[Steve]

Hi Deb – Yes I am. Over the last 13 days, I have had 7 days of 5.o hours or above sleep and 6 days of below 5.o hours of sleep. Some were really good as I had two days above 6.0 hours of sleep. (I slept past the alarm and the end of my sleep window,) But I also had a day or two of below 4 hours of sleep. The days seem to come in bunches like I will have two or three days of good sleep and then a couple days of bad sleep. I do feel better when I get above 5 hour sof sleep. There is less dizzyness and brain fog, although I still have some of that. I have found that everyone has different symptoms from their insomnia. Like some people shake. I really only do that when I get below 4 hours of sleep. But I do still get the headaches, brain fog and dizzyness. And of course the tiredness but even the tiredness goes away a lot when I get above 5 hours of sleep.

One thing that has helped me is that I have been forcing myself to get out and do activities I enjoy even if I feel lousy. That improves my attitude a lot. I really do feel like I am going to break from this insomnia soon. Hasn’t happened yet but I am in a better mood due to the activities I do and I do see in improvements in my sleep. I just have to try and stop falling asleep in my chair waiting for my SW to start. Hopefully I will start increasing my sleep soon to the 6 hour level. I am probably going to sign up for one or two more extended courses with Martin as I really do need the support. I am not married anymore or have any kids so I have no support at home. I am hoping Martin’s extended course can provide that support for me one or two times more. Than I am on my own. Hope you are doing better.

[Deb]

Glad you’re getting some good sleep, Steve. I’m doing better. The last two nights I fell asleep within a reasonable time. I was in and out of sleep all night, but I woke up feeling decent and good enough to do all my daytime activities. Just had a little less energy and got tired earlier than if I had had deep, refreshing sleep.

[gsdmom]

Hi Steve, the 3:30am hour is an awful time to wake up for me. My husband wakes up at 5am, so I often think by the time I get to sleep, he’ll probably wake up again, and sometimes if I’ve fallen asleep a but earlier at like 10:30, by body feels like 5 hours of sleep is great(compared to a month or two ago when I was only getting 2-3 hours sleep per night) so I’m wide awake .

Since you don’t have support at home, I’m glad you found this forum. Hearing what everyone is going through is so helpful, insomnia is a very lonesome condition especially at 3am. And here I don’t feel alone. Unkile you, I have someone at home who really doesn’t support me and frequently makes very insensitive comments that I am mental/crazy for having insomnia originally brought on by medications – and doesn’t want to understand it takes a long time for the brain to recover. My sleep doc knows my home situation and asked me to remove separate from the bedroom with my spouse. A sleep divorce. I did that for 3 weeks and now, I found a quiet, alone space before I go to bed and wait for my spouse to be asleep so I can go to bed in peace. So thanks, Martin for making this available!

I’m glad to hear you are making yourself do enjoyable activities even though you might feel lousy. I find when I do that, I might at least feel better for a couple hours afterward, especially if it was a vigorous, sweaty physical activity. I’ve increased my activity since insomnia and am in better physical shape, lets just hope the brain catches up with the body soon.

[Deb]

Gdsmom – that’s awful that your husband is treating you in that way! It’s bad enough to have insomnia (I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy) but that then the one who is supposed to be supporting and loving you is calling you crazy.  He’s supposed to help you get through this difficult time, not make it even worse.  I’m very lucky that my husband is very kind and understanding. When I need a hug because I’m depressed or just so tired, I can go to him. Glad that you are coming to the forum and getting support here.

[Steve]

Hi gsdmon. I am sorry you are having trouble with your husband as well. He should be supporting you but at least you got a quiet place away from him at night. How long has your insomnia been going on? I have had a bad last three nights as I have only slept four hours each night. I was getting in the low to mid 5’s but I seem to have regressed some. That seems to be normal with me. I now have several good night followed by several bad nights and then the cycle starts over again. I just seem to keep waking up around 3:30 on those bad nights and can’t get back to sleep. I did SC last night but when I went back to bed, I thought I was sleepy but still couldn’t sleep. At least when i have the good nights, the hours of sleep seem to creep a little higher. I hope you start to sleep better soon.

[Steve]

Hi Deb. Well, I actually regressed a little the last three nights as I reverted to having 4 hours of sleep each of those nights. But I try not to dwell on it and just take the day as it comes. I know better nights will come because they have in the past. The problem for me now seems to be awakening at 3:30 a lot of those nights and sometimes, i can’t geet back to sleep after that awakening. I fall asleep relatively quickly so that’s not a problem. I have been staying off of all pills and supplements to help me sleep while I was on Martin’s course but I might try to experiment a little and try a melatonin again. Since I only have a 6.0 hour sleep window from 11:15 to 5: am, if I wake up at 3:30, I can’;t take the melatonin then as it will only give me about an hour and a half of sleep, even if it does work, and then I will be very groggy the next day. But I was thinking of trying it a little before my SW begins and see what it does. Maybe it will allow me to sleep past 3:30. I would rather try this experiment on the weekend so if it does make me groggy, I won’t have to go to work the next day. I know you take Ambien but I can’t take that. Not only doesn’t it work for me, but by the second day, it plugs up my sinuses and gives me a post nasal drip which gives me a sore throat. Hope you sleep better soon.

[Steve]

Mac – Haven’t heard from you lately. How are you doing?

[gsdmom]

Thanks Steve and Deb for your kind thoughts.

Steve – My insomnia started 3/12/19. The day I went to my podiatrist and received a steroid injection for a neoroma in my foot and also started taking on oral medication, Terbinafine for toe nail fungus. Both medications caused a severe reaction. Feeling high energy like I had superpowers for a couple days and then went into extreme mood swings, wanting to cry which is totally unlike me. After a week I contacted my primary doc, but she didn’t seem to really care or be concerned. She did give me Ambien, but the other drugs were so strong, the Ambien hardly worked. After almost 3 weeks with little sleep, I was freaking  out. I went to the pool to swim to really tire myself out, came home, sat down for lunch and looked at the terbinafine I was about to take. I thought, I should research this medicine more thoroughly.  The doctor said it could harm my liver and to watch out for that, but he did not mention any other side effects. Went online, and read many reports of this medication causing insomnia, I was that 1-2% of the patients it affected. This medication has a long half life and can stay in your system for 12 weeks.

I’ve had insomnia as a child, and as an adult very stressful situations can bring it on, traveling brings it on, and once before a medication gave me insomnia. But never before did it last this long.

Last night I slept 6.5 hours and if feels glorious compared to only 2-3 hours which was my average last month. July has been better, having a few days in a row of 6-7 hours sleep then I may regress to 3-4 hours for a couple days. I can no longer take Ambien, my body doesn’t like it anymore and actually makes my mind race, like it is not asleep. My sleep doctor suggested I try listening to audio books to relax me at night, which kind of makes sense as I remember how my kids loved it when I read to them at night. Amazon has a 30 day free trial, and I am really enjoying it. I have to listen outside of the bedroom and it takes about 30-45 minutes to feel sleepy enough for me to go to bed. It was also recommended that I take a warm shower 30 minutes before bed because the cooling of the body after a warm shower should stimulate melatonin production. If the audio books don’t work then I have a couple kind of boring books I read. Insomnia often makes my muscles ache, so once in a while I will also take some Advils before bed which helps me to relax a bit. Anyway, hope you can push past the 3:30am time. I woke up at 4am today, a little bit better. If you plan on taking supplements, don’t try the CBD gummies! My daughter gave me CBD gummies with THC, they are very relaxing to the point of you not caring about anything but they are very long lasting, like 20 hours and really affected me into the next day and although relaxing, did not induce sleep.

[Steve]

Thanks gsdmom for the history of your insomnia. It sounds like you are slowly recovering and I’m glad to hear it. As they say, I wouldn’t wish insomnia on my worst enemy. My insomnia started at the end of October last year. I had to have a stent put in an artery and two weeks after I had it placed, I just woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since. They say the surgery to place the stent, and any drugs they gave me during the surgery, didn’t cause the insomnia. Of course, what are they going to say? They insist it was caused by high stress levels due to the stent and other things I had going on in my life. They could be right but I guess I’ll never know. And I don’t really care either as even if the surgery did cause it, there is nothing they can do for it now anyway. They tried giving me more anti-depressant drugs which only made things worse as well as benzos and sleeping pills. The only thing that worked was Xanax but I didn’t want to stay on that long term due to the addiction problems. And the sleeping pills like Ambien never worked for me. My insomnia got so bad that in February, I had four straight nights totaling only one hour of sleep. I probably had more Stage 1 sleep than I realized but it was not refreshing at all.

After I read about CBT-i, I decided to try that. It was tough at first but gradually my sleep did become consolidated. After the end of Martin’s course, I am averaging just under 5 hours of sleep but really need about 5.5 to at least function the next day with minimal insomnia side effects. I don’t know if they are right about the stress causing this or not but my triggers that might have caused the insomnia have all gone away leaving the insomnia. Now I do stress about insomnia some but that is easing too as I realize that I can function even on four hours sleep. It’s difficult, but I’m not going to fall apart. I am involving myself in outside activities that I enjoy as well which further reduces the stress.  I do feel that I am going to break out of this insomnia soon. I don’t know why I feel that way but I really do. I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking or not but I have a more positive attitude and while I may still think about the insomnia (it’s hard not to think about something that controlled a lot of my life even if only for about 9 months or so) I don’t have as many negative thoughts about it anymore. It’s just something that’s there. So now that my attitude is changing, I am hoping it slowly goes away.

I know what you mean about feeling great after your 6.5 hour sleep. I had a 6.5 hour and a 5.75 hour last week and I felt great too! Of course, the only reason it happened was I didn’t set my alarm (I never sleep to the end of my SW so I don’t see a need to set it much anymore) and slept past my SW. The only supplement I would consider taking is melatonin and I have to be carefult when I take it. If I take it too late into my SW, I will wake up with a melatonin hangover as my SW is only 6 hours long. I have taken water soluble CBD oil and it really didn’t do anything for me so I stopped taking it long ago. I am thinking of getting a cat this weekend to replace one I lost recently and I hope that also helps my mood. I mentioned I was alone. I am hoping the cat will be a companion to me when I come home at night from work so I don’t have to come home to an empty house. So, I have not given up yet on getting rid of this insomnia. I just know it is going to take awhile to get into the 6 hour sleep time on a consistent basis. I wish you good luck with your sleep.

[JTthemillenial]

Going to tack on here so as not to monopolize the ACT thread with SRT rants. Also would be good if there are any new folks starting SRT.

[JTthemillenial]

Well, I screwed up and slept past my window. Phone with my alarm was in my jacket pocket all night. Guess I’ll be pushing my bedtime out an hour…

[Daf]

Yes, that is what you need to do. Push going to bed time back at least an hour.
My target is to sleep no more than 6.5 hours tho my average is just under 5.5 hrs.
I don’t have a particular going to bed and getting up time. I tend to prfere to listen to my body re bed times. You could say I do SRT lite, and if I am awake I prefer to just rest and accept it. I will only get out of bed if I’m getting frustrated. Otherwise I try to practice acceptance.
If I’m ever naughty and sleep for over 6.5hrs I run risk of a nil sleep night following night due to reduced sleep drive.
Listen to the podcast Martin did with me in the Success Stories

[JTthemillenial]

So I’ve improved my onset times pretty well but am having quite a few awakenings during the night that end up stressing me out, which probably leads to more mid-night and early awakenings. Is it normal for this to happen early in the SRT process?

[Daf]

Awakenings during the night are common for all mammals. Some don’t notice it, some do. If you are tired enough because you set the sleep window low enough, you’ll get back to sleep again, most times I think.

[Glynis]

Hi everyone, have just been reading through all the posts and have been very encouraged by them. I’ve been having sleep problems for about 25 years now – battling to go to sleep, waking in the early hours and taking about two hours to go back to sleep and waking up too early. I stumbled onto Martin’s website after seeing a program on TV about sleep restriction and doing some searching on the internet. I signed up for his free course and am now in the fourth week of implementing the strategies. I didn’t have enough courage to set the sleep window that I should have (I made it longer) but I did start to see improvements – falling asleep very quickly, getting a much better quality sleep and going back to sleep quickly after waking up during the night. Friday, Sunday and Monday nights had great sleep and felt fantastic yesterday and was starting to get very excited about my progress and last night woke at 2.40 am and couldn’t go back to sleep (I have a clock because if I wake and don’t know the time it causes me too much stress). Felt a bit despondent this morning but after reading the posts and realising that I will still have bad nights in amongst the good ones I am happier. I didn’t practise SC because it would have meant going from an airconditioned room to a stinking hot lounge (I live in the southern hemisphere) and that might have kept me awake. I will definitely keep on persevering though because I now know that I CAN sleep.

[Author]

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