[believer123]

Last night was my second night not taking my sleep aid (restoril)—at the moment I’m doing every other day on and off. Next week I’ll add two days in a row of not taking it.

I didn’t get as much sleep as the first time I didn’t take it but there was something. It’s the kind of sleep where I only know it happened because I had a dream and that happened maybe 2 times between 12-5 (my sleep window) and then once after (it was like as soon as my alarm went off my body relaxed enough to sleep a little). I think these dreams are for short periods of time but they are sleep nonetheless and prior to SRT I wasn’t getting anything on my own. Trying to count this as a victory.

I know this journey zigs and zigs until it resembles a straight line again so feeling optimistic that there was any sleep at all. Prior to this I wasnt having any sleep onset without a sleep aid.

I could definitely be more strict about my sleep window and I wonder if that’s delaying progress (I almost always doze off during my 2 hours wind down period on the couch but it feels so good to get heavy eyes again and has become one of my favorite parts about my sleep routine…).

Anyway we’ll see in days to come but so far I’m counting the small things as signs of progress.

[Martin Reed]

Your commitment to the action of moving away from sleep aids is proving to be a powerful learning experience!

You are learning that you can generate sleep without medication — and that suggests that any sleep that has happened with medication was sleep your body generated by itself.

You are also reminding yourself that all journeys come with ups and downs (rather than ongoing progress and improvement), which is a wonderful act of self-kindness.

As for implementing a stricter sleep window, that’s definitely an option available to you. A sleep window can’t make a certain amount or type of sleep happen and sleep doesn’t really care about sleep windows.

What it cares about is this: are you giving it the opportunity to take care of itself (in which case, it is more likely to take care of itself) or are you chasing after it and trying to make it happen (in which case, it is more likely to get more difficult and complicated).

I wish you all the best as you continue to move forward!

—

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