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It definitely would be worth a try, Dragon. See if it makes a difference. In the meantime, you could practice mindfulness, acceptance and welcoming during the day, and if you can when you’re feeling anxious in bed.
Very bad night last night. Seems like I’ve officially relapsed. What a turn of events since coming home from vacation having forgotten about my insomnia. Basically I went in my bed at 10:15p last night, thought it was very tired, but had some stuff on my mind and didn’t crash for almost an hour until around 11:15p. Unusual for me. But, there was no real sleep anxiety. I relaxed. I know I’ve made progress. Figured I’d just nod off and hopefully get 6.5. That was until I awoke at some point in the early AM. Though I didn’t look at my clock like Delv suggested, I knew full well it was probably estimated to be around 4:30am. I tried dozing back off but it didn’t work. Eventually I passed back out for maybe 15-20 mins or so before my alarm went off at 6am. I then snoozed for 20 whole minutes out of absolute desperation. While today marks my first back to back zombie day in a long time, I’m still trying to stay positive. Tonight I will finally return back to SRT. 11:30pm-6am. I will force myself to stay up. While I’m pretty devastated that its come to this after over 2.5 months now, and that I have to pretty much go “Back to square one”, I guess its nice to know I have the peace of mind and tools to use here in this tough time. Question in the back of mind though is, when will I ever TRULY get over this hell?
Day 18 of ACT Jinxed myself by saying I haven’t had a bad night in awhile. Had one last night. But what caused it this time was different. After I made that decision two days ago to go back to SR, there was some anxiety about it but I was able to keep it at bay. Well last night it caught up with me big time. Only slept a few hours and am wiped out today. Oh well. Haven’t had a decent night of sleep in 9 days. Always tired. Hate this. I wondered like you too, Mac, if I’m ever going to get better, although I haven’t had to deal with this as long as you.
I felt like I had made so much progress, finally being able to fall asleep fairly quickly like a normal person and sleep through the night. Only problem was that the sleep was shallow and I was waking up tired. But I was getting more and more relaxed about sleeping. What helped was that I wasn’t worried about when I would have to get up, because I was waking at a decent time. But the old worry came back when I went to bed at 12:00 – “I’ve only got 6.5 hours of sleep. What if I can’t sleep for awhile and then end up getting a lot less sleep than 6.5 hours?” The worries took over and of course then, I couldn’t sleep.
I think I’m not ready for 6.5 hours. I noticed in the book that Guy works with clients where they’re at. If they have too much anxiety about doing something like SR (he advocates what he calls a “gentle” version of SR of shortening one’s sleep by 30-60 minutes to create some sleep drive) or staying in bed all night, then he would just have them practice mindfulness and welcoming of their anxiety until they were ready. And then he’d have them gradually work up to something. His philosophy is that there is no point in doing something that creates more anxiety, which only makes the insomnia worse. So I need to work on my anxiety about SR and then figure out what to do next.
Yeah deb I hear you. Similar to you, even with my MUCH lessened almost gone “on the surface” anxiety as I’ll refer to it as, I’ll admit that me going in my bed at 11:30pm, I definitely can have those thoughts creep in a bit about “well, I have to be up at 6, what if I don’t fall asleep rather soon”. I just feel like the longer this process actually goes on, the more draining it gets. I don’t even know what to do so differently anymore. I’m going to try and go back to 11:30p-6a for a week or so, I know things will probably improve, but then what? when does it get to a point where you actually legitimately start to get better and start sleeping well again on a routine basis? As much as I’ve improved, even in this last month I’ve still been good for at least ONE zombie day a week and at least one other semi bad night. Now I know what you and everyone will say, well that’s great progress! Wow! But what you don’t get is that it means I am STILL struggling all this time later. Over 2.5 months to be exact.
Yes, it’s so draining to keep trying. Last night when I couldn’t sleep and felt horrible I thought to myself, if I were a “normal” person I could just say to myself, “Well tomorrow’s another day and I’ll feel better about things in the morning.” But the problem is the next morning I’m too exhausted to feel any better!!
Especially when all we’ve done is the right things (for the most part), not to mention endless research. I don’t know. Do you feel you are at least significantly improved from where you were in lets say January?
Through ACT I’ve definitely got some tools to help with the anxiety which has gone down a lot. But if I can’t get some decent sleep even when I sleep all night, I won’t know what to do.
To be brutally honest Deb, as much as I understand where people are coming from with ACT and how it can help, I really don’t think it holds too much important in overcoming insomnia. Ok so you’re supposed to just “accept” it all and welcome the thoughts and name them funny names, etc? Can it help a bit? Absolutely. But those of us with more serious insomnia can’t just do these fun and games and get better. You need something more intense like some form of SRT in my honest opinion. At this point I’m sure you’re aware that ACT isn’t fully curing you. You can continue to use it as a tool, but ultimately the most powerful thing is SRT.
I’m fine with you being brutally honest. But it doesn’t change my opinion of ACT. To each his own.
I have been following this conversation with interest. Can you tell me what SRT stands for? Thanks.
Steve – you can find information on sleep restriction therapy right here on this website under Resources.
CBT-I and ACT have the same goal but work towards that goal from different directions. CBT-I works from the outside to the inside, while ACT works from the inside to the outside. With CBT an external structure is put into place which increases the chance of sleeping well which then reduces anxiety of over time. ACT works by decreasing anxiety which then results in sleeping well over time.
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