[sleepingbeauty]

Hi all, I came across this forum after binge-watching Martin’s videos on YouTube.

Since last April, I started struggling with sleep out of the blue. Initially it took me hours to fall sleep, eventually falling asleep around 3am until daybreak.

Lately, the problem has worsened. I now go through days of zero sleep (sometimes over a week of zero sleep), then crash and sleep normally for 2-3 days from sheer exhaustion, then the cycle repeats. When I tell people I haven’t slept for over a week, they’re usually sceptical. I know sleep state misperception does occur but there is no way I’d be able to tell if I actually had any sleep since I live alone and don’t use any sleep monitoring device. From my perspective, I have been awake for over a week.

Anyway, I wanted to give SRT a shot. The success stories I see typically follow the same pattern: someone struggling to sleep over 3-4 hours, gradually expanding their sleep window. I haven’t yet found case studies for those who cannot sleep a wink for an extended period of time.

Questions:
Does SRT work for someone with 0 sleep, since I’ll still be lying in bed tossing and turning for 5.5 hours (recommended minimum sleep window)?

Secondly, for someone observing the bare mininum sleep window, is it still recommended that you get out of bed when you can’t sleep?

Thanks, all!

[Martin Reed]

I have seen sleep restriction prove to be helpful for people who experience nights of no sleep — and for people who might be experiencing some sleep state misperception (which isn’t unusual among people with chronic insomnia).

If you are concerned about nighttime wakefulness during your sleep window then I would suggest combining the technique with stimulus control by getting out of bed whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good and doing something more pleasant until conditions feel better for sleep.

You might find my podcast episode with Dave helpful — he experienced a lot of nights of zero sleep whatsoever: How David overcame three years of insomnia by addressing his obsession with sleep using CBT-I, acceptance, and mindfulness techniques (#8).

I hope this helps.

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