[MJ]

I have been easing myself off of zopliclone. I fall asleep ok but wake up at 4:30 a.m. & have difficulty getting back to sleep. I feel like I’m making progress by falling asleep, but really want to get another couple of hours.

[Nav]

Hi MJ, can you tell how you are easing yourself off zopiclone? I am on 7.5mg, one tablet and want to stop. Last couple of days i’ve taken a half, hoping it’ll be ok but then i’m up after a couple of hours, can’t sleep, so i take the other half.

[MJ]

Hi Nav,
I initially switched to half a tablet before bed. I’d wake up 4:30 ish & stay in bed resting. The last few weeks I have been able to fall asleep on my own & take the half tab if I wake up & can’t get back to sleep if it’s earlier than 4 am. That took me through til waking btwn 7-8. After about a month of that, I’m able to sleep without any meds but wake up around 4:30 ( I don’t look at my iPad til it feels like I’m not going back to sleep). I seem to be waking around 4:30 & that is too late to take the half tab. My new challenge is trying to stretch my no med sleep to 6:30-7 a.m.
I’m tired in the day but think I can retrain my brain

[Martin Reed]

I wonder if reaching for the medication when you wake during the night might be training your brain to believe that wakefulness is a threat that it needs to be alert to protect you from (after all, if it wasn’t a threat why would you be trying to avoid it?) — and that, in turn, might be making it more difficult to fall back to sleep?

What would you be doing differently with your life if you weren’t waking at 4:30 AM — if you were sleeping right through the night, getting the exact amount and type of sleep you’d like to be getting?

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[Author]

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