[Katie1980]

Hi! I am on day 2 of sleep restriction. My biggest issue with sleep is I am afraid of not being able to sleep, which in turn causes me to not be able to sleep. I’ve been relying on pills to sleep the past few years and I am trying to train myself to sleep on my own again. My biggest frustration right now is that I feel really relaxed and on the verge of sleep sitting on my couch waiting for it to be bed time, but then when I go to bed I toss and turn. I have a hard time maintaining that relaxed sleepy feeling in bed. Any advice? I’m really frustrated.

[Scott]

It’s encouraging to see you’re taking steps to restore your sleep with CBT-I techniques. Have you began implementing stimulus control – where you get out of bed when you’re feeling anxious/frustrated and engage in a more relaxing activity? What you describe about fearing you’re not going to be able to sleep and then you don’t sleep is a vicious cycle and is common among those who have consistent sleep disruptions. What if you treated those ruminating thoughts about not being able to sleep as just another thought instead of believing it? When an unhelpful thought about sleep arrives, address it with, “thanks for that thought, mind” and let it pass. It’ll come back – and bring it’s friends – but if you welcome it instead of fearing it, you’d change your relationship with those thoughts and fear them less. Remember, thoughts are just thoughts and can’t hurt us until we begin to believe in them.

Hope that helps,
Scott J

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