[TiredTwinDad]

Hey everyone, I’m back…again. I’m writing this as a personal therapy, hoping that getting it down on the page takes it out of my head.

Early wake times have continued to persist, but over the past several months, it’s been consistently erratic. I’ve kept my cool, accepting my learned behavior, but after a while it really grinds on a person. And I’m stuck in the paradox of not giving it attention, but also nothing improving. I don’t know if this is a learned behavior or circadian rhythm, so I guess my question is:

Are there any new treatments, tips, etc. for dealing with sleep maintenance insomnia? Or is there something different I can be doing to deal with the early learned arousal? Or is this a circadian rhythm issue?

Right now the routine is in bed around +/- 10p, usually after dozing on couch for 20 min. Wake up anytime between 2:30 and 4a, notice my awakened state continues to awaken, head downstairs to lie on the couch and turn on podcast/audiobook for Rest time for the remainder of the morning. BTW, I call it “rest time” as a part of accepting that I might not sleep (ACT). One of 3 things happens during Rest time. 1) Fall asleep within 10 minutes, for about an hour. 2) Light sleep may occur, but it isn’t restful. 3) If the hour+ hasn’t been restful and my wife comes down at 5a, I will occasionally go back upstairs for an extra 45+ of light-med sleep (which helps).

I think one option could be to stay up later, in hopes of retraining the body’s alarm clock. And then slowly push back the bed time. Kind of a less restrictive CBT-i. Of course it will be painful for a short while.

Another option would be to stay in the room, maybe sit up for 5-10 min, listening to the audio book, and take the rest time in the bedroom. I do worry about waking my wife, though she is supportive. Sometime’s she’s out cold and wouldn’t notice, but other times she might wake and stay awake. The other fear of that is the arousal that happens when I’m trying to notice myself sleepy. That’s why resigning myself to the couch for the last 1-2 hours works at the moment, as I’m not monitoring my current consciousness status.

I have worked with a sleep doc in the past, with CBT-i, and we concluded part of the early morning hyper arousal was caused by following those rules (get out of bed, return when sleepy). Once I moved on to ACT, it sort of improved, or at least my mental and physical state did. Like I said, I’ve been trying to keep my cool about it and not give it attention, but months of erratic awakenings has really been grinding. Anything thoughts are appreciated.

[Chee2308]

Hello!
So what time do you get out of bed to start your day?
And any particular reason why you go to bed at 10pm other than struggling to stay awake? It might be a bit early for some people. The reason I’m saying this is because some people are night owls and they naturally stay up until midnight. How much sleep do you estimate you are getting on a average night, including all that light, broken sleep that you said you are getting?

[Angeli]

Hello!

I’m going to point out here some things you’re doing that if I did too, I’d be condemning myself to go back to the hell of insomnia.
1- Sleep early.
2- Take a nap 20 min before the sleep window starts and + 45 min after waking up. In other words: Steal 1 hour and 5 minutes of sleep from the next night.
3- Audio Book. My brain interprets it as something I’m doing to help me sleep faster and make me more awake.
4- Getting out of bed. It only worked for a while, then My anxiety increased. Paradoxical Intent worked best for me.

I applied CBTi techniques and corrected severe insomnia for over 20 years. But at first I had to be very obedient to Insomnia Coach’s guidelines. I learned a lot here on this forum with the guidance of the most experienced. I suggest you read it.

[Jacob]

Hi. I was and particularry still am same case here. I too going sleep in +- 10pm and wake around 3-4 am. And still improving. But to the core of your question. Is is learned behavior or different C-rythm. From my point of wiew both.

When i have goo night, when i sleep like 6 or more hours then automaticly bad night come, when i wake up very early. And my solution for that was willingly set my alarm to like 2:30 or 3 am. Like literally. You wrote you want to sleep, thne the listenig of brodcast etc. is only your alternative for the inabillity to fall asleep hardly again. So make the shift. Make sleep your secondary goal that you dont want primarly and set your clock to early morning. Just wake up in the 3am and dont want to go sleep again like stay wake up

After some time of this wakefullnes mornings you notice that you wake up to your alarm totally crashed with heavy breathing and hard time to be fully awaken. And in that time if you go back to bed, you will definitevly sleep like to 6 or 7 am.

Like you retrain you brain to really dont make sleep yopur primary goal and then you atuomatically loose any sleep effort and then you will only face your changed C-rythm which will automatically start pushing wakeups to more later hours.

It worked for me

[MommyE18]

Following this thread. Early morning wakings tends to be my trouble as well.

I know it probably best to go to bed later than 10, at least for a while. But most nights I struggle to stay awake past 10. It would increase sleep drive and lessen the arousal. Definitely should try. I also need to take my own advice ?

[TiredTwinDad]

My apologies for not replying, I’m not getting any emails apparently.

I would not consider myself a night owl. I’ve been a morning lark ever since I lived in apartments(15 years ago) with poor windows and shades, so I always woke up with the sun and the sounds of birds.

Ideally, I would sleep 10p-5a. My wife is up at 5a to drink coffee and read in peace for an hour. I either sit with her or if I had a good night will do stretching/elliptical workout for 45 minutes. I don’t really get up and start my day, I’m just up and waiting for the kids to wake to make them breakfast.

For the longest time, I always had what I think are called Swiss Awakenings. I knew my wife’s alarm would be at 5a, and I would be up 5-15 min before.That has since turned much earlier and is way more erratic, can be 2a-4a. Right now, I’m focusing on not knowing what time it is. Even though I didn’t clock watch, I could always infer what time it was after the fact.

Right now I only trust myself to sleep in bed when I am dead tired or have been dozing on the couch, and I fall asleep almost instantly. I’d also like to work on catching that a little sooner, so a minor state of wakefulness isn’t so disturbing at night. I’ve done traditional CBT-i, but found the get back in bed when tired part to never happen, since monitoring my wakeful state cause hyper arousal. I like having some kind of light audio on at this time to help distract my inner thoughts.

Personally, I’m having a better week. Awakenings still happen, but deeper sleep has been happening in those last few hours. Even stayed in bed once or twice, as my wife was out where I would be. It’s funny how sometimes I’ll have a better night when going to bed earlier (like 9:30) instead of later (maybe 10/10:15+). I know you should have a consistent bedtime, but I think ACT gave a little leeway in that it doesn’t have to be perfect. I should probably reread that book.

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