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It was so hard to stay up till 12 on the 5th night after getting only a couple hours sleep the night before. But I fell asleep right away! Then last night I fell asleep quickly again. Yay! This stuff is working. I’m feeling so relieved. My anxiety has gone way, way down and I’m starting to feel like a normal person again. I know it’s only 6 nights so far, with 4 good nights out of the 6, but this is the most consistent sleep I’ve had in 2 months. And I’m finally not dreading the nights.
Deb that is great to hear and also not surprising. I’ve gone through phases of good sleep with SRT as well. It ALWAYS works. My problem was getting kind of c0cky and not STICKING with it. Don’t do what I did. I’m currently in a new SRT phase that I finally plan on sticking to once and for all until I am healed to the point where it is not even a thought anymore. The real challenge of this all however, IMO, is dealing with IF and when a bad night does occur/return. That’s the biggest challenge of all. More than staying up until midnight or forcing yourself out of bed at 6a or any of that. If you can brush off a bad night here and there, you are well on your way to beating the fear, which in turn beats the Insomnia. Good luck.
Yes! That’s how all this craziness started. I couldn’t sleep one night so I started worrying. That worry resulted in me not sleeping the next night. Then the worry stayed with me and a couple nights later couldn’t sleep again. Pretty soon it was days on end that I couldn’t sleep and I fell into this deep pit of severe insomnia. Crazy! It all started from just one bad night. So learning to brush off a bad night is key.
I’m really surprised how quickly this SR is working for me. Glad it works for you too. It will help that I’m committed to this 8 week course with Martin. I do better when I’m accountable to someone. Hopefully by 8 weeks it will become a habit.
And the thing is ladies and gents. insomnia fear (IF) is NOT real. It is an idea made up in our heads, which is illogical, a mirage.
Even when you’ve nailed down some good sleep for a few weeks – and think insomnia is gone for ever, you may find yourself worrying that it could recur,… then remember this…. IT is NOT REAL. The fear is all in your head. You don’t need it, so let it go!
Your body knows how to sleep. The fear is not real, a product of some of your thoughts…. and you are NOT your thoughts, so be free!
Well, it happened again. I guess I got cocky.
Been doing SRT now for 5 nights. 3 of those 5 nights I have slept well in the 6.5 hour time range that I set up of 11:45pm to 6:15am. One of the bad nights was due to anxiety over something important happening the next day. Woke up in the middle of the night and struggled a bit before nodding back off but was still shot the next day.
Last night’s issue was more dumb of me and more my fault. Instead of waiting until 11:45pm, I jumped into bed around 11:25. The main issue was probably not so much that I went to bed earlier than my new normal time, bc I do feel there can be leniency to these “rules” here and there, but more the fact that I wasn’t very sleepy. Tired yes, not sleepy. Took me a good 30-40 minutes to finally crash as opposed to the usual 20-30. I know that the #1 rule of thumb is do not go to bed unless you are legitimately SLEEPY, even if that means past your SRT start time sometimes. Why I broke this rule I don’t know.
Anyway, you guessed it. Had some trouble falling asleep, anxiety crept in a bit, and up at 4:00am I was. Never fell back asleep. Got up, went back, got up, went back. By the time 5:30am came, I surrendered. Complete and absolute zombie today. Another Saturday of my life completely shot and wasted. Really just want this disgusting nightmare to end once and for all. I want to believe I’m finally on the right track, but after 2 years, albeit on and off, I’m just completely and utterly sick of even ONE bad night. I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’m so done and sick of my Insomnia that if I wake up in the middle of the night I’m not necessarily anxious, but more just angry, and mad. Mad that this stupid problem is happening to me, still, while so many others I know sleep perfectly fine without issue. Struggling today mentally.
Tonight and for EVERY night at least the next two weeks, its either 11:45pm or whenever I’m LEGITIMATELY sleepy.
Sorry you had a bad night, Mac. Maybe consistency will help you. Just watched one of the videos from Martin’s course and he talked about the absolute importance of consistency and commitment. Maybe after you have done this consistently for several weeks the worry will decrease more and more. And then even if you mess up a little, you won’t start worrying.
Yesterday morning I accidentally fell back asleep for about a 45 minutes after the alarm clock went off. But I I didn’t worry about it and slept the full six hours last night. Maybe it’s a little easier for me since I’ve only had insomnia for 2 months instead of 2 years.
Here’s something that might help you today. Martin and others say to never nap, but I break that rule a little when I’m really tired. I find that a 20 minute nap works wonders. I set my alarm clock to make sure it doesn’t accidentally turn into a long nap. I justify it to myself saying, “Well, I only slept 2 hours ( or 3 or 4) last night, so now I slept a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes. That’s still way less the amount of sleep a normal person needs so this isn’t going to mess up my sleep tonight.” I only take one a day. I find that this really helps and then I can make it though the day.
And how did this all begin for you again? Sorry, don’t mean to bring up bad memories and make you talk insomnia all day. Just curious
Here’s how my sleeping has been going since I started SR a week ago:
Day 1 – 5.75 hours of sleep
Day 2 – 5.5 hours
Day 3 – 3.5 hours
Day 4 – 2 hours
Day 5 – 5.75 hours
Day 6 – 6 hours
Day 7 – 6 hours
So you can see, Mac, that I’m getting better. I just mentioned 2 hours as an example of when I haven’t slept much the night before and decide to take a nap the following day because I’m exhausted. I’ve taken 3 naps this week, on day 3, 4 and 5.
You’re tired, Mac. Hope you have a better sleep tonight!
Sorry, realized I didn’t answer your question correctly. The insomnia started for me in October a few weeks after I had surgery. I couldn’t get comfortable one night and didn’t sleep well. So the next night I worried about falling asleep and as a result didn’t sleep well that night either. So the worry started to set in and a few nights later I couldn’t sleep again. Pretty soon I was going days at a stretch with little to no sleep. I reached my limit when I was having emotional meltdowns a couple weeks ago and just wanted someone to put me in the hospital or knock me over the head so I could sleep. I contacted Martin then. He had me fill out the sleep diary for the first week and after that gave me the sleep window of 6 hours. I’m going to bed at 12:00 and getting up at 6:00. The first two nights of SR were a honeymoon period. You know how it is when you think you’ve found the answer so you feel relieved and end up sleeping good for a couple nights. Then reality hit and the insomnia started up again, resulting in 3 & 1/2 hours of sleep on the third night and the next night only 2 hours. But then the conditioning started to kick in and I’ve slept well the last 3 nights. Yay!
Martin is having me stay on the same schedule of 6 hours for 2 more weeks. Ugh! I’m tired. Before this mess I was sleeping regularly 8 hours every night for years, so 6 hours is not enough sleep for me. Anyway, at least I’m not exhausted, or anxious, or panicky, or fearful, or depressed, or dreading another night, not knowing whether I’ll sleep or not – just tired. I can handle this. This stuff is working. I’ve slept 4 nights in a row now. Looks like it’s probably going to take at least a couple months before I’m back up to 8 hours, but at least by then sleeping all night will have become a habit.
Deb,
I don’t know what your age is, but I guess you will know that as people get older they will need less sleep – and tend to get less sleep too.
On average I thin 8-9 hrs might be normal for a late teenager, but then sleep need goes down. I’m pretty sure that I’ve read that for folks over 55 like me (I’m 56), the average time sleeping is around 5 hrs, and some people need less than that of course – and can function fine on just 4 hrs – as about their average. (I know I can, though I feel better for my normal 5 to 5.5 hours). I used to sleep about an average 7 hrs when I was in my teens and early 20s.
So I wonder if your 8 hrs target is really achievable or realistic or right for you. Maybe it’s just ageing. Plus, see one of my newer posts – how can you be sure about how much sleep you are getting? Lots of research has shown that people who self-identify as “insomniacs” are often found to be sleeping more than they are aware of – their perception of how much they sleep is weak. That is not their fault, it’s due to brain chemistry.
Hope that helps, Daf
Well Daf, even if I have sometimes been “sleeping more than I am aware of”, it still doesn’t change the fact that I’ve slept like crap for the better part of the last 2 years and have subsequently felt like crap after those nights. So its really a bit of a moot point IMO.
Here is an update on my SRT, now one week in. The last two nights I have fallen into a trap of breaking the get into bed/get out of bed time rules, but have still slept around 6/7 hours on both nights. This started after a very poor night where there was simply no way in hell I was going to make it to my regular bedtime. I will finally try and ‘reset’ tonight. Here….
Night 1: 11:45pm-6:15am (slept approx 6 hrs)
Night 2: 11:45pm-6:15am (slept approx 6 hrs)
Night 3: 11:45pm, took around 40 mins to crash, woke up in middle of the night, fell back sleep, woke up at 5:30ish (slept approx 4.5 hrs) *Had important event the next day/Just more proof that my Insomnia is anxiety/fear related*
Night 4: 11:45pm-6:15am (Slept approx 5.75 hrs)
Night 5: 11:25pm, woke up at 4am, never fell back asleep (Slept approx 4.25 hrs) *I did not have much anxiety on this night at all. I am not sure why I woke up at 4a. The only thing different was me going to sleep at a different time for the first time during this all*
Night 6: Went to bed at 10:15pm due to being extremely sleep deprived from the night earlier. Eyelids were falling to the point of near impossibility to stay up. Went to sleep very quickly, woke up at 5:30am. (Slept approx 7 hrs)
Night 7: Made it to 10:45pm, how woke up at 5am (Slept approx 6 hrs)
Tonight I plan on trying to make it to at least 11 and eventually getting back on track with the time. Even though I’ve fallen off a bit from that very bad night of sleep on Night 5, is it at least ok since I’ve slept well on the 2 “Broken rule” nights?
Can anyone give me some advice or let me know what they think? Also, you may notice that I note the times of mid night awakenings which means I do look at my clock sometimes, however you must trust that this no longer creates anxiety for me. I have gone through several phases of removing the clock and find that it doesn’t make much of it not any difference at all. I am still aware that I am up in the middle of the night and it still affects my anxiety, regardless of knowing what time it is or not. Thank you.
Well, it looks like you are doing fine.
If I had just one night of 4.25hrs, I would think nothing of it. It would not affect how I felt at all.
In fact if I had two weeks of that, each night it would not bother me much either. As long as I actually sleep for at least an hour I’m OK. I just hate nil sleep nights and do feel cr*p after them.
But everyone is different re how sleep levels effect them and what they need, I guess
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