[Julymorning]

26 days ago I was a happy person I hadn’t been aware of, taking all the small but important things in life for granted, worrying about anything I could worry about, believing that it was part of my “worry-person” nature that cannot be altered.

I have been accumulating little unresolved worries since November 2021, because that was the time when I started feeling a little overwhelmed and down, and lack of sunshine and heavy grey skies here in Seattle at that time were just empowering my habit to perceive problems (that at times were not problems at all!). Despite my mood swings and little worries about anything and everything I slept extremely well just like I was used to my whole life – going to bed at 10pm and falling asleep around 11pm+ just until 7:30am uninterrupted. Even my 3,5-year-old daughter, who keeps coming every night into my bed around 3am was not affecting my sleep in any way.

That very sleepless night 26 days ago from now was nothing out of the ordinary. I skimmed through the daily tasks, daily accomplishments and through frustrations I had about some things ruled out not the way I wanted, but nothing particular. That very sleepless night has triggered the nightmare I live today. The next day I spent being determined to fix this for whatever the price it takes, and obviously, that was a trap. My anxiety about “what if I won’t sleep again” started to outgrow any other worries I had and my obsession about sleep became stronger every day.

After a week of struggle I decided to start tracking my sleep with the watch for further analysis. I had this kind of insomnia before, twice in my life, in 2012 and 2018, but latter, I believe, was due to my hormonal shifts during pregnancy and insomnia disappeared by itself after my daughter was born, when instead of sleepless nights I had deprived nights (which, probably, fixed the problem).

After two weeks of struggle from insomnia with added daily hyperventilation, anxiety, stiffness in the neck and those weird and scary sensations I started to have when drifting off (I had such a plethora of those sensations, which I thought were panic attacks at that time, that were randomly changing from night to night: palpitation, sudden rapid breathing, tingling, heaviness in the chest, shaking and shivering, numbness in my fingers and a constant lump in a throat – which every time made me open my eyes in stead of trying to sleep) that I decided to see a family doctor.

The family doctor evaluated my level of anxiety as a “moderate”, prescribed me some over the counter meds containing melatonin and advised to find someone who specializes in CBT. At that time I was not sure whether I needed a CBT or CBTi specialist, because CBT targets specific anxiety or a situation behind it, in my case my main anxiety is a consequence of sleepless nights, a vicious cycle I got caught in.

I googled and googled, and came across many useful and not-so-much resources, talking about cutting on coffee, staying away from screens, etc. In the beginning, I followed these advice until I realized that these restrictions were making me feel somewhat “ill”. I used to drink moderate amounts of coffee every day my whole life and used to use my screen before bedtime every day which never affected my ability to sleep! I didn’t want to feel it that way, so I slowly started to switch to normal life, continuing to exercise, walking for an hour or so in the evening, drinking coffee in the morning if I want to and using my screen if it calms me down.

Although I still hated my bedroom and my bed, experiencing severe anxiety before going to bed or during the day, accepting my new reality has become a little easier – as thought my brain got tired of being constantly in fear. Whenever I experienced any scary sensation when drifting off (as it turned out – hyper arousal) I decided not to open my eyes, but face it. I was starting to breath deeply with my eyes closed and noticing that all these sensations were becoming less and less intense. This way I was able to fall asleep, and sleep for 8-9 hours uninterrupted for 3-4 days in a row. At that moment I thought that I made it, I beat it. But then a quick thought would pop-up in my head, questioning whereas I still worry about sleep and at that very moment, I was back to point one. That same night would again be sleepless or I would sleep for 3-4-5 hours only, waking up sad, frustrated and defeated.

Today, I am somewhat in the beginning of my journey. I decided that in order to help myself partially overcome my anxiety I need to fix my feelings about my bed, which I so hated. Unfortunately just CBT therapy doesn’t offer this while CBTi does, so I decided to try CBTi – this is why I am here. I am only into first week of CBTi and to be honest, I feel horrible. After having slept for at least 6-7 hours just a week ago, I now sleep chunks of 3-4 hours and rarely 5 hours combined, feeling completely like a crap next day, crying from time to time, feeling hopeless BUT I know that in fact my perception about it is more important.

* I find that most of the videos target chronic insomnia, therefore I was wondering if CBTi is appropriate to my situation?

** Is it “normal” to have these short chunks of sleep in the first week of RS while I allocate at least a 6 hour window?

*** The last question is – although I used to sleep well falling asleep very quickly and sleeping pretty long, I rarely felt a sleepiness in the evenings (I used to feel it when I was younger). What could this mean?

Thank you for any input or support…

• This topic was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Julymorning.

[Martin Reed]

Your experience with the “sleep obsession” and adoption of sleep hygiene rituals that can make sleep feel even more burdensome (and have us remove things we enjoy from our lives) is very common. Wayne got really obsessed with his sleep, to the point where he kept color-coded journals (he now realizes this probably wasn’t a helpful strategy!).

To answer your questions:

* I find that most of the videos target chronic insomnia, therefore I was wondering if CBTi is appropriate to my situation?

CBT-I is intended to help with chronic insomnia, which is considered to be three months of sleep complaints. However, if you recognize that you are spending a lot more time in bed than you typically spend asleep, if you now associate the bed with unpleasant wakefulness, if you find yourself rearranging your life in response to sleep, and if you find yourself really struggling with difficult thoughts, feelings, and emotions, I think you will still find cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques helpful.

** Is it “normal” to have these short chunks of sleep in the first week of RS while I allocate at least a 6 hour window?

We can’t really draw any inferences from the first couple of weeks of sleep restriction, since we are adapting to a new schedule and whenever we do something new, the mind is usually a bit more active to monitor/evaluate the effect of the changes we are making. Many people find that their sleep even gets a bit worse in the short term.

*** The last question is – although I used to sleep well falling asleep very quickly and sleeping pretty long, I rarely felt a sleepiness in the evenings (I used to feel it when I was younger). What could this mean?

We don’t always feel a strong sense of sleepiness in the evening — for people without insomnia, that’s probably because they aren’t really monitoring for it and they simply enjoy being in bed at night. So, they just go to bed at a similar time or when they feel relaxed enough for sleep to happen. For people with insomnia, high levels of arousal can suppress or hide sleepiness cues.

You might find this video helpful: How to improve sleep when you don’t feel sleepy and don’t know how to get sleepy.

I hope there’s something helpful here!

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