[Danman25]

I have sleep maintenance insomnia. I rarely have difficulties falling asleep at night as i know by just lying in bed and not caring i will fall asleep at some point due to fatigue during the day but I often wake up in the night, sometimes just before the lightness appears. I never look at the clocks having implemented this a while ago but the birds and lightness provide an annoying indication of the time which sets off racing thoughts. The challenge is then knowing that my sleep will be much lighter with dreams or no sleep at all from this mid way point of the night as there is less sleep drive than at 10:30pm. I get stressed about sleeping from this point. I do often fall back asleep at this point but its very light with vivid dreams. I am left feeling sleepy and negative most days as a result of this. I rarely have the headaches from poor sleep most likely due to the first half of the night’s success but the sleepiness is very annoying and affects my motivation. I am in limbo as i wake up in the night feeling anxious about not sleeping again but i do then go into weak sleep. Getting up is an option but would eliminate any opportunity of that weaker sleep – its not like i am often lying there from the mid point of the night until the morning not sleeping at all. Would appreciate anyone’s thoughts and opinions on a way forward to improve my situation – get up and eliminate the weaker sleep completely OR stick to the stay in bed plan and hope the weaker sleep improves and take the benefit from the weaker sleep because things could be worse.

[Chee2308]

Everyone’s sleep gets lighter the more they sleep. What you described (light sleep, vivid dreams) is totally normal! What isn’t normal is expecting to get sleepier and sleepier the longer you sleep and as your accumulated sleep debt is getting undone. That is akin to getting hungrier and hungrier the more you eat. Does that make any sense?

[Martin Reed]

It’s perfectly OK to stay in bed when you are awake. The more you can practice experiencing wakefulness in bed with less struggle, the more skilled you will become in experiencing wakefulness with less struggle. Struggle tends to make things more difficult.

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