[Thesso]

Hi,

I’ve had chronic insomnia for 10 years, and for the last 7 years I was on sleep meds daily, but the meds had little effect anymore, and I struggled alot with sleep, I struggled with both falling asleep and staying asleep, so two months ago I quit the medicine, and I’ve been doing sleep restriction therapy with stimulus control for 5,5 weeks.

My initial bed time was from 01.20 – 7 am. After about 3 weeks with around 3-4 hours sleep at night, I finally started to fall asleep within minutes of going to bed, which was amazing, and I managed to sleep for about 5-5,5 hours (I always woke up before the alarm, around 6-6.30). When I started to go to bed at 1, I started waking around 6. I then amemded my wake up time to 6.30 instead of 7. For the past week, it’s gotten even worse, Every night for the past week I’ve been waking up after only 4 hours of sleep, around 5 AM, and for the past couple of days I’ve struggled with falling asleep too. The fact that it is getting worse and worse makes me feel anxious again about sleeping, which is probably making it even worse.

Now it’s 3.45 AM in my country, and I’m wide awake (but exhausted). Normally I’m not on my phone during the night, but I’m wide awake and in need for some advice or reassurance.

Where do I go frome here? I’m so extremely exhausted from almost 6 weeks of sleep deprivation, but I really don’t want to give up, I really want this to work.

Have anyone experienced something similar and still succeeded with the sleep therapy?

I’ve also just joined a meditation course, with hope that it may help me de-stress and relax my brain.

[Chee2308]

Hello and happy new year!

I know how it feels when something you have so much hope in just “fails” to live up to its promise anymore. And I think this is where the common mistake is. Using sleep therapy, cbti or sleep restriction as some kind of sleeping “pill”. You need to keep in mind that nothing will work in generating sleep if you continue to rely on it to sleep.

The remedy is quite simple it’s almost effortless. Give up all your expectations and want in getting sleep to a “satisfactory” level every single night. Your constant dissatisfaction is what keeps you struggling! You can’t control your sleep but you can often adjust where that satisfactory level sits.

Another thing to keep in mind is it is really common to wake up anytime during the night. Nobody get a straight 5,6,8 hours of straight sleep every single night. Sleep doesn’t work like that. Most people often fall back asleep when it happens. Try to stop taking issue with it and it will slowly dissolve away.

In the end, recovery from insomnia doesn’t mean free from insomnia. It often just means we have left the struggle with it. Good luck!

[Martin Reed]

Hello Thesso and welcome to the forum! If your actions were working what would be different?

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

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