[Momup]

Hello guys, I’ve already posted something here. You guys recommended me to not bother too much about sleepless nights and to have a consistent sleeping schedule. This really helped me and now I can say that I am able to sleep well under non stressful circumstances which is great for me! 🙂

When it comes to noise at night I am pretty sensitive. This is why I sleep with earplugs every night. When I don’t hear anything due to the earplugs I can sleep well. Now I moved to an apartment which is directly near a high street which not only is loud during the day. At night it’s also loud because this street is also a place with a lot of clubs and bars. This time it’s not completely quiet when I use earplugs which has worsened my sleep. I am still able to sleep but instead of 8 hours I only sleep 5 hours now. But keep in mind that this has been my second night so far yet at the new place.

Now I must say when my windows are closed and when I have my earplugs in it’s pretty quiet. But once in a while I can hear cars which are passing through the street. But due to the earplugs and the closed window it’s not a loud sound. But still it’s loud enough for me to notice it and to interrupt the absolute silence created by the closed window and earplugs. Now my question is: Can you get used to this kind of sound or not? I am not sure because on the one side I have read on the internet that you get used to noise and stop noticing it after a while but on the other hand I have read that this noise is still stressing my subconsciousness. This is why I am asking here.

I wish you all a great day and of course also a restful night!

Best regards,
Momup

[hiker]

Hi Momup, I can relate to your sensitivity about noise. I can’t claim to be an expert on this, but I do know people who can’t sleep well if it is too quiet! (They grew up in New York City.) For myself, I have noticed that during the day, I can get quite annoyed at e.g. loud neighbors, loud people on the bus, etc. But sometimes the same noise doesn’t bother me. It’s like I just let it happen, it is just part of the background of life. Or the phone ringing at work: sometimes it drove me crazy, the constant interruptions; and other times, it just meant I addressed something now (the caller) rather than calling them later on my own schedule

Fine, but what about when you are trying to sleep? To some extent, I think the attitude shift I am describing applies during sleep time as well. But it’s also true most of us cannot sleep well with lots of noise….I just googled “white noise sleep aids” and stuff pops up. I have used some devices and found them useful.

.As far as noise “stressing my subconscious,” again, I think it is more attitude than anything: in other words, the key is not the noise, but how you react to it.

Finally, insomnia can really scramble your head. For example, turns out I didn’t sleep all that great last night. And I wake up thinking about how I got cut from the high school baseball team 50 years ago. And I actually started rolling into this idea of what a failure I am. What’s with that? Answer: it’s just the insomnia talking. And insomnia can lead anywhere, including getting on the Internet and believing anything.

I hope you stick with this forum. There are people here who have really been through it. And Martin’s course and emails address the underlying theme of our attitude about sleep, aka sleep anxiety.

Take care, you are not alone.

[Chee2308]

Hello @momup and welcome back! It’s comforting to hear you are doing well. I commend @hiker for his reply.

Stop seeking the perfect sleep or the perfect environment for sleep because there’s none! Your mind will come up with a million and one “stuffs” that it thinks can affect your sleep. If you try engage with all of them, you will be in for a hell of a ride. You will get all sorts of results but good sleep won’t be one of them. It’s the relentless pursuit of perfection that makes good sleep so hard to come by.

In situations like these, try to be normal and reasonable. Keeping the windows closed and using earplugs are reasonable steps. But of course if you can afford it, then move out. Because the hazards of prolonged noise exposure are real and there’s documented scientific evidence it can mess with your physical and mental health. If moving out isn’t an option, then try to keep the noise levels down as much as you can. But either way, you should still be able to get some amount of decent sleep.

[Momup]

Hey thank you guys for your posts. They have really helped me. I just did what you suggested and didn’t let myself bother too much by the noise and I have actually slept decently (about 7 hours). I think that it will get better with time because I’ll get used to the noise. A white noise machine certainly seems to be a good idea because they can be combined with my earplugs which is great. Now when it comes to the noise stressing my subconscious: Now you have turned my living situation from a “Oh my gosh, I have to move out because I won’t be able to sleep!” to “It might not be optimal to live here in the long run but the noise certainly shouldn’t prevent me from getting good sleep.” which has helped me a lot. So just as you said I’ll just try to not be perfectionistic about my sleeping environment and try to just get used to my new sleeping environment.

Best regards,
Momup

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