[Deb]

Yes, the anxiety is the basis of the insomnia. The treatment will reduce the anxiety over time when you start seeing some results.

[Deb]

Dragon,

How are you doing? I talked to Martin and he said the first two or three weeks can be the hardest. That’s why getting support is essential. I hope you’re hanging in there.

[dragon]

Thanks Deb for the support.  Much appreciated. Yeah it’s been rough for me.  Guess I want to see some consistency.  Not there yet

[Deb]

I’m finally getting back on track. I’ve been back on CBT-I now for one week. The first two days were horrible, with no sleep the first night and just two hours the second night. Made for a really lousy weekend. But since then things have improved a lot. I talked to Martin this week and he said it would probably be easier for me this time around since I had already done this before. That has turned out to be true. My sleep window is from 12:00 to 6:30 and the last 5 nights the number of hours I slept were 5, 6.25, 6, 4.5 and 6.5 last night, my first full night of sleep.

It’s hard to believe that just a short while ago I was mentally falling apart with extreme anxiety, depression, despair and the beginnings of panic attacks. Now everything has settled down and I’m starting to feel like my old normal self again, thank goodness.

My attitude towards CBT-I has totally changed since the first time I did this. I realized that the first time around I made a mistake by relying on my night caps to go to sleep. By doing that I denied myself the opportunity to learn to trust in my natural ability to fall asleep. Also, I used alcohol because I was so desperate to avoid any bad nights. When I did have bad nights I would just fall apart and didn’t know how to deal with them. This time around I’m alcohol free and am willing to deal with whatever happens, including the bad nights. My attitude towards SC has also totally changed. I hated it and struggled with it before, but now I just think of it as training. It’s like a parent training a young child to stay in bed – she takes him back to his bed over and over again. I’m training my mind to associate bed with sleep, so I just make myself get out of bed over and over again, as needed. No emotion or struggle is attached – I just do it because it’s part of the training. Same for the sleep window. As a result of this, my anxiety has gone way, way down.

I plan to stay with this sleep window for at least another 2 or 3 weeks. I want to make sure my base is solidified before making any changes and increasing the sleep window. Stability is what I’m after, not just an hour or more of sleep in the short term.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that CBT-I really works if you do it right. If I had done it right the first time I wouldn’t have had to take this long circular journey to get back to this starting point. But I guess this is what it takes sometimes for us to learn our lessons. Now I understand CBT-I more deeply than the first time around and as a result, I’m more committed and am getting good results.

[Mac0908]

Really nice to read all that Deb. I don’t think many sufferers including myself would disagree that CBT/SR does in fact work. It worked for me for sure. The problem I’ve run into and clearly you as well, is running into relapsed and not being able to handle them, so to speak.

I think that’s the real issue here imo. Not going back to the tools and having another good few weeks, but more so how to try whatever we can to STAY on those paths. What exact technique are you using right now besides the SR window that’s gotten you back in a nice groove?

[Deb]

Just SR and SC, that’s all.

[Padron1926]

Deb,

I’ve read a lot of your posts and this latest one is really inspiring.  I just finished my first week of trying sleep restriction with Martin and it didn’t go well.  Had two meltdowns this week but I’m determined to make this work.  I was messing around with sleep restriction for a few weeks prior at 6 hours (sleeping only 4.75hrs though) but after my intake Martin has me down to 5.5hrs.  I was not using SC which I’ve learned is really really helpful for my early morning insomnia.  The part about thinking about it as training is really helpful and that is how I have to go about it going forward.  Set a consistent sleep window with one wake up time and if I don’t fall back asleep in the morning get out of bed and do something else and do all this without thought.

Again your journey has been very inspiring and hope you get your sleep to where you want it.

[Deb]

I’m glad my journey has been inspiring to you, Nick, even with all its twists and turns and getting totally lost! Sorry about the meltdowns – those aren’t fun and I have certainly have had my share. I’m glad though that you’re determined to make this work because determination is what it takes. Really, when you think about it, we don’t have much of a choice – do the hard work or live with insomnia the rest of our lives? So we have do the hard work, sooner or later. I’m also glad that you’re getting help from Martin. It can be very hard in the beginning, so getting the help you need is really important. Good luck!

[Mac0908]

Another bad night. On a Friday nonetheless. In some real trouble now. Staying calm though. I think I need to come to the realization once and for all that once in a bad phase/relapse there is simply no snapping my fingers and turning things around in one night. My nervous system is more jumpy bc of this relapse, as is my mentality overall. Whether it’s some NyQuil or whether its implementing SRT again, once thing I’ve learned in all of this is that in this pivotal moment I need to do something to ENSURE I can just sleep well for a night or two. Then I can try and build on that instead of just heading to bed the last few nights just hoping things turn around. I’m sure many would agree that’s a bad route to go.

Just insane of course. Weeks ago I’m sleeping better than ever, seeing the brightest light at the end of the tunnel, weening myself away from these forums and thinking about writing a success story, thinking back to just how bad I was months ago and cringing at just how anxious I was, and now look at me, somehow someway back in a similar spot again. The brain is one powerful and strange thing.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by Mac0908.

[Deb]

Sorry you’re having a tough time, Mac. Just curious, what’s a bad night for you, Mac?

My bad nights used to be me being awake until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I’d only sleep for two or three hours and would be a zombie the next day. Now it’s more like 1:30, with me getting 5 hours of sleep, which for me is decent. With my current sleep window, on those nights I’m only losing 1.5 hours of sleep instead of 3, 4 or even 5 hours of sleep like I used to. I attribute the lack of really bad nights to accepting SC. I used to just fall apart when I couldn’t fall asleep so then the whole night would be ruined with me struggling and not falling asleep. Now I just accept that I’ve got to get up and the few times I’ve had to get up it’s only been getting up once. So this is a huge improvement and in a sense I’m not really having “bad” nights, at least not lately.

Do you practice SC? I wonder if you did, it might help. I just do it in a mechanical way, not thinking or fretting about it – just doing it. I think because I have this attitude then I don’t get anxious and as a result fall asleep after the first time.

 

[Mac0908]

Very sorry for the late response Deb. Like I’ve said before I’m trying to move away from the everyday visiting of these forums though I probably shouldn’t stay too far away since I’m in serious trouble right now and need some help. The days of SR and SC pretty much ended for me a while back now and I’ve been trying to just stick to a few of the obvious basic rules hoping they’d hold me over. Like never going to bed unless exhausted and never lying in.

A “bad” night for me is still the same, Deb. Rarely ever any trouble falling asleep. I feel some small anxiety but NOTHING like I used to, and after a half hour on average I’m out. The problem is still waking too early. It’s back to a crap shoot again, with more bad nights than not. Lately the anxiety is building bc of my recent woes hence a pattern has formed.

Sunday night however I actually had a great night. Felt like an amazing person yesterday. Today, forget about it. Woke up probably 1.5 hours before my alarm. A far cry even from my “semi bad” nights when I’d be on here complaining about not being able to make it past 6.5 hours. I just cannot live like this anymore Deb. I feel disabled. 4 months later here we are still struggling, or at least me. Unable to live my life to the fullest and unable to do everything I want. I cannot work out whenever I want to, hang out with friends whenever I want to and I cannot date whenever I want to because of this problem. I was doing SO much better for quite a while though as you know. It appeared only a month ago that insomnia and my daily trips to this thread were behind me. I had my first ever week long spree of good nights in years. Now I’m back in a serious rut and I’m just so upset that I pretty much have to revert back to some strict SRT because this crap shoot game is a never ending cycle.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by Mac0908.

[Deb]

Sorry you’re having a hard time, Mac. Yes, I certainly know what it’s like to feel like I can’t live like this anymore and that I’m disabled. Before I started the program again just two weeks ago, I was definitely there, feeling depressed, without hope and despairing. I was starting to get panic attacks too. I was really struggling with my counseling business also, because it’s very difficult to be there for other people when you’ve had no sleep and you’re feeling like a zombie! I hoped and prayed that people would cancel their appointments, because I just couldn’t deal with it. Pretty pathetic.

Since I started all over again, I’m doing much better. In the last week I slept through the night 4 nights and the other 3 it took me 1 & 1/2 hours to fall asleep. So I lose sleep on the front end. Fortunately, I don’t seem to need as much sleep as you do, so I do ok on 5 hours of sleep, which I got the other 3 nights. So I either fall asleep right away, or have to get up at least once and lose about 1.5 hours of sleep. I hope that over time this pattern changes, and instead of having to get up and lose 1.5 hours of sleep, I fall asleep within 10-20 minutes. That was my usual pattern before. Also, I didn’t have to be completely exhausted to fall asleep like I am now.

So it sounds like you’re losing about 1.5 hours on the back end. Is that about right or do you usually lose more sleep than that? Do you do SC? It’s supposed to help with either the front or back end.

I’m aiming for stability, Mac, and this might be a good thing for you to aim for too. It’s not enough to have one good week. We need to have many good weeks before we can put this behind us. So for instance, last week I would call a “semi good week” with a sleep efficiency of 89%. My aim is to have at least several weeks like this, with the pattern gradually changing to “good weeks” with high sleep efficiencies. I will be maintaining a strict sleep window and doing SC the whole time and the sleep window will increase over time, but very slowly. Then when I’ve had many “good weeks” I may finally be able to say I’m over the insomnia.

 

[Mac0908]

Thanks for all that Deb. I need the help right now. As far as SC and getting out of bed if I can’t fall back asleep, no, I don’t practice that anymore bc I don’t need to. When I was waking in the middle of the night back in the day with crazy anxiety, whole different story. Same when I couldn’t fall asleep within a certain amount of time. These days those problems are behind me which is great, but that doesn’t change the fact that a 4:30 or 5am wake up kills me when my alarm is set for 6am.

I simply cannot get by on 5 hours, end of story. But yeah, If I’m up too early like at 5 lets say, there’s really no point in getting out of bed bc its already almost time to “wake up” at that point. I already know  the formula that will help me get better again, and its going back to a sleep window SRT style. 11:30p-6aor whatever it will be like I was doing in Jan/Feb. Problem of course is what happens when I hit this relapse situation again? Is this just a never ending cycle for me I wonder? I’ve come so far, make no mistake Deb. So far from the days of freaking out by thinking this had to do with my diet, or rearranging my room in a different way, or buying new SHEETS thinking that would help, etc. I was a straight up crazy person at one point. That’s gone and that’s great. But I’m still not there.

Perhaps I subconsciously got overly cocky when I began doing better. There’s no doubt I had plenty nights where I’d jump into bed probably a little too early, not fully exhausted. But hey, I figured maybe I was getting better. Reverting back to a normal sleeper. Some nights it was even fine. I’d go to bed around 11 not completely shot, and I’d still make it very close to or to my 6am alarm. Today is my breaking point though IMO. It’s time to go back to SRT once and for all. But like I said, where this all really ends I dont know.

[Padron1926]

I’m trying to do Stimulus Control at night when I wake up early (which is always), any tips to ease the anxiety?  I seem to be suffering real bad from that right now.  I get up and go to another room to watch TV but the anxiety doesn’t seem to ease up.

[Deb]

Yeah, sounds like you need to go back to SR and stick with it until things get really stable. And then when you’ve got MANY good weeks of sleep behind you, then you can get cocky!

[Author]

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