[Chee2308]

Hello everyone! Thought I would share my progress so far. I just finished my 3rd day of the first week of the paid program and I find myself responding really, really well to the bedtime restriction, aka “sleep restriction” part of the program. For all the past 3 nights, I was able to sleep almost immediately after hitting the bed. My sleep efficiency was also well over 90% for all these nights. I woke up frequently too, but was able to fall asleep again immediately. My total wake times after these awakenings were probably less than 5-10 mins for each night. Before this, I had a couple of gruelling sleepless nights where I got almost no sleep or would fall asleep at 1, 2 or 4 am, pretty much all over the place. I am also pretty fortunate I haven’t had the agony of having to apply SC part of the program. Before I started the 1st week of the program, I had only 2 hours of sleep the night before and immediately after signing up, I restricted my bed time to just over 4 hours instead of the usual 5.5 and saw results immediately. For the third night, I added 0.5 hours back under the advice of Martin and my body responded favorably to that too. As a result, I got more sleep time for the 3rd night and right now, my sleep drive is still very strong as I am already feeling sleepy at noon and struggling to stay awake until the next sleep window. I must say I am very pleasantly surprised at how well my body is responding to CBT-I. I also found myself waking at 550-610 am every time and no matter how much I tried I just couldn’t sleep past that. So I have totally abandoned my scheduled wakeup time of 630 and stuck with 6 am instead. For one of the nights, I remembered waking at just before 6 am and was trying to sleep again until 630 but ended up very frustrated, as I was laying there with eyes closed and trying to sleep and keep asking why inside my head is it taking so long to reach 630am! Guys, this stuff really works! Even I myself am surprised. I didn’t need to set an alarm clock to wake up cos my body was already doing that without any help!

[Chee2308]

Some things that I am doing that might be helpful when doing the cbt-i, I ditched the sunglasses and actually go out when the sun is up by as much as possible to let the eyes do the talking to the brain that it is daytime. Go out as much as possible under the sun without the sunglasses. Your eyes may be uncomfortable with the glare but this is much better than no sleep! At 6am, normally it is still dark at my part of the world, so I would turn on all the white lights inside my house to simulate this effect. At night, while waiting for the sleep window, turn off all the lights, tvs, phones, tablets one hour before bedtime and sit alone quietly in a dark cool place to again let the eyes do the talking to the brain. Get up and pace around to prevent falling asleep while waiting. I used to listen to an audio book while waiting but stopped this after I found the voice too annoying. All these really helped in falling asleep fast.

[Scott]

Chee Hiung Yong,

That’s for sharing this feedback and it’s wonderful to hear (but not a surprise) that you’re having success in the program.

Scott

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Clarity program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Martin Reed]

You’re doing well because you’re implementing what you’re learning and unleashing your natural ability to sleep Chee!

It might be helpful to be mindful of any covert sleep efforts that might creep into your routine — it can be so easy to believe that turning off all the lights, TVs, phones, and tablets for an hour before bedtime and then sitting alone in a dark cool place is generating sleep or sleepiness.

What all these behaviors can actually do is make you believe you need to do them in order to get a good night of sleep — this implies sleep can be controlled (when sleep cannot be controlled) and can increase arousal on any difficult nights after implementing such a ritual (as you might then feel the need to look for a new routine).

Ultimately, what we do as bedtime approaches doesn’t matter a whole lot — if you do something you find relaxing and enjoyable, that’s likely good enough!

—

If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Clarity program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Chee2308]

Hi Martin and Scott,

Thank you for your feedbacks. I have now completed the 13th night of my 8 week course. Last night was my first “bad” night after 12 nights of sleeping reasonably well as it was the first time I had to implement stimulus control because I woke up after about 1.5 hours of falling asleep and couldn’t get back asleep as easily as before and I had to get out of bed as it was getting uncomfortable. But even with this, I still managed to get a total 5+ hours of fragmented sleep, which I considered to be a “good” night compared to before. I could sense my sleep getting a little disturbed again, maybe because I had a string of better nights, and I was finding myself unintentionally napping more during the day. So now, I have resorted to chewing gum to keep myself awake, especially since my family like to take long drive trips and I am travelling along as a passenger. I am getting a bit worried about my bad night but try to calm myself down that a bad night is not going to ruin everything and that this is a long term improvement strategy and what happens in one night is non-consequential. So I will submit my sleep diary for the 2nd week after tonight and see how it goes.

[sam95]

Love the positive response. What has been your sleep window? My issue is I keep dosing off before my sleep window (2-8am) around 11PM-12AM and just decide to go to sleep to which by that time to which my dosing off has already gotten me awake enough to not fall back asleep

Should I practice staying awake till sleep window?

TYIA

[Chee2308]

Hi Sam!

I don’t use a sleep window anymore, my earliest bed time is now midnight which I happily oblige if I am sleepy by then and the latest 2am in which I climb into bed regardless of how wired I am. My out of bed time is anytime between 7-9am. I also do afternoon naps if I have the time and space for it. I stopped tracking my sleep and I have no idea how much I sleep. I seem to function fine like this, I might get sleepy at several times during the day but I take that as a sign my sleep system is in perfect working order and not because I was sleep deprived which I used to believe. My advice is only use a sleep window as a temporary crutch, because it is neither a sleep guarantee nor a sleep generator. Using a sleep window still won’t make you sleep more than what your own body needs! Thank you and good luck to you.

• This reply was modified 11 months ago by Chee2308.

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