[Deb]

A couple things were going on. First of all, from the very first week of the program I was sleeping through the night for the most part 5 days a week and having 2 bad nights a week (just like now). This didn’t change much throughout the whole 8 week program. I was very aware that it was anxiety that was keeping me from falling asleep the 2 bad nights and I had no idea of what to do about my anxiety. When I heard about ACT I got excited about it because it deals directly and foremost with anxiety. I thought that if I could heal the anxiety, my insomnia would be over. So this is what put me on the other course of giving up CBT-I and trying to do ACT.

Another factor was that I hated SC and and resisted it. So on my bad nights I would basically just fall apart. I had no strategy at all to deal with the bad nights, so I just suffered through them. Now my resistance to SC is gone. My first week back on CBT-I I had a very good week with SC working well. I only had to get up once and lost only 1.5 hours of sleep on the “bad” nights, making them not so bad after all. So instead of ruining the whole night like what happened the first time around, this time I’m using SC and it’s going better.

So to summarize, if I hadn’t had the distraction of ACT and the resistance to SC, I probably would have kept going and would have eventually gotten much better.

[Deb]

Clarification of one point. Because things didn’t change much from week 1 to week 8 I thought I had “plateaued” and was never going to get better. So I lost faith in CBT-I. Since then I’ve watched Martin’s video about “holdouts,” the one or two bad nights like I have that don’t seem to be going away. He said that this is common and that it just takes more time for them to eventually go away.

[Steve]

When I scan the internet on insomnia and CBT-i therapy I always run across complaints from people who say CBT-i hasn’t helped the quality of their sleep. It seems that they fall asleep rather easily but then they keep waking during the night because the quality of their sleep is so poor. Has anyone out there found this to be true? With my sleep, I am all over the board. I sometimes have difficulty falling asleep, I wake up during the night a lot, and I finally wake up too early, like at 4:00 in the morning, and can’t get back to sleep. So no matter what, I am going ahead with the CBT-i SR and SC because I figure it can only help me. But I was just wondering how many others had complaints about CBT-i and their quality of sleep?

[Steve]

I hope it works as well for me Deb, as it has for you. As I said, I tried ACT as well. Never worked for me. It was one thing to say I accept my insomnia and welcome it, it was another to actually do it. I ended up just tossing and turning the whole night. I think the thing that appealed to me was not having to get out of bed when I couldn’t sleep. It was nice to think I could just lay there, say I accept whatever comes along, and watch my insomnia disappear. In realty, it’s a whole tougher ballgame.

[Deb]

My quality of sleep is good. When it isn’t, it’s usually due to some external factor like a headache or having too much toxins in my system like coffee or alcohol. My guess is that your sleep is all over the board because of your anxiety. When you start to see some improvement and start getting better, the anxiety will go down and your sleep will be better.

Yes, I also liked the idea of staying in bed all night. Only problem was that I was awake all night! ACT was impossible to do without any help.

[Mac0908]

Not going to document my day to day SRT return, but just felt like posting today. Last night was night 3. Went in my bed at 11:30p. Still didn’t crash for a half hour or so. Slept til my alarm at 6a but (Deb as you know all too well), 6 hours is a very iffy number for me. Definitely tired today but at least I don’t feel like death.

While it feels nice in a way to start being back in the “routine” that got me doing better all those months ago, (going to sleep only when exhausted and cutting off the phone/laptop an hour beforehand), there’s still a strong sickening feeling in my stomach this time around knowing that I’ve officially relapsed and am back at square one for the most part. I just have these bad visions this time around as well, that I spoke about yesterday. Where I feel like I’ve just been involved in this for so long that it might be a near impossible hole to get out of. At least some others on here are only dealing with months of this. Try 2.5 years, albeit a little on and off, but still, 2.5 years.

I don’t want to scare anyone off because I do feel its possible to recover, but sometimes I feel like there are those exceptions. I’ve watched all of Martin’s videos, a lot of Daniel Erichsen’s as well. I know all the routines, all the right things to do. And YES I got a lot better at certain points in the last 4 months, even to a point where I thought I was never coming back to these forums (except for a success story) or sleep videos or anything insomnia related. I probably had a good 2-3 week run at the end of March into April where I was at my best. But I was never truly fully healed imo, ever. I still thought about sleep. And maybe that was the problem like I said yesterday. Maybe I started feeling like I was “due” for a couple of bad nights. Then wouldn’t you know it, eventually they came again.

Yes I gave up my strict window within a month of making progress and yes I started to get more ‘comfortable’ with my sleep routine, but when does it end? I felt I was getting better after all. Point of this all is, I sit here now, tired, wondering, will this all just end up being another part of the cycle in my life?

 

 

 

[Steve]

Hang in there Mac. You beat it once. You can do it again. But now you know you have to stick with it even after you think you got it beat. At least for a long period of time. I have to ask you, when you say you thought you were never truly healed, did you mean you thought you might start having insomnia again or did you mean while you had good sleep, you never felt like you felt before the insomnia hit? For me, I just want to get rid of these headaches and occular migraines. I don’t know how much sleep that will take to get rid of them.

 

If you are doing SRT, then don’t forget to post in the thread I created.

[Mac0908]

Ok sounds good. I’ll keep the specific SRT updates in your thread going forward. Definitely can’t guarantee they will be every day or even every couple of days though. Quick question with regards to your migraines – do you drink enough water? I would get KILLER migraines not too long ago and eventually realized I just wasn’t hydrated enough.

To answer your question, as ridiculous as this sounds, its almost hard for me now to remember what good nights used to be like for me. Again, I’m not one of these 4-6 month people. This has been a huge part of my life at this point. 2.5 years now. But, what I can tell you is that when I’d have my good nights not too long ago here in 2019, I felt totally rested like I could take on the world every day. Some days a little worse than others, sure, but who isn’t a little groggy in general at work these days? I personally wake up at 6am and start work at 7:30am which I know for certain is all definitely on the early side, even for New Yorkers.

I remember I was on Jury Duty in March of 2018 for an entire MONTH during what was a bad phase of Insomnia for me (when wasn’t, really?) Anyway, point is we did not have to report until 10am every day! I didn’t even set my alarm most days. Just woke up naturally around 8:30am! I kid you not Steve while it didn’t instantly fix my problems and still had some weird nights for sure, for probably around a solid half of that month I felt like a new person. I remember telling my friend wow, this is what human beings are SUPPOSED to feel like every day. Yep, that was just another piece of the puzzle in realizing this is all 100% anxiety related.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Mac0908.

[Steve]

You’re in New York? I am just outside of Syracuse. I do not get regular migraines. I get ocular migraines which are the auras without the pain. Still a problem though as the auras affect my ability to see.

No problem with not posting every night. I don’t plan to. Just when I need support or ideas. I do plan to start my SR Friday night instead of Saturday. Sleep diary won’t be affected by the one day. My SW will be 5.5 hours no matter what happens tonight or Friday night so may as well start it.

 

[Deb]

Mac, I don’t think you’re doomed to have insomnia forever. I think the problem is that you relax too soon (get cocky?) You’ve got to take a longer view. When you start feeling better after a month, that’s too soon to think that you’re cured and begin to relax. You know how to do this, but you’ve just got to stick with it longer  until it’s really, really stable. That could take a few months or more. You need more patience, Mac. So for instance, when you’re having good, solid sleep within the 6.5 hrs, which could be a few weeks, THEN think about increasing the window. Stay with this window at least a couple of weeks and THEN increase again. Don’t even think about relaxing until you’ve got a few months of solid sleep behind you. This takes time, Mac. That’s all there is to it. You need more patience and perseverance and then you won’t lose your gains and have to start from ground zero again. You might have just gotten lucky before when you had that really good week. But since it wasn’t built on a strong foundation, you slipped back again so easily. So build your foundation really, really strong this time, and then you won’t lose it.

[Deb]

For myself, I’m on my third week of the 6.5 hour window. I’m feeling good about the progress I’m making, but since it’s only been a few weeks since I was at a really bad place, I’m hesitant to make any changes that might disrupt things. So I’m hanging in there with the 6.5 hour window for now, although I could use more sleep (I think my ideal would be more like 7.5 hours). Last night I lost about an hour of sleep so am tired today, but not too bad – maybe a 3 out of 5. I can get things done, but don’t have a lot of energy.

[Steve]

I agree with Deb. You know it worked once so it will work again. But you need to plan for a longer time frame of SR to keep it working. I don’t know that this will even work for me as I have never tried it before. I could be one of those few……

[Deb]

Steve – It doesn’t help to think that you’re different and that it won’t work for you. Remember what Sasha says about this in her book.

[Steve]

I didn’t read her book. What does she say?

[Mac0908]

Very bad mindset to think like that. If you are not optimistic, your brain will remain negative and you may see worse results. Right now you have a traumatized nervous system and you need all the calm and positive thoughts/behaviors you can give yourself.

It WILL work for you if you stick to it. It pretty much has to as SRT, in a way, eventually forces you to sleep in these smaller windows. That’s not the big hurdle to get to though imo. The big hurdle is the long term success and knowing when it’s ok to really back off and get a little comfortable so to speak.

[Author]

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