[Steve]

Last night was just so frustrating it just makes me want to quit, except for the fact that there isn’t anything else for me to do about this insomnia. Two nights ago I had a relatively good sleep and yesterday at work it showed as I was able to focus and concentrate on my job. That was probably because I had a very poor sleep Sunday evening and when I went to bed Sunday night, I was asleep when my head hit the pillow. Anyway, I knew I was probably going to have poor sleep last night because I never felt my sleep drive build. I did some exercising and other work when I got home to tire myself out but when it came time to go to bed, I just didn’t feel it. I went to bed anyway and I did get to sleep in about 10 or 15 minutes but woke up 5 minutes after that. (This is why I say I am not a good estimator of time as I thought I was asleep for about30 minutes but when I looked at the clock, it was only 5 minutes.) I did fall asleep probably about 10 minutes later which was midnight but at promptly 3:00 in the morning, I woke up. I stayed there for about 20 minutes and then did SC for about 25 minutes. Went back to bed but after another 30 minutes, realized it was over for me so I got up and stayed up until it was time for me to get up. This is so frustrating! I am sick of these good nights alternating with the bad nights.

One thing I have to do is find something to do in the 10: to 11:00 time period before I go to bed. I have been sitting on the floor meditating for an hour and a half but all I end up doing is nodding off. These microsleeps are probably killing my sleep drive. I have to get up and find something to do in the 10: to 11:00 time period so I don’t microsleep and then do my wind down from 11:00 to 11:45. Maybe I need to start reading again. Yesterday felt so good at work. I was thinking about getting another cat to replace the one that died last year and also to join a dating service again to try and find a girlfriend. (I am divorced which was probably one of my triggers for the insomnia.) Today, I am just trying to stay awake. My SE is at 65%. Nowhere near the 85% to expand my sleep window. I know I’ve only been doing SR for a day less than two weeks but it’s just so frustrating. If I could just keep my sleep in the 4+ hour range. I am in danger of having it slip back into the 2+ hour range.

[Steve]

That last post should read when I went to bed MONDAY night, I was asleep when my head hit the pillow.

I think part of the problem is my job. I have a desk job and while I am busy, it doesn’t get me physically tired so I can build sleep drive. Anybody else have this problem?

[Mac0908]

Steve, you sound all over the place here. The bottom line is that you slept fine for most of your life, and you probably slept fine while having this desk job, too. Right? You need to continue to work around the small sleep window and build the pressure up. You can’t afford to tamper with it at this point. (i.e. Coming home from a night out at 2am on the weekend / sleeping in)  I have faith in you. I do. Just curious what is your age?

Update on me – last night as you know I planned to get back to my 11:30pm start time. I made it to 11pm when I could no longer keep my eyes open. Big  contributor to this was I probably started my wind down phase too early at 10pm when it should be an hour max beforehand (this goes for anyone). I began sitting on my couch at 10pm with lights off and electronics put away. Then add on the bad night I had the previous night, and it was just a matter of time. That being said, I had a decent night of sleep, but still feel pretty tired today. Woke up briefly around what I estimate to be 5am but then fell right back asleep and was woken by the 6am alarm. Never thought I’d see the days where I’d begin saying I’m happy to be woken up by a blasting alarm.

Going to try and get back to the 11:30p time tonight

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Mac0908.

[Steve]

That’s what scares me Mac. I am all over the board. I am consolidating the sleep but I am still anywhere from 3 to 4 and a quarter. And that one hour makes a big difference in how I feel the next day.

Yes, I slept well all through my life and while I had this job. I turned 60 in March.

[Steve]

Mac – Glad to hear you had a good night even if you did wake up tired. I didn’t know wind down time was a max of 1 hour.

[Mac0908]

So my point is why should you be scared of anything? You slept well for pretty much 60 YEARS of your life. That’s a sign things are fine with you if there ever was. You hit a rough wall right now and sleep anxiety has been triggered. There is no reason you can’t revert back to normal with some work, and you will.

[Steve]

Thanks Mac. I appreciate your support. My problem right now seems to be this. I have no sleep buil drive build up for a day and so I sleep terrible that night. Then I am so exhausted the next night I sleep well and feel pretty good the next day. Then because I slept well, I seem to not build up enough sleep drive for that evening and I sleep terrible. The cycle seems to repeat itself. But I will continue with SR as I have no other choice.

[Mac0908]

There is no set in stone wind down time. That was just my honest opinion after being involved with this for a long time now.

[delv-x]

Hello hello.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted and wanted to give an update. The past 6+ weeks I’ve been sleeping roughly between 5.5-7 hours of actual sleep. My sleep window has been roughly 12:00 to 7:00am. Some nights I’ve gone to bed at 11:45 or slightly earlier and some mornings I’ve slept another 15-30 minutes on some occasions. (days I don’t need an alarm clock and let my body wake up naturally). Sleep efficiency has been 85%+ and most nights 88% to 93%.

We all know that every night can’t be good and it is likely that bouts of poor sleep will return. The last 2 nights were a bit rough. Waking up early and unable to fall back asleep. Hoping that it will pass soon but until then have to keep doing what I’ve been doing which is a moderate sleep restriction of 7 hours and not dwell on it too much. Not worry about caffeine intake in the morning or a glass of wine for dinner. Try to enjoy my day, have fun, live and laugh. Try to do what I did before all this. Try to be occupied with something enjoyable before bed to not worry about the time or how I will sleep. Be relatively consistent with the routine though.

This last streak of decent and consistent nights were a good welcome and hope these humps become even more rare and less severe which they also seem to be. I haven’t had a chance to read this thread entirely but hope you all are doing well, better and on the right track!

[Deb]

Hi Delv – good to hear from you. Sounds like you’re doing well and on the road to healing.

[Pam1129]

What is an approximate amount of time that it takes for the SR to work? I’m guessing it’s different for most, … I’m just trying to get an idea??

[Mac0908]

There is absolutely positively no set “timeframe” of how long it takes. It all depends on how messed up the individual is from the start IMO. How chronic your insomnia really is. Someone who has been suffering for years for example probably isn’t going to jump into SRT and be back to normal within a week. With a nervous system as traumatized as that, it could easily take months.

In my case, it took me over 2 years to finally crack down back in January and try SRT. I did it religiously (though a watered down version of it) for close to 2 months and didn’t really end up feeling a lot better until after 3 months. Then I hit a wall again and fell back into a downward spiral. Now since early May I’ve been back at it on my second run of SRT. This time around my anxiety is so much less though and I know what to expect along the way with SRT. For example I know to expect some bad nights and I know it won’t work perfectly every night. Who knows, maybe it will take me THREE waves of SRT before I’m finally close to fully healed. It’s all a process, and a rather difficult one at that when it comes to trying to heal chronic insomnia. Again I was suffering for well over 2 years. Someone who’s been sleeping bad for 2 months might have a much easier and quicker time to get better. It’s trial and error, its positives and negatives, and it’s all about patience and discipline.

[Mac0908]

And just to update you all, this has been my second official week (of my second wave) of SRT and things have really been difficult, to be honest. While week 1 saw me make it to my 11:30p start time most nights and surprisingly resulted in many good nights to start, this week it has been difficult to get to that time. I’ve had to surrender by 11pm several nights and even 10:45pm one night and I’m not sure whether it’s mental or physical, but these early bedtimes have meant early awakenings on a good amount of these last 5 nights. I’ve been calm about them which is good, and that’s something I’ve learned along the way now, but still, I’ve gone to work exhausted most days. I wouldn’t call these flat out “BAD” nights, as 6 hours or so of sleep has been known to be the “iffy” zone for me, but they’re certainly far from good nights. This weekend I will have the ease of anxiety with no work to worry about in the morning so that will help. Hopefully week 3 will see improvement. Most important thing is I’m not a basket case over a bad week like I was in my first go around.

[Steve]

Well, pretty depressing night last night. Two nights ago, I slept relatively well for a period of a little more than 4 and a half hours, all in one chunk. While it was only one night, I thought I was definitely on the upswing and if I did it for 6 more nights, I could increase my SW by 15 minutes. Then last night came. I knew I was in trouble because I was sleepy when I went to bed but not that sleepy. The result is that I didn’t get to sleep until about 1:30 in the morning and then only slept for 2 hours. I did practice SC and had to get out of bed about three times, twice before I got to sleep originally. It’s like I am in a cycle where I get a good night’s sleep which lowers my sleep drive for the next night and so I sleep terrible that next night which raises my sleep drive for the next night. It’s just a vicious cycle. The only thing that SR has done for me so far is to consolidate my sleep so that it isn’t fragmented. Just have to keep on keeping on. I don’t know how I will ever increase mu SW with these bad sleep nights. It might be time to hire Martin.

[Mac0908]

Steve just goes to show you how crucial it is for you to not enter that bedroom until you are absolutely exhausted unable to keep your eyes open.

Also Steve I forgot already, what caused this all to start for you? Stress?

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Mac0908.

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