[Sleeplessinseattle]

I started sleep restriction therapy about a week ago. Sleep schedule: 12am bedtime – 6am wake up time.

Most nights I can fall asleep at midnight right away if I have been sticking with the 6 hours bedtime schedule. Prior to CBTi i had started taking Ambien to fall asleep.
I am waking up around 4:30-5am and can’t go back to sleep. I know I should get out of bed and practice stimulus control and do something else. But with only 1 hour left in bed, by the time I fall back asleep, my alarm would go off. I tried listening to meditation, music, audiobook while laying in bed but as soon as the app stops playing, I am aroused again. While the app is playing, I am drifting off but as soon as audiobook or meditation voices stop, I’m awake. So I’m not sure if I should:
1. Get out of bed for that last hour anyway and just stay up
2. Get out of bed for 10 min and try to sleep again but not sure what i can do or how long until i can try sleeping again since it’s almost time to get up.
3. Adjust my sleep schedule from 6 hours to 5.5 hours, in which case I will set the wake up alarm for 5:30am

I am tempted to take a sleeping pill at the 4am hour so I can sleep more but I know i should not from the CBTI sleep videos

Not sure what to do at this point.

[Chee2308]

Hi!
If sleeping is what you want, so how come you get aroused when you are just about to drift back to sleep? Doesn’t this sound a bit ridiculous to you? Shouldn’t you just allow sleep to happen naturally and effortlessly? I think at this point, it would be better to just face your fears head-on and not listen to any music, videos or podcasts any more and just lay in bed and try to get comfortable. Accept that you might or might not sleep. But whatever the outcome, it’s fine to you. The magic of sleeping comes when you try less to sleep! I think watching videos or listening to podcasts have developed into a sleep effort at this point. Just stay in bed and enjoy the silence and serenity of the moment. Who knows, you are probably more likely to fall asleep if there’s some sleep drive left and there’s nothing like music or videos to distract you any more. Best wishes!

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