[RickyGelo]

Hello all,

I might just be lookig for some words of comfort here.

I completed the course about 3 months ago, right after the completion, things got much better, I was sleeping about 7 hours, sometimes more sometime less, but all in all it did not matter as I could do everything I wanted, especially sports. I am a big sports person, I like endurance sports and competitions, which takes hours and hours of training every week, which can only be done if enough rest / recovery is taking place.

A couple of weeks ago, out of nowhere, my sleep was interrupted in the middle of night and could not fall back to sleep. No big deal, it will go back to normal, I thought. But it did not, it stuck around every night since. Now I feel like I am sliding backwards instead of progressing forward.

I am trying to remain positive and calm but I am struggling to do so, as I see all gains which took several months to get, disappear in a few days.

The most important lesson I learned in the course is “do things that are aligned with your values every day despite how you slept”, that’s how you defeat insomnia. However what I love and is aligned with my values is endurance training, which I am finding very difficult to stick to because I get up from bed feeling completely tired.

I will now implement a strict sleep window again and try to stick to some light training everyday and hopefully that will do the trick.

Anyone going through a similar period, please let me know how you are managing

Thank you 🙂

[Chee2308]

Good luck to you.

• This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by Chee2308.

[hiker]

Hi RickyGelo, sorry to hear you are having a setback. Unfortunately, they happen. I have found the best way to handle them is not let them morph into a catastrophe, instead just viewing it as oh, okay a setback for a bit. I know, easier said than done. But true.

I am intrigued by your observation from the course about “doing things aligned with your values every day despite how you slept.” Note that Martin did not add: “unless what you want to do is really hard, in which case forget it.”

I have no doubt that your training regimen is physically and mentally demanding. I have not done such training. But I remember having to work in court, trying cases to juries, dealing with anxious crime victims, including many children having to face their abuser. It has been years now, but I will never forget how hard it was to get up after yet another night of poor sleep, and somehow get dressed, get to work, and deal with it all. So not physically demanding, unless you include sometimes dealing with migraine pain during the day.

I guess it was all aligned with my values because these kids needed me, and I couldn’t just call in sick and see if someone else could fill in for me—which they couldn’t, because the victims / witnesses wouldn’t know them, the whole life stories and family dynamics took weeks to process.

So how did I do it? I am not Superman, or Mother Teresa. Prayer helped, but I understand if that carries baggage for you. So many hypocrites give religion a bad name. And actually, it came down to just doing the next thing. As in now both of my feet are out of bed, onto the floor. Now I am tying my left shoe. I can do this next thing, my right shoe. At work, now I am picking up this file, now I am walking to the courtroom.

I had to do this periodically. Parents have to do it every day. Same with all sorts of people who have to keep going no matter what they have to do, no matter how well they have slept. People in refugee camps.

Well, I guess I’m going a bit here. To sum up, setbacks are definitely a bummer, but you can make it through. Okay, it is tougher to get out there and do your training when you’re tired. But the alternative is well, to not train today. And to base your training schedule on how well you’ve slept. And if you get into a bad insomnia streak, to wind down the training and maybe quit it altogether. With all your training and competitions, you don’t sound like a quitter.

I hope you can take it moment to moment, and that you check out other people’s stories, both the successes and the struggles. Take care, you are not alone in this.

[RickyGelo]

Hi Hiker,

Thank you very much for the kind words and for sharing your story, very inspiring!

What you had to do despite the poor sleep is much more important (helping kids) than what I have to do (training and competing, which is just for myself), so I find it inspiring that you pulled through and manage to deliver on your duties, well done!

It is getting a bit better already, as you say, I am not a quitter, and I have dealt with it by saying “okay even if I got 4-5 hours of bad quality sleep, I will go for a run anyway tomorrow morning, I will go slower and for a shorter distance and then take it from there” and by committing to it everyday, it is slowly slowly improving. The goal is to gain increments every day and then get back to pre-crisis levels.

You are very right in saying that it is key to not let a setback become a catastrophe, as the brain is a master at that (“all the gains made in the past months are gone, just like that, what have you done!”).

So thank you again for your message, it helped a lot 🙂

[hiker]

You’re welcome, RickyGelo.

And when you have your next setback down the line, you might remember that ‘wait, been here before, I can handle this.’ Although you might have moments in which the thought blasts through that ‘no, this is way worse than ever, I can’t handle this, not this time, not any more.’

It might be a really powerful thought, but that’s all it is, a thought. Truth is, yes, you can handle it.

[Lshelton]

I could relate to this several years ago with my sleep issues which led to anxiety and depression. At times it seemed like a vicious cycle that would come and go. With support from amazing friends and talking things out it really did seem to help. Although I still struggled with bouts of insomnia on and off, I was able to keep mentally stronger but still wanted to improve my sleep pattern. Martin’s course has helped me in that I have learned to remain calm and to not panic if I wake up or have a hard time falling asleep. For the most part I carry on with my plans the next day and am way less hard on myself, especially if I have a setback. This has helped me immensely and I hope this can help you as well.

[Author]

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