[Steve]

So I see there have been few posts in this thread the last few days. That’s actually good news, I guess, as people don’t tend to post when things are going well for them. I am glad things are going well for a lot of you. I, however, am on my fifth night of poor sleep and I feel really lousy this morning. I know some of you have had this happen to you where you get a week of good sleep and then a week of bad, so I am not really complaining that much. And I know that every night is a new night not dependent on other nights as well as the fact that we can’t control our sleep. I know all of that. But I sure wish I could get back into the groove again where I was getting 5 hours a night rather than 3 or 3 and a half. Getting up for this SR is really rough although very necessary. The problem with doing SR is that my SW is so small, if I have to get up twice, I am almost destined to get a maximum of 3  hours sleep total for the night and I feel rotten after that. The only things better about my sleep now than before I started SR is that I fall asleep faster and my sleep is more consolidated. But I am still getting a lot less sleep than before I started SR.

[Mac0908]

Hey Steve. I think for you the good news is that you at least have some structure in place and like I’ve said many times before, as long as you stick with it, you’ll be much better in a couple of months time. I hear you about how saddening it is to go from such a good phase, whether it be a few days or a full week, to such a bad phase whether that be a few bad days or a full bad week. That is the case for me right now. This entire week has just been NOT good, and I’m starting to think both of those Saturday and Sunday lie in’s until 7:15am (way past my usual wakeup time) messed everything up. Boy those days were amazing and I felt so well rested, but when it came time for work Monday morning and my 6am alarm it didn’t work out. Had no real sleep drive the night before. This entire week has basically been a process of resetting it all. Last night was slightly better than the previous few, but I’m still tired today. Some form of SRT for life in order to have good sleep doesn’t sound appealing to me at all but that might be the direction I’m ultimately heading in.

[Steve]

I think a lot of us are heading in that direction Mac. I can see me doing some form of SRT for life as well. I don’t think I will ever be “cured”. I am just hoping at some point, I can get back to enough sleep where I feel refreshed most nights instead of really tired and exhausted. But that is a long time coming, I know. Boy, I wish I could go back to the time this all started. I wonder if I could change things? I certainly would have approached the surgery differently. I have to tell you, I thought for sure I would sleep better last night as I had some really great news that relieved a lot of my anxiety and stress that I had been having. In just a small moment, it was all lifted from my shoulders. But when it came time to sleep, I still got the crappy 3 hours.

 

I do wonder how everyone else is doing on here? This thread has really gone quiet in the last week.

[Steve]

How you doing this morning Mac? How is everyone else doing? Still in a rut and it was a tough night last night. It was a very fitful sleep and once again, I am very tired today. Can’t wait till the good sleeps return.

[Mac0908]

Well Steve I’ve finally reached the end of what’s been the worst week for me in a long while. All 5 days, none refreshed. Last night wasn’t horrible but it definitely wasn’t good I can tell you that. Still no super strong sleep drive, and again, I was too stubborn to stay up til lord knows what time until it came. Basically the lesson learned here and the lesson everyone can take from me, is don’t ever lie in more than a half an hour on the weekends. Sure they were an amazing two days where I felt amazing, but come the work week and me being forced to wake at my 6am alarm again it all went downhill. I messed up my cycle and I paid for it badly. If I didn’t have to wake until 8am for work every day I can almost guarantee I wouldn’t have insomnia anymore, but this job and this 6am wakeup call is really making it difficult to fully heal.

Just so very sick of coming into work with dark circles under my eyes and so very sick of relying on coffee to push me through the mornings. Not really sure where to turn other than never sleeping past 6:30am max on the weekends ever again. I mean what is it going to have to end up? I can never sleep in on weekends ever again?

Wish Martin would chime in with some two cents for me. Until next time steve… I think this will be my last post for a good few days at least. Not that I’m nearly as bad as I once was, but I don’t think I can get much lower right now.

[Steve]

Well, I hope you get back on track soon. I can understand about not posting for awhile. I may take a break as well. Keeping up the posts here in a way is counterproductive as it keeps you thinking about the insomnia. Besides, it seems everybody else took a break as well. I need to get back on track too. I am still in Martin’s paid course so I am awaiting his comments on this past week which was awful for me as well.  Good luck to you.

[Mac0908]

STeve can you give a quick summary of what the last 2 months has been like for you leading up to this last week?

[Steve]

Well, I have only been in SRT for 6 weeks. Two weeks with an online SRT course called Sleepio and then 4 weeks with Martin’s paid course. The first week was rough as I had to do SC most of the week. The second week I had to do it less. Then I started to get consolidated sleep which was better for me but I was still getting less sleep than before I started SRT. Of course, the sleep I got before I started SRT was very broken and one night I was getting 2 hours and then the next I would get 5. It was all over the board, which is why I say the consolidated sleep was better for me. Two weeks ago, I started to get really good sleep and for the week, I had 4 nights of 5.0 hours, two nights of 4.5 hours and one bad night of 3.5 hours. But this past week I went down hill and I got mostly in the 3 to 4 hour range of sleep. Not surprisingly, I am dead tired and it’s difficult for me to focus and do my work. I was so upbeat after last week that I was starting to plan my life again. At the end of this week, I feel I will never get better. That’s about it in a nutshell. Why do you ask?

[Mac0908]

I just like seeing different peoples progress and approaches , etc.

Bad mentality for you to have though, saying you will never get better.

My thing is Steve, I do think it’s possible to get better one day, but not without a constant maintenance in some way shape or form of SRT

[Deb]

Steve – I found for myself too that my 5th week was difficult. It’s like we find ourselves slowly and gradually getting better and more hopeful, and then we’re tested with a difficult week. The fears creep in to try to undermine our progress and make us doubt that we’re getting better. Just keep going and it will get better again. It did for me.

Mac – Is there anyway you could adjust your work schedule to come in a couple hours later? You could cite health reasons, which really is what it is. It’s like a medical condition that you need some flexibility in your schedule for awhile so that you can heal. You do better on the weekend when you don’t have to worry about getting up so early. If this was your regular schedule for say, a couple months, maybe over time you would learn to completely relax and the insomnia would go away.

[Steve]

Thanks for the support Deb. I know these setbacks are normal but they sure are hard. Like I told Mac, at the end of last week, I was very upbeat. I was even thinking of getting a cat again and I joined a dating service. But after a week like this, it’s just rather disappointing. Still, I will persevere and try to remain upbeat. Mac is correct in that I have to start thinking more positively.

How are you doing? Are you still going to sleep when your husband does?

[Mac0908]

If it was that easy I probably would have done that YEARS ago Deb. But no, it’s not possible. I have never been a morning person in general and the 6am wakeup call has pretty much always been a problem for me, even before my Insomnia began, though instead of constant bad days post insomnia, it would only be once in a while before it.

I have no doubt at all that it’s the extra early wakeup that has big a huge part of preventing me from overcoming this all. Truth is IMO I never would have had this happen to me if it WEREN’T for having to be up so early. Not sure if you know of my original story but it was a stressful event at work when this all began. I started getting overly anxious about missing the alarm and being late to work, etc. The issues with work eventually went away, but the anxiety remained.

My goal is to one day get a new job where I can sleep til at least let’s say 6:30am. I truly believe even that extra half hour would help me significantly.

[Deb]

I’ll be hoping you get that new job, Mac. When I was working full time I tended to worry about my sleep more too and would have some small bouts of insomnia. But for the last few years since I’ve had my own business and can make my own schedule I slept great because I could get up 7 or 7:30 or even later if I wanted.

Steve – Yes, I’m still going to bed the same time as my husband. This second week has been more difficult than the first but I’m not surprised by that. I’m always optimistic when I try something new and that affects my sleep. After that the real test begins which it did this week. My falling asleep time has ranged from a few minutes to a few hours, and the quality of my sleep has varied a lot too. My sleep has been decent, but not great, but it’s only the second week so I’m not surprised. At least I’ve had no zombie days. My focus is just on learning how to relax overall about sleep and relearning to trust in my ability to sleep.

[Steve]

Martin’s course has helped in that I get to sleep more quickly, most nights. Usually within 15 minutes. The week I slept good I had an SE of 85.5%. This week I was plagued by early awakenings. Some after getting only 2.5 hours of sleep. I would then go back to sleep but still would wake after only getting a total of 3.5 hours. I need to solve the early awakenings problem. I know I can sleep as I proved it to myself that week. Now I just have to do it again.

[Borgesbi]

Yeah guys, I see you are all struggling a bit and so am I.  I know most of the time I list the positives here, but it’s time for me to look at the negatives and make some modifications on my own as I don’t really feel “listened to” by the CBT-I coaches I have been working with, including Martin (sorry, don’t mean to be offensive in any way but it is the truth). It’s been 3 months that I get an average of 4 to 5 hours of sleep because of a strict SW and I’m feeling the effects of it pretty bad. I haven’t mentioned it because I don’t want to sound negative here but truth is that in the last month I developed intense anxiety, lack of concentration, over eating, dull/depressive state of mind, lack of motivation, and forgetfulness ( of course I still experience positive things, but the negatives have been more frequent). I have never really struggled with any of these before so to me it’s clear that it is related to getting way too little sleep due to a strict SE. I don’t think this is irreversible or that it will have a long-term impact on my health so I’m not necessarily freaking out but my quality of life has decreased quite a lot and I’m just being patient with it at the moment.

I went back to a strict SW since I started the paid course with Martin but I’m entering the 4th week with him and I think it’s finally time to let go of the strictness of CBT-I once and for all. There have been positive signs but also way too many negatives and I think I need to do what intuitively feels the best for me.

I’m going to list the negatives today, so bear with me:

– I used to be able to fall asleep just fine at the first signs of sleepiness, but because of the strictness of the SW it seems that I pretty much conditioned my body not to fall asleep unless I’m beyond exhausted. Not cool.

– It feels as if I don’t follow exactly the same routine every night, I can’t fall asleep – what the heck? That’s annoying. So I can never have a different evening now, and I don’t fall asleep? Doesn’t feel right to me.

– A short SW gives me sleep anxiety, PERIOD. How can I relax giving myself only 6 hours to sleep if I know the chances of having to do SC or not falling asleep right away are pretty high? A short SW has not worked for me and I honestly think it’s fine to have a longer SW as long as we’re still implementing SC and all the other techniques

– Sleep became way too technical for me and it doesn’t feel enjoyable anymore since I have to follow so many little rules and have such a strict routine. Also, I resent the fact that I can’t ever be in my bed unless I’m passed out. My bed used to be this friendly, enjoyable, relaxing venue and now it feels like a forbidden land – must NOT be on it unless asleep. I don’t know that I will be back to hanging out in my bed as much as before because I can see the logic behind not spending time in bed awake, but maybe a relaxing activity here and there? Read a bit, watch an asmr video, lie down only to relax sometimes?

Barely 2 good weeks of sleep in 10 weeks is just not ok. Strict CBT-I is not paying off and I’m over its strictness.

So sorry for the rant everyone. I think CBT is really awesome but for the ones whose improvement is slower the strictness of it needs to be modified. Hope everyone gets better with time here! All the best!!!

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