[Tswezey]

Hello guys,

So I’ve had a week full of 7.5-8 hour nights and then boom last night I had a night where I was in my head randomly about sleep which led to another bad night. Like 2 hours of sleep. This has happened multiple times now (weekly) where I get on a roll and then have one bad night which leads to multiple bad nights in a row. Do you guys have anything specifically for these relapse moments that you do other than traditional CBT-I techniques? Or a certain CBT-I technique that you feel works for this specific issue? Thanks in advance.

[Jennifer Ellison]

I certainly have relapses as well. I find that compressing my sleep window works well. So I immediately go back to a restrictive window to build sleep drive- then I up my game on the things I do to diminish the arousal system. For me that’s meditation and yoga. Getting my head right in the hour before bed is also effective. Hope this helps.

[Martin Reed]

Difficult nights are completely normal and to be expected! Sometimes, it can be helpful to recognize any potential external cause — in your case, you know that sleep was more difficult as soon as you started to overthink or worry about sleep.

In the short-term, you don’t really need to do anything since difficult nights from time to time are completely normal. Avoid the temptation to modify your day or compensate for a difficult night of sleep since this can make it harder for your sleep to recover.

So, if you have a bad night, continue to get out of bed at the same time. Continue with your day as normal. Stay active, don’t cancel plans, and don’t go to bed earlier the following night.

If, after a couple of weeks, sleep doesn’t improve, then you can simply re-implement all the techniques that helped you before. So, as suggested by Jennifer, you can start following a more appropriate sleep window.

I hope this helps.

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