[Peaceful night]

When I think about sleeping. I cannot sleep and I end up staying awake until morning with only 1 to 2 hours sleep. I am trying to implement Martin’s suggestions and it is taking some time.

Its like my body has a time to sleep and if I miss that time by getting into another bed or some noise by the neighbor like what happened last nigh its takes longer to sleep. After being up from 10:30 pm to 1.00am I switched beds, got up after an hour tried to read felt sleepy, do not sleep arousal and worry mechanism kicked in. I tried listening to soft voice guided meditation which did not help because I kept trying to listen instead of sleep. Got up took a sleeping pill at 3.30 fell asleep at 5.00am up at 6.00am.

I know I should not be trying to fall asleep but I get scared and when this happens I can not sleep for Fear of not sleeping. I really want this cycle to end. This fear of will I sleep? Want will happen if I do not sleep? Will I ever sleep normal again. Thiscfear is what is driving the insomnia and I hate it. I am trying to think and do other things so I can stop thinking about it. Anyone has any suggestions?

During the day I am extremely fatigued and do not go to the bed to sleep only to quietly meditate for 1/2hour. I do not know what to do with myself when I am up in the night.

[Martin Reed]

Thanks for sharing, and welcome to the forum. There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s see what I can cover in a forum reply without getting too in-depth or going on for too long!

The body certainly does have a time to sleep — and that time arrives once we’ve been awake for long enough! Although it can often feel as though if we don’t sleep by a certain hour of the night, we’ll be awake the whole night, there’s actually no biological explanation for why or how such a theory might be true since sleep drive continues to build with every minute of wakefulness.

What can happen, however, is we might believe that we need to fall asleep by a certain time, and then put pressure on ourselves to sleep (or put effort into sleep) and this immediately makes sleep more difficult. If we are then clock-watching and see that we haven’t fallen asleep by a certain time, we might then determine that it’s going to be impossible to fall asleep now —and this increases arousal, makes sleep more difficult, and can make our prediction a self-fulfilling prophecy!

There is nothing we can do during the night to make sleep happen because sleep cannot be controlled. So, we want to simply go to bed when we are sleepy enough for sleep (finding it hard to stay awake) and if being in bed starts to feel unpleasant, it can be helpful to get out of bed and do anything that feels more relaxing and enjoyable compared to remaining in bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good. It can also be a really good idea to avoid checking the time during the night since that can also activate the arousal system.

Sleeping pills don’t generate sleep, so any sleep you get after taking a pill is still generated entirely by you and your body! Sometimes, having a sleeping pill available (compared to just taking one at the start of the night) can be more disruptive to sleep as the mind stays more active to monitor for sleep to help you decide whether you should take a pill or not! In other words, every time you get into bed you give yourself a test — and setting ourselves tests doesn’t usually help to create good conditions for sleep!

It’s impossible not to sleep — when we’ve been awake for long enough, we will always sleep! When it comes to daytime fatigue, we can often help reduce the intensity of fatigue by being active and engaged in enjoyable/enriching daytime activities.

I hope this helps!

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