[Anariel]

Hi, I wouldn’t say my insomnia is so so bad yet. Maybe most of you had this for 3 months or for your whole life, but my only insomnia started 1 month ago. Yet it took a toll on my daily life.

It started exactly a month ago. The time I usually went to bed had already passed, but I decided to still be awake because of my teeth pain and searching a doctor for it. Thus, I stayed up for around 1 and a half hour more. Afterwards I closed my eyes and decided to sleep. It didn’t happen. So I took my herbal sleeping pill which I saved for bad nights such as this. 3 hours went and I still couldn’t sleep. The pill only makes me sleepy but it did nothing to make me sleep. Maybe it was exhaustion but eventually, I fell asleep. I expected it was only a one time thing.

No, it wasn’t. The next day, sleep evaded me again. It was not as severe as last night, but it was still frustrating. I reached my breaking point a week later when I couldn’t even get a blink of sleep. I went to visit a neurologist and seeing my extremely high blood pressure, she decided to give me a benzo. At this point, I was so exhausted, I didn’t care anymore. Imagine not sleeping at all for 34 hours. I didn’t immediately take the pill because of my work, but after that, I was finally able to sleep.

The next day comes and I was finally able to sleep immediately without sleeping pills. But I woke up in the midnight, not finding sleep again. I decided to take benzo again and that’s when I discovered: pills didn’t help me much. It still took 1-2 hours for me to sleep after taking benzos but I do sleep. That’s all that matters right now.

Hearing my condition, my mom desperately asked me to come home. So I did. I went to acupuncture and psychologist. That’s when I discovered that I’m a perfectionist and that’s what makes insomnia happens to me. I may not consciously thinking about sleep but deep inside, I am afraid of sleep. So he started giving me CBT-I therapy and it did help. For some times. It didn’t help all the time. But staying at home most of all helps me I think. I only require an hour to finally fall asleep.

But then, I have to leave my home again and that fear made sleep evaded me once more, and I took benzos again to sleep. When I left home, sleep wasn’t actually a challenge to me for the first few days, until today where I find myself in bed for 3 hours and still not getting sleep without benzos. That’s when I realized: All the time I immediately fell asleep is always the 2 days after I took benzos. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I want to sleep but being a pharmacist myself, I know that these pills will only make you dependant to it. I made it my goal to only took 2 every week so I tried to adhere to it. But it’s so hard when sleep keeps evading you.

It’s only been 1 month and I already found myself thinking ‘what if I’m like this all the time’ which exactly fuels my struggle to sleep. I know the key is to not think about sleep at all, but it’s honestly so hard.

Do you have the same problem? I didn’t know what to do anymore. Right now, I’m desperate to find any solution to this problem without meds.

It’s frustrating speaking to people in real life that didn’t have insomnia. They keep saying “don’t overthink it”. The question is “how?? How can I stop thinking about it??”. Then “try this herbal sleeping pill”. The answer is “no. No. And no. I’ve tried and it didn’t help”.

So can I just find the solution already? I’m so tired of this sleeping problem. Thank you for listening 🙂

[Martin Reed]

Hello Anariel and welcome to the forum!

Let me start by saying that there’s nothing unique or unusual in your experience. And, the fact you’ve been dealing with this for a month rather than 3 month or your whole life doesn’t make it any less difficult.

Your experience with insomnia has followed a typical pattern — sleep didn’t happen as expected, so you responded by (understandably!) trying to fix it.

You took herbal sleeping pills, you tried prescription medication, you tried acupuncture, you tried staying home.

Some of those things offered varying degrees of relief, but none got to the root of the problem — you were still (understandably) putting pressure on yourself to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. And, trying to control sleep only makes it more difficult.

Many people find CBT-I helpful — but not everyone. One reason for that might be because CBT-I techniques themselves can easily become sleep efforts. We are still trying to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. (We might also try to control what we are thinking and feeling.)

All these attempts draw us into more struggle. So we try harder. We struggle more. We try harder. And, round and round we go, seemingly trapped in a vicious cycle.

Not only that, the more we try, the more we can find ourselves getting pulled away from the life we want to live. We might do less. We might withdraw from life. We might act in ways that don’t reflect who we are or who we want to be. That makes our situation even more difficult.

There is no way to “not think” about something. Not thinking about something requires you to think of that very thing to see if you are thinking about it or not! For as long as that’s your strategy, you might be setting yourself up for an ongoing and exhausting struggle.

Perhaps the solution then, is to move away from trying to control what your experience tells you is beyond your control? How much energy might you free up if you were able to refocus your attention (and effort) on actions that move you toward the life you want to live, independently of sleep?

You might like my podcast episode with Irina — as I share in the intro to that episode, she gave sleep the opportunity to take care of itself while she took care of doing things that helped her live the life she wanted to live. And, that’s exactly what happened.

I hope there’s something useful here and I wish you all the best. You are not alone.

—

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.

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Analiel

If I can give you one piece of probably one of the most important pieces of advice in your life, Get off the Benzo’s!!!!!! They are extremely addictive, and by far the worst medication to get off of, much harder than narcotic, nicotine, and alcohol. I encourage you to do research on them. I know, I was on them!!!

[Anariel]

Hii thank you for your advice. I actually was able to get off benzos for around a week bc I was able to sleep well without them. The solution is to not think much abt sleep. But today, I found myself unable to sleep again after 2 hours of closing my eyes bc my anxiety rises again, hence why I took a pill. For as much as I know, since I only took it for a month and only 2 times a week maximum, it won’t get addictive. And honestly, bfr I even got benzos, I had difficulty sleeping for a whole week, needing 3 hours minimum to finally sleep. So I don’t think benzos is the problem. Is it right? Anyway, thanks for your advice! I’ll try to not get anymore benzos after it ran out. But if I find myself unable to sleep for 24 hours again, I might have to consider it 😓

[Anariel]

Hi thank you for your reply Coach! I actually was able to sleep well after I apply these things: stop trying to do anything to sleep; stop worrying abt things that might not make you sleep (such as drinking tea or chocolate during the day); sleep only when you wants to and not being being pressured to, even when you’re sleepy; stop checking the time too much; do things that makes you happy bfr sleep so you forgot abt your worries regarding sleep. Is this the right approach? Or am I still doing something wrong with it? I will say it works, but I found myself keep thinking and worrying abt sleep again today, making me unable to sleep again. Hence, taking benzos again bc I still have 3 more pills since I was given around 10 a month ago. Should I definitely stop benzos or it’s okay to keep consuming on bad nights?

[Martin Reed]

Moving away from trying to control sleep is often a more workable approach compared to trying to control sleep!

I am not sure it’s possible to stop worrying (or to stop any other kind of thought or feeling for that matter) because the human brain is generating thoughts and feelings all the time.

The more difficult thoughts and feelings usually come from our brain doing its job of looking out for us. Trying to fight or avoid this is something that can create a struggle that makes things more difficult.

Thoughts don’t stop sleep from happening — battling with them sure can make sleep more difficult, though! After all, how likely is sleep to happen if we are engaged in a battle at night?

Committing to actions that reflect your values and that move you toward the life you want to live, even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings and regardless of how you sleep can also help reduce the power and influence all this difficult stuff can have over your life.

As for the benzos, that would be a conversation to have with your doctor.

I hope this helps!

—

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.

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