[alax]

Is the progress with sleep restriction is generally consistent or generally with a lot of ups and downs? For example, my first 1-2 weeks went really well, I was getting 5-5.5 hours of good sleep on a 6 hour sleep window and falling asleep within minutes. I started to reduce sleep aids (Trazadone) so didn’t increase my window, but in the past 1-2 weeks things have taken a downturn, as it takes me 1-2 hours to fall asleep. It’s still better than the 2-4 hour per night average I had several weeks ago but a little discouraging as I’m in week 3 and don’t seem to be moving in the right direction. I know my sleep drive is building in the evening because I fight microsleeps in the hours before bed, but still doesn’t feel that strong once I get in bed.

Thanks!

[Chee2308]

Hi @alax

Ups and downs are extremely common! Nobody’s recovery goes from getting 4-5 hours/night to 8 straight hours within few weeks. As your sleep improves, your sleep drive reduces and what you WILL experience from now on will be more awakenings and possibly lots of early morning awakenings too. The question now is how do you respond to them which then determines how fast you fall back asleep and continue making progress. If you accept all these as normal which they are, ignore them, do nothing and stop struggling, your improvement will continue in the form of falling asleep faster after these awakenings. You may also start experimenting with adding a bit more time to your sleep window to see if you can get more sleep out of it.

Remember your sleep debt accumulated from your insomnia nights is getting cleared as you start sleeping more. How fast and how long you fall asleep on any night is really just a question of how much sleep debt you have built-up over the days and weeks, so this means more insomnia nights = more sleep going forward, OR more sleep in the past week(s) = more awakenings/less sleep in future.This is the fundamental truth about sleep and there’s no way anybody can go round this. Ultimately, your body knows.

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