[Momup]

Hello guys,

I’ve just registered here and it’s very nice that such a forum exists. 🙂

I have the classical problem of having trouble falling asleep before exams. But in my case it’s not only the day before the exam up to two weeks before the exam. The closer the exam period gets the bigger the sleeping problems are. My exam period starts in one and a half week and yesterday night was the first night where I feel like I had sleeping problems because of the exam period.

Usually my sleeping problems are not too bad. I would say that under regular circumstances I sleep between 6 and 8 hours which is definitely fine. But it always deteriorates during the exam period. The worst so far was that I couldn’t sleep for two nights in a row because I had two exams on two days in a row. This time I am going to have three exams in two days in a row and I am afraid that this is going to happen again.

Now to give you some context in order to better understand my situation. I try to approach life by not being result oriented. When working on something I only care about the fact THAT I do it and not HOW well/badly I am doing it or how the results are going to be. This approach has helped me a lot in order to consistently study and has taken away a lot of anxiety and stress.

In theory it’s the same about exams. Exams are mostly about preparation and so I just care about studying before the exam. I don’t care about my performance during the exam itself. In theory I can be happy about myself if I have studied enough hours before the exam even if I fail the exam because the fact that I have studied is the success itself for me. That’s the mindset I try to live by but when it comes to exams this doesn’t seem to work unfortunately. I am still stressed about the exam and have problems falling asleep. So despite allowing myself to fail and despite trying to not care about the result of the exam I still have problems falling asleep. Since my strategy which helps me a lot for consistently studying doesn’t work here I am asking you what I can do in order to be able to sleep better before the exams which are coming in two weeks.

One interesting side note is that I was actually able to be well-rested before an exam once. I didn’t study for this exam and I was convinced that I am going to fail because I didn’t study. And I was right. I failed the exam. But what was amazing was the fact that I was really relaxed and well-rested before the exam. My dream would be that I can treat a day where I have an exam or even several exams just like a normal day and be casual about it. But to be realistic, for now I would just like to be able to sleep better before the upcoming exams.

I really thank you for having read this post and wish you a nice day!

Greetings,
Momup

[Chee2308]

Hello and greetings!
Are you going to bed earlier the night before your exams in an effort to sleep more? Try going to bed later or if you are making modifications to your sleep schedule right before an exam, you need to stop. Try to keep your bedtime routine as consistent as possible and not to make special arrangements just because you are expecting a special event like an exam, an interview, a presentation or whatever. Your sleep drive works on amount of time spent awake, not what time it is. Just go to bed after you are awake the usual amount. You can go to bed later not earlier, but keep your out of bed consistent no matter how late you went to bed. Do not sleep in or compensate for lost sleep in any way (sleep in, take naps or go to bed earlier).

[Momup]

Hello!

Thank you very much for your answer. Since my exams are at 8am on both days I try to have such a sleeping schedule so that I am able to theoretically be well-rested when I wake up shortly before 8am (assuming I don’t have problems falling asleep of course). In order to have such a sleeping schedule which is quite early for me I wake up and go to bed earlier 15 minutes every day. This way I try to keep my sleeping schedule as consistent as possible but I am still able to slightly adjust it every day for the exam. Today I woke up at 9 o’clock. Do you think that this is fine?

Greetings,
Momup

[Chee2308]

Hello and greetings.
15 minute adjustments every day is not ideal. Because that would mean a 1.75 hour change by the end of the week and most people need more time than this to adjust to a 1-2 hour change in their sleep schedules. You would want to be as gentle as possible when doing this. Typically for people with sleeping issues, they are recommended to make 15 minute changes every 10 days or 2 weeks to allow time for their bodies to adjust. Some may even need longer time because what makes them ready for that change is an indicator called sleep efficiency, which is the percentage of time spent asleep taken against time alloted for sleep. Ideally that percentage should be 80% or above before that change is made. Since it is only over 2 days you need to wake early, could you not just sleep less on these days? So if you go to bed at your present usual time and set your alarm early on those days, how much sleep would you be getting, assuming you are able to sleep? If it is at least 6 hours, that should be fine and you should be able to do it. There is no need to do a special sleep “exercise” each time you find yourself facing an anxious situation, because then it forces you to focus on your sleep, to chase sleep and that can develop into a sleep effort which can backfire dramatically. Just treat any special event day as a normal day like any other day where there is no special arrangement needed to be made to your sleep schedule. The idea is intention, if anything you do is designed to help you sleep more, in the belief that it would make you well rested for a special event, then it is technically a sleep effort and you are chasing sleep. Sleep efforts are usually useless and can develop into a self sustaining full blown insomnia when people start worrying after those sleep efforts fail and they start doubting themselves and thinking their sleep system are broken.

[Momup]

Wow, thank you very much for your answer!

Thinking about your description I can say that I am definitely chasing sleep. I am thinking a lot about how I can improve my sleep but mostly I am worrying and foreshadowing the upcoming sleepless nights. Reflecting about my experience with exam periods I just realized that I have always cared a lot about getting enough sleep during exam period (because I care about the exams I guess). It’s gone so far that I have already taken sleeping pills with mixed results.

Then this time I’ll try a different approach and I guess I’ll just to try to not really care too much about my sleep. So what I am going to do is that I am going to stick with my current bedtime and waking up time which are 0 am and 08:30 am (with an alarm clock). Since the exams are at 8 am and I can get up at 07:45 am (at least one advantage of Corona) I have 7 hours and 45 minutes alloted for sleep the nights before the the exams.

Somehow you telling me that all I have to do is to not really care too much about it is a big relief for me. Thank you very much 🙂

Best regards,
Momup

[Chee2308]

Hello there
When it comes to sleep, doing less is always better and doing nothing is best! This is because sleep is natural and effortless by default, the more we try to control or bend it to our will, the more elusive and worse it can get. By not caring how you sleep, actually the better you sleep. That’s the paradox about sleep. Because when we actively make efforts to control sleep, automatically the brain will want to monitor for results and this can make it harder for it to shut off when we are trying to sleep. When you’ve done nothing, there’s nothing to monitor anymore. Good luck in your exams. Remember the potential for doing well in the exams AND sleeping well is always there. For the sleep part, you need do nothing and it will take care of itself.

[Momup]

Hello, thank you very much for your reply and for wishing me good luck for the exams! So I’ll just do try to not care too much about sleep 🙂

Best regards,
Momup

[Martin Reed]

Some big insights in this discussion! It sounds as though you know from experience that studying for an exam is far more important and a much bigger predictor of how you will do in an exam than how well or how poorly you sleep.

In other words, you know that sleep doesn’t matter all that much — so perhaps there’s no need to worry about it or care too much about it! Shift all that focus and attention to studying and get back to us when you get all those great results!

—

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.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Momup]

Hello guys, thank you for your post Martin. So yesterday I had two exams and today I had one exam and sleep-wise it went great but I must say that I cheated. I used prescription drugs for the first time of my life (before it was always non prescription drugs from the pharmacy) and my sleep is really great. I will stop taking them after the exam period at the latest but right now this temporary solution is working really great for in order to get me through the exam period.

Now about your suggestions on how I should approach my sleeping problems: I tried to not care but my problem is that I don’t know how to do this. Unfortunately telling me that I don’t care somehow didn’t work because I was still not able to sleep. The last two days before I started taking the medication I slept for roughly 2-4 hours each night.

So it would be great if you could tell me how I can stop caring. I really want to stop caring about it (in order to sleep). My biggest problem is that sleeping becomes a vicious cyle to me. Once I’ve had problems sleeping I am afraid that next day I will have sleeping problems too and that it’s getting worse and worse with the time.

I thank you a lot for your support so far!

Best regards,
Momup

[Momup]

Hey guys, I just thought that giving a few more infos may give you more insight in order to better understand my situation. The medication I was given was an antidepressant and I am taking a small dose. It is really helping me a ton. I have a really good sleep efficiency (30 minutes of waking time during the whole bedtime). I have always struggled with anxiety in my life so I think that the root of the sleeping problems are of psychological and not organic nature. I just thought that giving you these extra infos might help!

Best regards,
Momup

[Chee2308]

Hello Momup!
You may not be comfortable in doing everything at once (as in giving up completely) and that’s completely understandable. What I can tell you is that nothing can generate sleep except your own body. The body generates sleepiness and sleep all by itself, regardless of what you take or do. The reason you slept well after taking a pill is likely because you completely delegated the task of sleep to the pill as opposed to trusting your own body and then did nothing else, thinking the pill helped you sleep when in fact, it was your own body who generated all that sleep all along! The key for anyone with insomnia is they must be able to say the magic words “I do not care”. That is when insomnia starts to lose grasp. The entire thing feeds off anxiety and thoughts. Nothing else. When the feeding stops, it will die.

[Momup]

Thank you very much for your answer. I didn’t understand what you mean with your first sentence. Could you explain it to me? Honestly, it would be amazing if sleep would just be a topic I can completely not care about and which just takes care of itself. But right now I am at a point where I feel like I tried to not care and I still had sleeping problems (right before I started taking the sleeping pills). So I guess that I still cared after all. So my question is: What does it mean to not care and to give up on sleep? It would be very nice if you could describe it to me because I think that I don’t understand yet what it means to not care about it.

Best regards,
Momup

[Chee2308]

Hello momup!
What I meant was you can take baby steps towards the path of doing absolute nothing for sleep. If you are currently taking something then you can slowly lower the dosage or you can speak to your doctor on a tapering off plan. Take away the efforts one by one as you slowly build your self confidence then you will reach a point where you do nothing for sleep, are sleeping great and have utmost confidence in your ability to sleep. Good luck on your journey, expect ups and downs but this is your best chance to sleeping well over the long run.

[Momup]

Hello! Thank you very much for your explanation. Generally speaking the approach of just not caring fits really well into the way I try to approach things in life. I guess I just can’t expect to completely not care from on day to another since it’s as you said a process. Keeping that in my mind I know how I should mentally deal with the topic of sleep and I thank you a lot for this insight because I didn’t expect that. I thank you a lot for the time and effort that you have invested in order to help me. I wish you all the best!

Best regards,
Momup

[Scott]

Such great conversation in this thread! I’m glad to hear your sleep has improved, @momup! Keep us informed of your continued progress!

Scott J

—

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.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Scott.

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