[Deb]

Hi Max – Congratulations and thanks so much for sharing your story! I came to this website about the same time as you and I was wondering how you were doing.

Borgesbi – If you haven’t already, you may want to read the Sleep Book, because it teaches techniques such as “mindfulness” and “welcoming” to calm down and then let go of the sensations and thoughts that come from sleep anxiety. I’ve used them and they work! I think that once you get the hang of them, then you won’t have to continue going through this cycle and eventually can nip the anxiety in the bud.

[madmax]

Hi Deb, thanks, and how are you doing? Yes I remember, I was following your story too, also wondering how you’re doing.

Borgesbi, I’m checking my SR log, until week 6 things were still really bad. Since week 7 I started only having 1 or 2 really bad nights per week, but I was still restricting to 5,5 hours. After that I was able to consistently increase 15 minutes per week keeping my sleep efficiency above 85% (although not much above that). So on week 14 I reached 7h and my sleep had been quite good for some weeks with only around one less good night per week (no really bad nights). After that I stopped with SR but kept the good habits and almost without realizing my sleep became even better during the following months. So you see, it’s a matter of trust, consistency and patience 🙂

[Deb]

Hi Max – it’s been a journey. I did SR twice for 2 months each time but was frustrated because I had 2 bad nights every week. When I heard of ACT and read the Sleep Book, I decided to give it a try. I really liked the approach of learning how to let go of anxiety, because I felt that my anxiety was always there lurking in the background. Back in March I tried ACT for a a few weeks. Almost immediately I began falling asleep, which was amazing because my insomnia is sleep onset. But my sleep was very light and I would wake up tired. I got confused and had no where to turn so eventually went back to SR which I did for another two months. Then recently I decided to try ACT again. This time I’m working with a sleep doctor from the Sleep School, where they specialize in the ACT approach. What I learned from the doctor that has been the most helpful to me is that my light sleep is normal. So it’s going well this time. I’m feeling more and more relaxed about sleeping. My sleep is still light but I’m managing to get enough sleep for the most part. I know that over time it will get better.

I’m not surprised that your sleep got better and better over time. You had learned how to relax again and trust in your ability to sleep, so it went back to normal.

So glad you’re doing well and thanks for the encouragement for all of us!

[madmax]

Hi Deb, good to read that you’re making progress and that you found a specialist, something quite impossible where I live. I don’t know about ACT but if it works for you hold on to it 🙂 I just listened to Martin’s podcast, intensive sleep retraining looks like another interesting thing to try. About SR yes, it’s quite hard, for some people it may be faster but as I explained before I only started to see a slight improvement after 6 weeks. But I’m sure it wasn’t SR alone, it was also essential that I moved my focus to sports and other things I like to do.

Good luck!

[Deb]

I don’t know where you live, but all it takes is the internet to meet with the sleep doctor (not that you need to). She’s in England and I’m in Alabama.

ACT has turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. I’m entering the stage now where all I do is go to bed at a reasonable time and then do nothing. For the most part, I’m getting decent sleep and if I don’t, I don’t worry about it. Like you said, when you just don’t care anymore and stop worrying about sleep, then it comes naturally. When just starting, the program can be difficult though because there may be a few sleepless nights after giving up all the “props” – the things you’ve been depending on like sleeping pills and even SR. But once you get the hang of it, which I basically did the first time around, then it’s pretty simple.

 

[madmax]

Indeed nowadays distance shouldn’t be a problem. Still, the shortage of specialists is shocking for such a common problem. After 8 months and insisting a lot I was finally deferred to a sleep clinic (when I was already almost completely recovered), but I got a letter from them saying they were saturated and didn’t accept new patients. Good luck we have the Internet!

[burn]

Deb,

I was following your story little bit because I also trying ACT and advices from Martin’s free course. I was following only ACT for a while and it really helped to reduce anxiety, but then I got frustrated by long nights of light sleep. I started sleep restriction now in addition to ACT.

Could you please describe what you have learned about light sleep being normal? I was amazed recently that thanks to ACT I was able to finally release the pressure/thought that I need to fall asleep, and that helped me to fall asleep faster. But today I increased my time in bed (too rapidly), and spent half a night in light sleep, and really not sure what to do about it. I really like ideas of ACT, they allowed me to overcome bed anxiety (almost completely) without stimulus control, they allow to take SRT easier, but extended light sleep (if not doing strict SRT) is frustrating. Your insights from the sleep school about spending a lot of time in light sleep would be great (!!!!!) to hear. Thank you, Nik.

[Borgesbi]

Deb, I’m going to check out the book you mentioned! I keep practicing mindfulness when sleep anxiety creeps in but it still comes back. Thank you for the suggestion! How have you been these past few nights?

Max, thank you so much for explaining all the details. I’m not sure if it was coincidence or not but shortly after reading your story I experienced several consecutive nights of good sleep and I’m still on a good wave- so if your story had anything to do with it, thank you for that! I must say, being on vacation also helped a ton as I decided to relax about sleep in general.

It’s interesting you are all talking about light sleep; I recently experienced it after a long time of no light sleep. I have a theory that light sleep is partially related to sleep pressure – I’ve noticed I tend to get light sleep when I either take a short nap during the day or when I allow myself to stay in bed for a long time while awake with a calm state of mind. I think when we stay in bed for a long time while feeling calm and relaxed but not sleepy, the brain eventually goes into light sleep (there’s not enough sleep pressure to go into deeper states of sleep?). Maybe light sleep is the result of a sleep system is naturally out of whack+ not enough sleep pressure?  This is just me making up a theory based on my experience, of course!

[Borgesbi]

Oh, light sleep also happens a lot for me when I’m very tired but not sleepy, so again related to sleep pressure? Have you all payed attention to when light sleep is more likely to happen for you?

[Deb]

Hi Nik, according to the sleep doctor, research has been done comparing the brains of “normals” with those with insomnia. For those with insomnia, the amygdala, which controls the fight or flight response in the brain, is much more active. Therefore, for those with insomnia, the periods of light sleep are longer than in “normals” because the brain is on alert, ready to detect any danger in the environment even when we’re sleeping.

When I first tried ACT back in March I had a lot of nights with light sleep all night long, with me waking up tired. It was very frustrating and I worried about it, thinking I was doing something wrong. I also thought that maybe I needed to start doing SR again, but this only complicated things. I think my worry about the light sleep and what to do about it fed my brain with more anxiety, and as a result, the light sleep continued. So this time when I did ACT, I knew from talking with the sleep doctor that light sleep was normal, so I relaxed and accepted it as part of the process, knowing that even though consciously I was relaxed, it would take time for the unconscious part of me to relax. As a result of this overall relaxation, my sleep started to deepen soon afterwards and now I’m sleeping like a “normal.” Hallelujah!

Borgesbi – the chapter on “Welcoming” will help you with your anxiety. It gives techniques on disarming it and losing it’s power over you.

When I was doing SR, my sleep was very good and deep. That’s why I thought that maybe I needed to combine SR with ACT. When I asked the sleep doctor about this she wasn’t quite sure why the sleep was deeper with SR, but she thought that maybe the build up of sleep pressure overrode everything, pushing the brain into deep sleep. This makes sense to me. Anyway for myself, I didn’t want to have to do SR in order to have deep sleep. I wanted to get back to being completely normal, even if it meant enduring light sleep for awhile. As it turned out, when I completely relaxed about everything, including the light sleep, the light sleep started deepening soon afterwards and now I’m sleeping normally.

[madmax]

Nice video: https://youtu.be/rJ2mkv5GJhc

[Author]

Posts