[daveka]

I’ve had about 13 years of badly broken sleep after 3 years of benzodiazepine tapering withdrawal getting off a tiny amount of Xanax/klonopin. This was taken in response to a major emotional trauma prior and then several other major issues afterward. I have been doing DNRS with Annie Hooper for 4 years, and then began mind-body work with the Curable app, Dr. Shubiner, JDr. ohn Sarno, Nicole Sachs, Dan Buglio, and Jim Prussack,the Pain PT. Most of my issues involved significant constant anxiety, GI stuff, constant brain fog and dizzness, and sleep issues where a good night would be 4 straight hours of sleep but broken before and after a block of sleep. Sometimes it is only 1 hour, then awakening, but it has varied nightly. Eight nights ago, for a reason I cannot determine, falling asleep just went away. I usually go to bed around 10:30-11 PM and have not had major issues falling asleep. I listen to audiobooks during the night and that has, in the past, put me back to sleep in a relatively short time. Not any more. I now usually fall back to sleep for 1-3 hours beginning at around 4-5 AM, getting 2-3 hours of sleep a night. I feel pretty awful during the day, combined with my other ongoing anxiety and dizziness. Last night I tried 100mg of Trazodone and another sleep spray taken during the night. I eventually got maybe 5-5 1/2 hours but feel just awful. I assume that was from the Trazadone and the other sleeping spray. I leave on a trip this Saturday for 8 days, so I don’t think it would be wise to begin this sleep course in hotel rooms with my wife on vacation until I return and really do not want to take the Trazadone again as I still have this awful dizzy, anxious hangover feeling still, after 18 hours. I listened to the first 3 podcasts of people discussing their own issues and it certainly gives me hope, as I was spiraling into a really dark place after a week of an almost total loss of sleep. So, does this sound pretty typical with an inability to fall asleep out of the blue a week ago for no discernible reason, which of course raised my other symptoms of anxiety, dizziness, nausea, brain fog, and should I wait a week until I return from this trip before beginning the course? Thanks for any advice.

[daveka]

I forgot to mention that I also have this weird breathing issue in which my nasopharynx feels totally dried out as if I was having ice cold air pushed into my nose, worse at night while laying down. Feels like a sore throat in my posterior nasopharynx. I use lozenges all night long to try to mask this feeling. This too make sleeping more difficult

[Dreamz]

Have you considered joining the online program called “Unwinding Anxiety”? After reading the book Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer, MD, I subscribed and am finding it EXTREMELY helpful in dealing with what was a multi-year struggle with anxiety and subsequent depression.

[daveka]

Thanks, Dreamz for your input. I will certainly take a look. After getting emotionally uplifted listening to a few of these podcasts yesterday, I went to bed an hour later than usual, fell asleep in a reasonable time for the first time in a week, and slept for 5 straight hours, woke up, and fell back to sleep again after about a half-hour, for another three hours. So, just knowing that this issue can be resolved apparently was enough for me to get some reasonable sleep last night. I’m very optimistic!! Thanks for your advice.

[Chee2308]

Guys! There is nothing that can help you to sleep except sufficient wakefulness. So you need to stop going down rabbit holes of doing stuffs in hopes getting more sleep, because these are sleep efforts and they only dent your sleep confidence. Just go to bed based on number of hours you are awake, usually 16-18 hours of wakefulness is sufficient to generate 6-8 hours of sleep, provided you are very patient and not excessively worried. Waking up in between is normal too. Sleep is simple once you understand it, by not treating it as some mysterious black box that always needs to be deciphered.

[daveka]

Thanks Chee. Now that I am one week into trying CBT-I, I better understand what you have said. What are you supposed to do if you wake up around 5:30 when your wake-up time is 7 AM? Getting up for a while and then getting back to sleep is not likely as you know that you will be getting up in a few minutes. Do you lengthen your wake-up time, or just get up for the day at 5:30-6 for the day? Thanks for your advice.

DK

[Chee2308]

Hi DK!
when i was doing cbti, i would just get up and start my day early. So early wake up = less time sleeping = more wakeful hours during the day = better sleep at night.

Now almost a year later, i dont do that anymore. I just go back to sleep whenever i wake up too early and can usually fall back asleep and sleep for another 1-2 hours. I also frequently take naps during the day as well, as i dont follow a sleep window and i dont care how i sleep during the night and i do whatever i want in bed (play games on my phone, watch YouTube or whatever). I am breaking almost every rule of cbti except the regular bedtime schedule and i still sleep great!

[daveka]

Hi Chee,
Thanks for your reply. So, I guess I will just get up if I’m awake within 1-2 hours of my wakeup time? Last night I got 2-3 hours of total sleep, waking up finally at 5:30 when my alarm was set for 6:30, so I just stayed in bed and listened to an audiobook, as that used to put me back to sleep, but not when I know I will be getting up very soon. Oddly, considering how little sleep I’ve had in the past week, I really don’t feel too awful. I guess it’s my own response to the issue rather than the lack of sleep affecting me. Initially, I had a couple of much better nights, but now it’s a roller coaster with sleep actually worse than before using these techniques. Do you think that this is par for the course?

Thanks for your help.

DK

[Chee2308]

Hello DK!
Sleeping a bit worse after some improvement is extremely common! This is a very clear sign of improvement and you are on the path to sleeping well. If you slept badly then of course good sleep comes due to the built up sleep drive. Similarly, sleeping bit worse after sleeping well is due the reduced sleep drive after sleeping better. In the same way your hunger is reduced or disappeared after eating, this is exactly the same thing with sleep. So everything is normal and nothing suggests your insomnia is coming back, but on contrary it actually means you are getting better! You will find your nights typically happen like this: bad – good – good – bad – good, the pattern just keeps repeating itself. Once you understand how this works, you will start letting go of control and then you slowly begin see permanent improvement. Occasional bad nights will still happen but you don’t react like before anymore and you don’t struggle as much. Try to remember the times when you didn’t worry about little sleep. Like studying the whole night for an exam, taking a long haul flight crossing multiple time zones or preparing for a tough job interview. After that, your sleep normally recovers on its own. Well this time is exactly the same, no difference. This difficult episode will pass as always and then your sleep will come back and hopefully you become immune to future insomnia as you now understand exactly what’s going on and sleep doesn’t develop into a major issue. Best wishes!

[daveka]

Thanks again, Chee for taking the time to answer my questions and hold my hand. The night before last was really good, falling back to sleep twice after waking and getting over 8 hours.

Last night, however, was the exact opposite. I Couldn’t fall asleep, went out into another room twice, and maybe getting 3 hours total, after unsetting my alarm at 5:30 am. Around 5:30 I unset my alarm that was set for 6 AM, as I felt that if I did actually fall asleep, I didn’t want to get up at 6 am for no reason, other than to get more awake time. Would you agree that it’s OK to actually set an alarm each morning until this process becomes more habitual? Or should I just let whatever happens happen regarding a wake-up time? Do you think it was OK to cancel the alarm given that I really hadn’t slept but an hour by 5 AM, and thought that some sleep was better than that, even if I was being asleep more rather than awake more? I finally awoke at 7:30 AM.

Still, my mood was pretty calm as I truly believe that this is part of the process, so I accepted this and that things will improve over the longer term.

I’m still early in this and haven’t figured out things like do you set an alarm to wake up or not, do you change things if the night was not good and get up later, etc.

Thanks again for your insight.

DK

[Chee2308]

Hi DK!
I didn’t use an alarm for my sleep at all when doing cbti. I did try once but I was always waking up before it and so I ended up lying there in bed, trying to sleep but at the back of my mind, i knew the alarm was going to ring at anytime and this anticipation just kept me from falling back asleep! So i stopped it and just relied on the birds singing outside my room as wakeup time. I knew the birds would be making noises around 6am so when i hear them, i know it’s around 6am. Early in the course, i would get out of bed around this time and later on, i refused to get up even after hearing the birds because I wanted to sleep more and I was always getting it! Now i get out of bed between 730-8 am, way past the time when the birds would be singing, I have absolutely no problems sleeping through all their noises because my body already got used to them. Now my bedtime is 11pm-8am plus a 20-30 min nap between 1-4 pm. I sleep fine like this, I don’t necessarily need to sleep in all that time; I am fine with just staying in bed not sleeping. I know 5-6 hours is already enough for me to function during the day, anything extra is just bonus and I very often do end up sleeping during my time in bed even if originally my intention was to just relax. Because I am so calm and relaxed in bed that I always end up getting sleepy. Best wishes to you!

[daveka]

Hi again, Chee.
This is truly a roller coaster. An occasional OK night followed by craziness. Can’t help but doze off in front of the TV before bed. Still hard to fall asleep in the bed, I get up and leave the bedroom for an hour, get back in bed, listen to an audiobook, and fall asleep, only to awaken after an hour, do it again for another hour., Then sleep for 3-4 hours, missing the early waking up time I used to set the alarm for. I guess that shortens the sleep-driving wakefulness time, but I guess I’d rather sleep more hours than to deliberately get up after I just fell asleep? My sleep efficiency last night was 67%, and prior nights were 80%, 50%, 91%, 52%, 76%, 85%, 82%. Did you use Martin as a coach or do it yourself? I’m beginning to think that I can’t do it myself. I truly appreciate your taking the time to help me. Appreciate any advice about any of my comments. Thanks, DK

[Chee2308]

Hi Dk!
If you can afford the full course then go for it! But otherwise, if you can follow a simple set of rules, anyone should be able to improve their sleep by themselves. This is because even if you do sign up, it doesn’t involve taking anything external, meaning everything you need is already inside your body. Then after graduation, you can follow those set of rules for life, or completely abandon them like I did, because I completely believe in myself and I never question my own ability to sleep anymore; I just don’t need anyone or anything to tell me what to do about sleep anymore. Best wishes and good luck.

[Angeli]

What a great placement Chee2308, It all depends on my outlook and my beliefs about the situation. If I spend all night awake, in love, and making out with the love of my life, the next day I’ll be on cloud nine. Sleepless but happy. That wouldn’t hurt me and the next night I would sleep exhausted. But if I spend the entire night without sleep, since then, worried, nervous, anxious and panicked, I will be destroyed by morning. It all depends on my interpretation and how I let myself be affected by it. The more I suffer awake at night, the more insomnia I have. It’s like I’ve fed a monster that will eventually eat me up. Thank you all. This forum helps me a lot. (using translator)

[Author]

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