[BorgC]

I’m so glad I did the course. I’m no longer fearful of nightime wakefulness. The AWAKE exercise is helpful. I’m sleeping so much better. My sleep anxiety has disappeared. You learn a lot about how sleep works. There’s a lot of stuff you often hear about sleep that just isn’t accurate. I hesitated at first in doing the course for financial reasons but I finally decided I’d had enough and after a bad night I just joined the course as I was sick and tired of feeling like a zombie. I thought I’m going to spend the money on me because I deserve it. I know what it’s like when you’re experiencing sleep anxiety and this course worked for me.

[Packer Fan]

Im on my 4th day of week 2. I go to bed with the sleep pressure high but am wide awake!! I either watch week 2 lessons or listen to Joyce Meyer podcasts. I become sleepy, but again can’t sleep!! I don’t have much negative thoughts, although I run through the AWAKE program several times. My night consists of being awake or the light sleep. I guess I’m wondering on week 2 does this sound right? I no longer has the desire of tossing & turning or getting out of bed. Im just wondering if I’m rushing myself. Thank you.

[BorgC]

Yes you’re only on week 2. For me sometimes I still have to remind myself to be patient. I call it patient relaxation. I had my doubts too but I did lose that anxiety of being awake. Just keep doing the course. I also remember as a child I never thought about sleep or made any rules regarding it. It was just natural, never forced. Sleep requires no effort, it’s just something your body knows how to do. Don’t overthink it. Stop being afraid of being awake sometimes, it’s normal. You’re not exceptional, just normal. I hope this helps. Wishing you all the best.

[Packer Fan]

Thank you for the encouragement. I am now on week 3, just getting to the NOW exercise. I’m still struggling, no sleep last night. I’m doing everything Martin is saying. Were you struggling at the beginning of week #3? This program requires a lot of support. Thank you.

[BorgC]

I can’t remember where I was at week 3. At the beginning I used to sleep well every second night because I had so little sleep the previous night. I think you will improve but to be honest I didn’t have the best sleep last night. It’s the second last night of a holiday I think you call it a vacation. I’m ready to go home and had a few things on my mind. The difference is prior to doing the course if I had a bad night the next day was compromised because I thought I couldn’t go on as normal. At first you may be a little tired but you just push through. If you listen to Martin’s podcast you’ll see it’s still normal to have a bad night every now and then but you just accept this. Overall you should sleep a lot better. Good luck.

[Rubylight]

Absolutely! I just got back from a short holiday too, where everything went haywire because I wasn’t in my own bed with my own cozy routines. But I didn’t get too excited about it, just pushed through and tried to relax, and now I’m back home and back on track. Sleep is always going to be a little bit unpredictable, I think, if you’re “insomnia-prone” or tend to be overly anxious in general. Just accepting it, though, is 90% of the battle. It really, really does get better!!

[JakeAwake]

I really like your perspective on things @Rubylight, and the hope that your words instil in those of us who are still struggling. You’ve said your sleep is still a little erratic, in spite of it really improving after finishing the course. Out of curiosity, what do your nights look like nowadays?

[BorgC]

I wouldn’t call it erratic. 90% of the time I sleep well. The older you get the less sleep you need. I’m almost 67. So some nights it may take quite a while to fall asleep but I always do go to sleep. I’m not obsessed with getting 8 hours of sleep. I average between 6 to 7 hours, this is just an estimation of course. Sometimes I sleep straight away and sleep all through, other times I sleep straight away and wake up after a few hours, I may listen to music for about an hour then go back to sleep. The fear has gone as I don’t believe in sleep hygiene any more. I recommend trying to think like a child again and don’t even think about sleep.

[Rubylight]

My sleep is erratic once in a while, instead of being totally missing in action like it was before the course. Like BorgC, the course has taught me to accept whatever comes. When life throws a few curveballs, then my sleep might get a little patchy, but never for more than, say, one night a week. Most of the time I’m fine, with six hours on average, and sometimes, on miracle nights, seven. (Always with an intermission in the middle, but I manage to fall back asleep quickly.) This is SO much better than before the course, when every night was a battle to the death just to squeeze out two crummy hours of micro sleep. There is hope!! It gets better!!

[JakeAwake]

I’m so pleased to hear it worked well for you, @BorgC and @Rubylight. How did you find the sleep restriction and stimulus control at first? I’ve been struggling on and off with sleep now for the past few months, and whilst the acceptance and commitment approach has generally worked for me in the past (staying in bed, no matter how bad the night is), I seem to have lost my knack for it recently, and I’m pulling more all-nighters than I used to. Whilst I do have great nights, in between the lousy ones, I’m thinking of giving sleep restriction and stimulus control a go, just to try and get some consistency to my sleep – instead of it being all over the place. But, I find the thought of it a little challenging, in spite of the fact I can see how sound the theory of it is. Was it hard? Did it get better?

[Rubylight]

I found that the sleep restriction, ie, setting up a sleep window and sticking to it come what may, was really, really helpful. First of all, you feel like you have a “plan”, which makes you feel a little more in control. And then, getting up at the same time every day, no matter how the night went, really helps with building up sleep pressure. I actually didn’t find it hard at all, especially since it started to improve my sleep within the first week. As for stimulus control, I tried that in the past and had an awful time with it…I’m assuming you mean the thing where you get up after fifteen minutes in bed if you can’t sleep. I found that really stress-inducing, and it never worked for me, just made me furious! Staying in bed no matter what suited me better, even during all-nighters, painful as they were. For me, the combination of the six-hour sleep window and the ACT exercises worked the best. I haven’t pulled an all-nighter in several months!

[BorgC]

I agree with what Ruby said. The sleep window is good and I still set my alarm to wake in the morning at the same time and I get out of bed then no matter what the night was like. There’s always flexibility so for instance if I have a bad night I still get up and if I’m still tired after breakfast I may practice a yoga pose, called legs up the wall for 10 minutes, it’s relaxing and refreshing at the same time. Then I just get on with my day. As for stimulus control it drove me to the edge, I tried it on another course and ended up not finishing that course. Then after research found this course.
Stimulus control was definitely not good for me. Good luck.

[JakeAwake]

I’ve just started to give stimulus control and sleep compression a go, as, whilst the ACTi approach of staying in bed, welcoming all the horrible thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations, has worked reasonably well for me in the past (this was my primary method of dealing with my erratic sleep), it really can be very painful doing so when you are absolutely hyper-aroused and anxious, and recently it hasn’t been doing much for me at all. Last night, for example, I went to bed at 11pm, and felt myself relaxing pretty quickly, even though I was quite anxious beforehand. I got surprisingly comfortable, but I was conscious of not sleeping (or so I thought) for about half an hour. So, I got myself out of bed and went out to the living room – at which time I noticed it was actually 1245am – meaning I’d been in light sleep for about an hour and three quarters! I love a good time-slip. In any case I was up, so I read for an hour (I wasn’t happy about being up in the night, but it wasn’t unbearable; though I’ve been very resistant to it in the past), and I went back to bed at 145am. In spite of my husband’s snoring, I drifted back into a light, weirdly dream-filled sleep, and woke to the alarm at 530am. And today I feel fine, and quite buoyed. Personally, I’ll take light or broken sleep over no sleep at all any day. In hindsight, I was relaxed enough in bed to perhaps not have gotten up, and I dare say I would have drifted off eventually if I’d stayed put; but I was feeling gung-ho about approaching the night differently. Up till recently, I’ve had a regular tendency to fall asleep on the couch watching television around 830pm or so, and on a good night I wake naturally at around 1030pm, go to bed, and sleep with no problem. But on some nights, that nap seems to completely erode my sleep drive, and then I’m up all night. Or, some nights, if I don’t fall asleep on the couch, I start getting anxious, and the night can go any which way. I’m now determined to cut out the evening couch naps, and make my new sleep window 11pm to 530am, as compressing my sleep and knocking a couple of hours of it each night will do me good. And I think I’ll use a mix of stimulus control, or practice staying in bed befriending wakefulness – depending on how I feel. So far so good!

[Rubylight]

I admire your spirit of experimentation, of doing what’s right for you. I recognize a lot of the anxiety, especially when one night doesn’t look like the the one that went before, as well as the “time slips” that used to take me regularly by surprise… actually sleeping when I could have sworn I was wide awake. I hope the sleep window helps you, and I really wish you luck!

[JakeAwake]

Thanks, @Rubylight. Last night was interesting for me. I was absolutely struggling to stay awake by 11pm, and I did nod off a couple of times sitting on the couch listening to a podcast. But, when I got into bed I suddenly felt hot and prickly and very alert – classic arousal symptoms. In any case, I lay there, telling myself this is all par for the course, that I was safe, there was nothing to fret about, that my sleep drive was still strong, and, within 15 minutes or so I drifted off into a pretty solid night’s sleep. Nice. I’m glad your sleep’s in a better place now, too. Happy days (and nights)!

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