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Thanks Chee2308! To me, 100% recovery means that I don’t think about whether I’ll sleep before bedtime anymore, just like the in the before times.
I guess it’s not that critical, I generally pull through a bad night fine and get on with life, it’s just more of a curiosity as to when sleep related worry disappears.
Hi Julia, nice to see another Puget Sounder here! This spring has indeed been a doozy. I know this post is dated and this all is hopefully behind you, but I’d like to chime in.
What you described is sooo similar to what I’m going through. I’m entering week 7 of CBT-I and I have also been all over the place. My sleep window has only moved 30 minutes since I started since I haven’t made consistent progress, 10.45-5:15. My first 2 weeks went great, but I think that was mostly a contrast between the 2-3 hours of fragmented sleep I was getting before and 5 hours of good sleep. I’m the disciplined sort so I plan on sticking with the plan even though it looks like it will be a long haul and kinda sucks that my “8 week cure” expectation is not being met despite me being 100% on plan. Like you, I just want to stop caring about sleep and get along with life. I’m afraid to read to my kids in bed
I no longer hate or fear my bed, but don’t feel like it’s a welcoming place yet. I also get that anxiety creep, but it’s not as debilitating as it once was. I’ll share what has helped me, if anything, cope with the situation and not get depressed by it:
Focus on positives of insomnia (weird, right?)
– I basically stopped alcohol, from 5-8 drinks a week to maybe 1 every 2 weeks and never at night (unless it’s date night)! I also dropped my afternoon coffee.
– I now know that quality matters more than quantity. There are nights where I get 5 hours and I feel great the next day. Did we think that was possible before insomnia? Probably not. So while I’m definitely sleep deprived, I stress about the hours less, although still stress a little when I get <4.
– While I exercised daily for years, I ramped it up a bit and am oddly in even better physical shape than before. Doesn’t help me sleep any better, but it’s been fun!
– I’m a morning person so shifting my wakeup from 6:15 to 5AM was actually nice. I take my dog for a long walk to Snoqualmie Falls every morning when it’s completely deserted and have time to listen to podcasts.Anyway, I would love to hear about your progress today since I’ve also been a little worried about my slower than expected progress. Thank you!
