[Hope4goodsleep1]

For several years, I have suffered from mild to moderate anxiety and it has seriously altered my sleeping patterns. My sleep has become so unpredictable that each night it could vary from scarcely any to 5 to 6 hours. It seems I’m only able to have a night sleeping when I become so completely exhausted, my body just goes to sleep. It’s been very difficult to go through a full day at work after a night(s) without
Its been a struggle just to get through each day.
Although
I do not wish to go on and on about all the mental and physical discomfort, it has severely impacted my quality of life. I have tried so many natural remedies and a few sleeping medications. They do help in short term. However, this has been a long term issue. Currently, like many people, the covid crisis has not helped the sleeping problems.

After reading about insomnia and listening to Martins videos and other sleep professionals etc . I discovered CBTI and will look further in to it. If there are others here that are further advanced in their sleeping journey ( either cured of it or making good progress, I’m reaching out to you for support, resources or any important ideas you can share about your journey, please let me know.

If there’s one question I can ask of any of you its this: what action exercise, video , etc has worked for you to ease the discomfort after having no sleep.? In other words,
what do you do or not do during the days when you’re exhausted? Or what keeps you occupied at night?
What works for you when you are at your worst?
Sincere thanks to all that want to share your comment.

[andrewroland]

Hi, I feel your pain, literally, I’m going through the exact same situation at the moment. I’ve had between 0 and 4 hrs sleep each night now for a month. I keep being as active as I can, I can’t understand how I’m standing up sometimes. My wife made me go on a 5 mile walk yesterday over very hilly countryside after 1 hours sleep. I thought I would have been so knackered that I would have slept last night but my sleep anxiety overrode it.

This time will pass for us, something soon will change that leads to us get out of this silly loop. I’m looking forward to it.

[Scott]

Hey Hope4goodsleep1 and andrewroland – thanks for sharing your stories on the forum!

Worrying about sleep usually makes sleep more difficult and this can then lead to more worry! What is it about the idea of getting five to six hours (or sometimes less) of sleep that seems to generate anxiety? Usually, the best way to react to difficult nights is not to react since our reactions are often unhelpful and can perpetuate the sleep disruption.

This may sound like I’m oversimplifying my solution, but I turned a corner for the better when I began to manage my anxiety by saying, “so what, what’s the worst thing that can happen” when a negative thought about sleep crept up. When my relationship with my anxious thoughts changed, I began to experience better and better sleep. Have you tried this technique?

Hope that helps,
Scott J

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[Edgar]

Great couple of posts.

I myself wonder if there even is such a thing as “pure” insomnia, what would that be? I believe every insomnia is, in reality, a generalized anxiety disorder with an emphasis on sleep, that we developed over time. So maybe insomnia really is a symptom, not a disease in itself, something I have long opposed.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, just another way of looking at the problem. Insomnia IS anxiety.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Edgar.

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