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Hi Alice, I did do sleep restriction and that did help. For me I rarely had a problem falling asleep before the start of the sleep window although I might have been dog tired. I had developed a sleep phobia so that even if I was really sleepy, I was monitoring myself all the time, basically checking ‘Am I about to fall asleep?’ etc etc which kept me awake all the time. When I did Martin’s course, I did get anxious trying to observe the half-hour rule. That’s where you’re supposed to get out of bed if you haven’t fallen asleep within about half and hour, and do something enjoyable or something that helps disperse the anxiety for half and hour and then go back to bed, repeating as necessary. When Martin introduced that rule, I got more anxious lying in bed thinking…I’ve got to fall asleep within half and hour! He said, do whatever helps to reduce your anxiety rather than follow the rule if it makes the anxiety worse.
For me staying asleep has been more of a problem than getting to sleep, except when it was bad and both were problems.
I try to do things that support my sleep-wake cycle. Eg. walks in morning sunshine (not much of that in UK just now!) physical activity before 5pm, wind down from 9am onwards, eg. light reading, meditation etc., no computer or social media in the evening, dim the lights etc.. The most important thing for me has been to find ways of reducing anxiety and arousal around sleep because that is what prevents sleep coming on. I found Barry McDonagh’s book useful because it helped me to understand what underlies anxiety and how *not* to fight it which somehow makes it dissolve. Sorry if I haven’t answered your question directly.

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