out the worry of sleep.

[Chee2308]

Unfortunately there is a personality component to this and it might depend on what kind of person you are.

I think anticipating bad sleep before it happens will help. You will already be receiving the cues beforehand anyway, because they will look and feel very familiar due to previous experiences, so the element of surprise ceases to become surprising by itself. When it no longer surprises you, that’s probably when your nervous system calms down and you could wind up falling asleep as a result.

Remember keep moving on in life no matter what. Life isn’t always a bed of roses and that’s okay, because it doesn’t have to be. My best wishes to you.

[sleep]

I know when things happen or I am getting anxious when things happen and things are going to happen to upset us like doctor appointments, a flat tire, etc. I say well I probably wont sleep tonight but that is ok because my sleep will come back the next night and it does. I just dont expect to sleep good if something is going on. That is the way it was back when I slept good, I would still get anxious and not sleep as well on that night.
When I got insomnia and started to worry I would never sleep again that is when I had a rough time. All that worrying about never sleeping again was the problem. I cant expect to go thru life and never have any hard times. I use to think I would have a stroke or heart attack or something else bad if I didnt get my sleep. Since I dont have this attitude any more my sleep is so good. Who cares if I dont sleep good one night, I will get my sleep back, go on and enjoy life until my sleep gets really good again. I dont stop living any more.

[Author]

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