[Adam Currie]

Hi all, this is my first post here, so thanks for having me 🙂

I’ve been enduring a moderate bout of insomnia in the last 7-10 days, it started with a bad night with almost no sleep, and as a result of some unhealthy expectations and ideas around sleep quickly developed into a string of consecutive nights with <3 hours sleep.

Breaking the cycle
I’m no stranger to the odd bad night here and here, but recently I’ve become trapped in an almost vice-like grip of sleep anxiety, driven primarily by what I now understand as perpetuating factors. The fear of being unable to get to sleep before a reasonable hour creates within me an extremely intense sense of anxiety, which fuels a negative thought process and feeds into the downward cycle. If someone says “meet me at 8am tomorrow”, immediately I can feel the butterflies gathering in my stomach at the thought of what a poor nights sleep will do to my ability to stick to that commitment of meeting at 8am.

After discovering cognitive defusion (more here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcuImgchPws&ab_channel=ThePsychologyGroup) and implementing some other techniques, I feel like i’ve finally broken the cycle, and actually for the first time in a couple of weeks, i’ve slept nearly 7 hours a night with only a few disturbances.

What have I done that’s worked for me:
– Whenever an unhealthy self-sabotaging thought about sleep has come into my mind (e.g. you’re not going to sleep tonight”, or “good luck getting the 7am train”, I’ve started to “thank” my inner voice for raising the alert and showing appreciation to my mind for trying to alert me, but it can “stand down”.

– If I can’t sleep, I get out of bed and do something. This was very difficult for me because of the counter intuitiveness that I initially associated with it, but since implementing it and not seeing it as the magic pill to fal to sleep, my sleep has definitely improved.

– I GOT RID OF MY CLOCKS! Seriously, all 5 clocks in my house no longer tell the time (except for twice a day) since removing the batteries. My sleep worries are driven primarily by my fixation on time and the way my brain automatically and unhelpfully calculates exactly how much sleep I will get before my alarm goes off, BUT ONLY IF YOU FALL ASLEEP RIGHT NOW! Since removing the clocks, the unhelpful thoughts and time calculations have definitely reduced and i’m confident that this is helping me

– Finally, I go to bed no longer “trying” to sleep. When I feel tired, I got to bed and I read of watch something with the express intention of not falling to sleep. It may not be the best advice, but i’m finding that this reverse psychology is decreasing my arousal and allowing my sleep drive to take over, and i’m falling to sleep quickly.

I’ve got a long way to go, but wanted to share my early successes with you in a bid to help others who may be reading this feeling and feeling as hopeless about sleep as I have been lately.

What’s been helping you?

[Scott]

Hi Adam,

It certainly sounds like you’ve found tremendous success with the points you’ve shared, especially the relationship with your thoughts. Instead of making efforts to stop the chatter, you’re welcoming the thought and allowing it to pass which can help prevent arousal. How long would you say that you practiced that technique before it became an automatic response and would you say that was the most significant change you made to help restore your sleep?

Great job, Adam and thanks for sharing your story for others!

Scott J

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[Adam Currie]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the response.

It’s amazing how quickly the practice has translated into results – we’re talking 2 days, which quite honestly stunned me. I think maybe i’ve been “lucky” at how quickly it settled, as other CBT techniques i’ve used for more broad anxiety issues have taken months to master, and even then they’re not perfect. I’ve since had 3 nights in row with 6+ hours, only waking once or so in the night, and when I do wake I practice the same technique and I fall back to sleep pretty quickly.

I’m sure that i’ll have difficulty at some point again, but here to hoping that I can swing the balance back in my favour.

Thanks
Adam

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