[Ladysarah1985]

That was terrifying. I was on 3 days of 0-5 hours of sleep, and I was finally ready to try anything, so I decided to try sleep restriction.

I usually get sleepy around 9-10 pm when my boyfriend goes to bed. I just have trouble falling asleep because my mind won’t drift off even though sleepy. So I decided to stay up until 11 since I don’t get up until 5:30.

I finally called it quits at 5 am. I didn’t sleep at all. By 11 pm I wasn’t sleepy. By midnight I wasn’t sleepy but got in bed anyway because now I’d given myself only 5.5 hours. And I never slept. I got up and down which served to keep the cats awake so they pawed at the door when I tried to go back to bed.

I am really gunshy to do that again. Whatever is missing, sleep restriction feels like ignoring the window of time where I did get sleepy for another widow that never came.

[Chee2308]

Hello! How long did you try this? Don’t expect results immediately or in days, in fact some people won’t even see results in weeks and a majority of people would have some sort of relapse along the way.

If you approach cbti as a sleep “generator tool” to sleep more and wake up less, you will have limited success and get somewhere 4-5 hours on average. But after doing cbti “resets” your clock and you begin trusting your own body again and no longer fret over having poor sleep on ANY night, you will do quite well indeed! You won’t be talking or thinking your poor night at all because you just know whatever sleep you are lacking now you will get it all back in due course.

[Ladysarah1985]

Hi there, thank you for the response. I gotcha on the concept – I also know sleep restriction backfires for some people.

I believe the point of sleep restriction is to increase sleep drive, reduce time spent anxious in bed, and lead to a different relationship with both bed and sleep over time.

I am concerned sleep restriction instead caused me to ignore the signals telling me I was sleepy just because it was too early, and increased anxiety as my sleepiness passed and never returned. Getting up and down out of bed seemed to agitate me (& the critters in my household) further.

I’m not sure it’s the right path for my personality. It seems like I’d be better suited going to bed whenever I feel sleepy and working on letting go of the anxiety around falling asleep.
Stuff I’ve read about in ACT-I ideas.

Basically I was doing sleep restriction because I “should”, not because it made sense or felt right. And I’m not feeling at all confident that it makes sense to do it more. But I haven’t slept in days so I’m starting to mentally spiral in general.

[Martin Reed]

Good on you for giving it a try! As Chee suggested, it usually takes more than one night for a sleep schedule change to yield any results or meaningful information — many people experience a bit more sleep disruption as their brains remain a bit more alert in the short term to monitor for the effect of the change.

Sleep restriction isn’t universally helpful for everyone, just as you suggested! If you’ve found a more workable approach that’s proving helpful, great! No need to explore sleep restriction any further!

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