[flashin]

Hi! I am having two problems with the sleep restriction therapy. My wakeup time is 6:30 and I’ve been trying to keep myself up until 11 or 11:30, but I am finding it quite painful to stay up. When I manage it, it often helps – maybe going from 30% to 60% success at sleeping continuously. I am having trouble rallying to keep it up.

The second problem is that I’m often not getting any sleepier after I get out of bed in the wee hours — and often those nighttime wake-ups are too close to 6:30am to get back to sleep.

I do calm things in the evening and calm things in the wee hours: knitting, reading, writing, drawing, tea.

I could move my wakeup and to-bed times earlier, but I think that would just shift the problem to a new time zone.

Appreciate any thoughts from those who have conquered these issues.

• This topic was modified 4 years ago by flashin.

[Martin Reed]

I always think it’s interesting that when our challenge is sleep, we might implement a sleep window and then find it really hard to stay awake! What a powerful reminder of the power of sleep drive!

Often, the more sedentary we are the more likely we are to fall asleep. Some kind of movement can be helpful since it’s hard to fall asleep when we are moving.

One thing you might want to try is to make the hour before the start of your sleep window the last time you check the clock at night and then to simply go to bed whenever you feel a strong sense of sleepiness. This will give you the opportunity to “extend” your sleep window if conditions feel right for sleep.

Finally, it can be worth recognizing that waking during the night is a normal part of sleep — and the goal of getting out of bed during the night isn’t to make sleep happen. It’s simply a technique that prevents us from reinforcing an association between the bed and unpleasant wakefulness.

So, if you are awake in bed but it feels good to be in bed, there’s probably no need to get out of bed. If being in bed starts to feel really unpleasant, that can be a good cue to get out of bed and do something a bit more appealing until conditions feel better for sleep.

I hope this helps!

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