[_yogagirl1]

Hello. I am new here. I’ve been suffering from sleep anxiety for a year now. pretty much since COVID 19 began. I’m here to look for answers and support to this dreadful problem. I hate this suffering. Thank you

[Chee2308]

Hello and greetings!
Yours is a common and typical response to any perceived problem including insomnia, trying and wanting to escape from the discomfort and pain. Unfortunately, the solution to insomnia is to be willing to experience and go through it until it doesn’t bother you anymore. That’s the paradox about sleep. The more you try to escape the sleeplessness and the more efforts you make to fix it, the worse it gets. The most effective solution is also a very simple one and very easy to implement which is: being okay with not sleeping well and implementing simple sleep hygiene techniques such as going to and getting out of bed at the same time everyday, not compensating for lost sleep in any way such as sleeping in, taking naps or going to bed earlier and being prepared every night with not being able to sleep, i.e having no expectations. If you stick to the plan, you should be well on your way to sleeping well in the long term although experiencing bad nights occasionally every now and then during the journey is very common and to be expected. Good luck!

[hiker]

Hi, yogagirl1, sorry to hear you are having a tough time. It seems that there are a number of ways to be essentially a casualty of Covid, even if you don’t get the virus itself.

The fact that you use the term “sleep anxiety” leads me to think that you have already identified the underlying problem—not necessarily always anxious about a particular problem in your life, e.g. stress at work, being unemployed, etc., even though difficult life situations certainly lead to interrupted sleep. Rather you have pinpointed your issue as sleep anxiety–
that irrespective of present personal life difficulties, you are anxious about sleep itself.

First off, congratulations, and I am not being facetious here. It took me years to figure out that insomnia can perpetuate itself, beyond present circumstances. (This doesn’t mean you will have insomnia for years; I had severe mental health issues I had to work through.)

So, sleep anxiety. I agree with Chee Hiung Yong that acceptance is an important step. It is a step you arrive at after you do all the sleep hygiene tips and still can’t sleep. But it is definitely hard accepting something so unpleasant.

And if there was a certain mantra or whatever, or a guaranteed pharmaceutical, then insomnia would be cured, pretty much like smallpox. So what to do?

Maybe a simple example will help……The night before last, I woke up early, not rested, couldn’t get back to sleep after laying there for 20 minutes or so. So I got up, figuring that I have gone through thousands of days like this (doesn’t mean you will at all–see above); and that I had gotten through 100% of them. I looked at what I had to try to do that day, decided to give that a shot, and let go of everything else that could wait.
”
And sure enough, I was tired during the day. I acknowledged that “I’m tired.” That’s all. Doesn’t have to mean “I’m tired and I’ll never get over this, my life is a disaster,” etc.

And at bedtime last night, I said to myself, you know what, I am tired and I hope I sleep better tonight, but if I don’t I will be okay, not great but okay. It turns out I did sleep better last night, but sometimes in this situation I do not. And I try to keep the same attitude for the next night—and every night, really, regardless how I sleep. (If it goes on for several nights, I do take a prescription sleep aid to try to get back on track physiologically, but knowing that no drug will keep working every night, just a temporary fix, maybe.)

This is longer than I intended, but bottom line is to know that millions of us struggle with sleep anxiety at times. And things do get better…..especially when we can put this damn virus behind us, for starters!

Take care.

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