[illiniwek9]

Hi All,

About a week ago, I was ready to declare my “bout” with insomnia complete, and I had successfully beaten it. After an 18-20 month struggle and moments of success followed by weeks of trouble falling asleep, I had given up all control and expectations of sleep. I was tired of the fight, tired of the anger/disappointment in myself/frustration of nighttime sleeplessness, and bored with constantly reading up on accepting rough nights.

And it worked. While I still had occasional rough nights (about 4 hours of sleep on those nights), it never occurred to me that I had a problem anymore. It was just a poor night of sleep. I realized we all had poor nights from time to time. We’re human. On average over the last 9 months, I probably get 6-7.5 hours of sleep, and it generally takes me about 15 minutes to fall asleep.

However … for some really dumb reason, right before bed on Tuesday night, I had a thought cross my mind: what would happen to my sleep confidence if I had a completely sleepless night again after all this time? And of course, that carried into my bedtime. I tossed and turned from 10:30PM to midnight (and that felt like many hours) before I listened to a podcast for a bit, felt sleepy, and tried again. Nope. It’s now 1AM, and I get up to go to the bathroom to break things up a bit. Still felt super sleepy, so I went back to bed. Nothing. So I just laid there, trying to remain calm. I eventually fell asleep and maybe got 2-3 hours of sleep.

And now the last 2 nights, the same thing has happened. And each night, I feel like I’m not going to sleep AT ALL. I end up somehow falling asleep and getting maybe 2-3 hours. But I’m noticing my heart pounding when I get into bed (haven’t had that feeling in over a year). And when I calm down enough to *maybe* fall asleep, my body will nearly give into sleep, but my mind panics and wakes me up immediately. I guess I eventually get some surrender sleep, but this is not fun. It’s my first true speed bump, and I’m trying to remember that sleep will happen. But I can’t focus on sleep, and I can’t worry if I don’t get much sleep. Those things are keeping me awake at night.

I guess I just need some reassurance from some posters and maybe some guidance to get past this bump before it becomes full blown insomnia again.

[illiniwek9]

Well, night 4 of the speed bump didn’t go any better. I was calmer at bedtime after dozing in the recliner for about 45 minutes. But I just laid in bed, not able to sleep AT ALL. I was exhausted, but nothing would happen

I eventually tried to watch TV to take my mind off it around 3AM, but I was too exhausted to concentrate. At 4AM, I decided I was going to bed and try to get as much sleep as possible, even if that meant walking up later than usual.

And I did sleep somehow, in chunks, until about 8AM or so. I obviously can’t sustain this type of sleep, and I’m starting to develop a headache from 4 days of little sleep. I hope someone out there can help talk me back on track. I’m truly struggling.

[Chee2308]

Unpredictable Sleep

Your issues are EXACTLY THE SAME as a year and a half ago! Go back and reread what you wrote and how I responded. Have you learnt anything since then or old habits die hard? Insomnia never leaves you, you leave the struggle with it.

[illiniwek9]

Thanks, chee. Yeah, I took your previous messages to heart a while ago. It still took months to finally put insomnia behind me. But I did it–for nine months, anyway. I even slept okay after the death of my father. That’s when I knew things were going to be okay.

Then all of a sudden, I fell backwards fast. I guess I didn’t expect a speed bump to be so severe and that it might take a while to get out of it. It’s bewildering.

[Chee2308]

If you get back into a sleepless pattern after a period of “doing really well”, that usually means you are routinely overdoing it by oversleeping! Which actually means you are sleeping really well, and sleeping too long for far too long! That’s why your body is making you regurgitate back out all those good nights by making you sleepless again. In cbti terms, it is a cue you need to re-limit your time in bed again or if you are like me and don’t freaking care, continue to oversleep but stop complaining! Even you yourself admitted you were sleeping really well before this happened (sleeping well after your dad died even) so why are you not giving yourself credit where this is due and only start complaining when everything starts deviating from your expectations?? Why the bias here?? Get on with your life, you won’t always get what you want, nobody will.

[illiniwek9]

I don’t think it’s oversleeping but probably racing thoughts in my brain worrying about rough nights again.

But you’re correct: if I stop giving a damn about bad nights of sleep, things will eventually settle back down like they did before. I likely just need to brace for a period of time to get back to level. I doubt it’ll happen overnight.

[Martin Reed]

As you shared, it’s totally natural and normal to have difficult nights from time to time — just as it’s totally natural and normal to have difficult days from time to time. There’s nothing we can do to avoid them — they are a part of the human experience.

What matters is how we respond, because that determines whether we get tangled up in a struggle that makes things more difficult.

As you know from experience, the more you try to control sleep the more likely you are to struggle with sleep. And, it’s all too easy to fall back into that struggle when things feel difficult — the brain is hard-wired to identify a problem and then try to fix it.

Often, the way to fix problems is through effort, right? Not with sleep, though — and that’s why it’s so easy to fall back into the struggle because when effort doesn’t work the brain can get confused. It runs out of ideas and often tells us to continue with effort — to try harder and harder. Then we can get stuck!

Having a thought such as, “What would happen to my sleep confidence if I had a completely sleepless night again after all this time?” cannot stop sleep from happening. We can have any possible thought and sleep is still possible.

What can make sleep more difficult is “trying” to sleep, trying to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings associated with nighttime wakefulness, and putting pressure on ourselves to sleep. All of which might be best summarized by an unwillingness to experience wakefulness.

I hope there’s something useful here — you might also find the page on ACT for insomnia helpful.

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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.

[Chee2308]

Perhaps you need to learn to stop being biased or at least actively take steps to recognize that this is exactly what’s going on (start being aware of it) and moving towards acceptance and therefore being less biased. If you have two children, one being normal and the other having some sort of disability such as down syndrome or autism, will you favor one child more than the other? Of course not, they are still both are your kids regardless, in any way, shape or form. Or perhaps you might even show a bit more love and attention toward the disadvantaged kid because that’s where it’s probably more needed. So what’s stopping you from doing exactly the same for yourself where sleep is concerned. If you love yourself for who you are and learn to not hate yourself where it fails to meet your expectations, then you will love and accept whatever sleep your body is giving you, at any time. Good luck.

[illiniwek9]

Thanks, Martin and chee, for your kind responses. You’re a blessing to all of us.

Martin, I think I initially (finally) left the insomnia struggle late last year when implemented ACT for Insomnia. It still took quite some time to finally leave it all behind, but continually remembering to simply accept the current situation for what it was, a bump in the road, and not some debilitating physical issue, slowly led me to recovery.

This recent blip has taken me by surprise, but the last couple nights, while the struggle is still there, I’ve managed to get about 4+ hours of sleep (as opposed to none or maybe 2-3). And while there’s some frustration with being awake in bed for a few hours, it’s helpful to enjoy relaxing and letting my mind drift off. It eventually leads to sleep.

I think it’s going to take some time to get back to where I was. I always envisioned a speed bump to be *maybe* a weeklong struggle (and certainly that could be the case for a lot of folks), but I think my path to recovery (again) is accepting these nights for what they are and putting no expectations on when my more-consistent sleep will return.

[Histiocytosis]

You we’ll do fine..I am experiencing the same thing but know it we’ll get better. Much like a baseball player who is hitting every pitch he sees and then starts thinking about it too much and wonders how is doing so well. He starts worrying if he can keep hitting and naturally goes into a slump. Same with sleep. If we sleep really well and then enter a slump the good nights return eventually. Hang in there and enjoy your days whether tired or not.

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