[emschli]

Hey!
I am two days into sleep restriction and my sleeping window is 5 hours from 11:15 pm to 4:15am.
Have not been sleeping well before the start of the restriction too.
The first night was okay – I got really sleepy around 10pm which felt like a big victory as I have not felt like that in the evening for a very long time. I fell asleep instantly in bed too and even though I woke before the alarm after ~3hours of sleep, I managed to get through the day kind of okay.
The second evening it was even harder for me to stay awake till bedtime. But as soon as I got into bed I felt incredibly anxious and stressed about the thought, that I only have this 5 hour window to get the sleep in and could not fall asleep for like 3 hours. Now the day feels like a big struggle until I finally get my next try :/ And I am already very anxious about the next night. I fear that this is the beginning of a downward spiral where I get anxious about getting very little sleep, because of that I sleep very little, which makes me even more anxious and so forth…blah blah blah you’ve probably all been there 😀

What makes it especially difficult for me is that usually I would meditate to feel less anxious but I can’t do that because I get extremely sleepy while doing it and I am of course not supposed to sleep during the day…

So my question I guess is: is this going as planned? Am I just supposed to stick with it and eventually sleep will just “happen”?

When I noticed I was getting very anxious I got out of bed and watched some television until I got sleepy again and I plan to continue doing that…Is there anything else I have to actively do?

Any tips or reassuring stories about your experiences in the first days/weeks of sleep restriction would be greatly appreciated 🙂

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