[Elle]

“Suffering” for few months-need solid sleep!

[Chee2308]

Hello and greetings!
Solid sleep means what? 8 hours straight with no interruptions? This is the problem. People who don’t understand sleep say as if they can make sleep happen at their command. It’s like saying I DEMAND to go to bed at 10:30:00 pm and I want to sleep until 6:30:00 am with ABSOLUTELY no awakenings, and I must sleep 8:00:00 hours EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, and not A SECOND LESS. And oh yes, I must have the perfect bed and perfect bedding, perfect blackout curtains, absolute darkness, no lights can penetrate from outside and I must have perfect silence, absolute no noise from neighbor’s dogs barking, no cars must be passing by, and my partner absolutely can’t snore or turn in bed, and I need to drink my sleepy tea and take melatonin or ambien or whatever, and my room room must be at 18 deg C, AND OH YES I absolutely must have my weighted blanket and I must first take a warm bath with lavender oil etc etc etc. Stop setting impossible conditions to sleep for yourself! You will sleep great if you couldn’t care less about it.

[Elle]

I TOTALLY agree with your post, however, it is extremely hard to stop ruminating when in bed. I do get out and try to do mundane things, mostly boring tv, or sit in dark with my pup nearby. I don’t seem to tire doing this. Reading doesn’t necessarily relax me, cause then I get into the book. I then go back to my bed, which I love and do not obsess about not sleeping. I will lay there and accept I am not going to sleep. My brain just stays awake. I am having 3-5 hours occasionally and 0 on other days of the week. This has been going on for almost 3 months after a loss, and an auto immune issue that hasn’t been figured out. I am trying desperately to stop thinking about sleep, I agree- just how??

[Chee2308]

Hello Elle!
If you can’t stop thinking about sleep, then don’t. Just shrug and smile when your brain wants to keep bombarding you with sleep thoughts. It is completely normal to be obessesed about something if it really bothers you. Just accept that you can think about sleep all you want, that your thoughts don’t affect your sleep or sleep drive and sleep related thoughts are processed exactly the same way as non sleep related thoughts, that your body will sleep when it wants to. Just let go and allow thoughts to come and go, make no attempt to avoid them but resist the temptation to do anything about sleep, because they actually do nothing. It’s your own body that lets you sleep or don’t! Setting a goal for sleep like 8 hours is counterproductive, it’s like saying I need to breathe 100 x a minute or eat 10,000 calories a day or something bad’s gonna happen. Is this realistic? It doesn’t matter, your body will regulate your sleep as it does your breaths, appetite etc. Just allow it to happen naturally. Best wishes to you.

[Elle]

Thank you Chee, and I pray my body starts to regulate my sleep as my breaths and appetite; I am however following with these practices here and with a CBTI coach (started this week) I still get so discouraged with my little to no sleep. I am battling an unknown facial neuropathy and getting drs of late is an impossible wait. (Its 24 hrs of pain/burning-at night seems to be big triggers due to body temperatures, etc) So as I wind down and follow all the correct “tools” if you will, the pains wake me as I’m starting to doze, and I start the vicious cycle that I am addressing head on as “so what” been here before, can do this again. I try to remain positive, But in all honesty it gets very discouraging. I go about each day as if its a new one even on zero sleep, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I push myself too much and its horrible at times. Thank for all your insights. Have a good day.

[Author]

Posts