[zac]

Five days into SR and sleep definitely worse, probably sleeping two hours. Just after some advice/opinion, or if anyone has experienced the following and how they handled it. The last couple of nights my sleep deteriorated from 5 hours broken to 2 hours a night, and it went like this……before my scheduled bed time I’m nodding off and sleep drive very strong, I go to bed and before too long I get this horrible scary feeling, were my ‘sleep drive’ is fighting my ‘arousal drive’ and the ‘arousal drive’ wins and anxiety and fear set in and I have to get out of bed….is this a panic attack? Then this frightening feeling of experiencing the ‘arousal drive’ dominating over ‘sleep drive’ keeps me anxious and frightened with a thought of I’ve ruined my poor sleep even more, and I’m am strengthening my ‘arousal drive’ even more. Then it’s a couple of hours before I can recover from this frightening feeling and go back to bed a nod off for a couple of hours and that’s it for the night approx. 2 hours of sleep. Is this ‘arousal drive’ dominating over ‘sleep drive’ sleep anxiety which will dissipate over time? Specifically would like hear from people who have felt this frightening feeling of the ‘arousal drive’ dominating over ‘sleep drive’, and if it’s a common part of the process, or I have something else going on?

[Chee2308]

Greetings!
Have you ever reasoned that you or your mind has warped this fear of not sleeping now into this fear of actually falling asleep? Since you go to bed to sleep, and you feel you are already sleepy, so how come now you are afraid of falling asleep because isn’t that what you want? Try to find the rationale in this, if any! Because there’s none and your mind has completely turned something into something else that doesn’t make sense. Going forward, try not fight the fear of bad sleep, accept that it’s going to take a while to settle down and that’s okay! You will eventually doze off at some point, it may be a bit longer than normal people for now, that’s understandable because you’ve lived with this fear for so long. Give yourself lots of time and patience. It will settle down eventually and then as you begin letting go, these episodes will happen less and you’ll fall asleep faster. Just try not to struggle, let whatever happen to happen or kinda expect it will be like this every night, in a way. Give yourself permission to rest in bed while giving time for your anxious mind to settle down and that everything’s fine and will work out eventually. Ultimately to get over insomnia, you have to stop fearing poor or little sleep. That’s how it works! Hope you find this useful and best wishes.

[Angeli]

I’m well acquainted with nocturnal panic. He kept me company for many years. In addition to Martin’s course, Dr. Claire Weekes’ book (Hope And Help For Your Nerves) helped me a lot. There she teaches total acceptance and floating on bouts of anxiety and fear. Hope it helps you like it helped me.

[zac]

Thanks Chee for your response…..re ‘Give yourself lots of time and patience It will settle down eventually and then as you begin letting go, these episodes will happen less’….yes i like this thought and will take it on board.

Thanks Angeli, yes I am aware for Claire Week’s book, I read it many years ago…..good to remind myself though on letting fear go.

[Author]

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