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why is time so important to us? i’ve started to think that maybe this is the main reason why people get anxious about sleep – too much clock watching, worrying about what time they have to get up the next morning, and focusing on how many hours of sleep they get. i know our ancestors probably had rough nights, too, but they didn’t have clocks so they weren’t able to obsess over time like we do.
yes, thank you – starting today, i’m going to practice listening to my body and ignoring the clock. i just get anxious about having to get up early for work the next morning so i force myself into bed before i’m ready… with less-than-favorable results every single time. on the weeknights that i do fall asleep before 10:30 and stay asleep, i’ll be out cold until about 5 or 5:15 the next morning and i wake up feeling well rested. this tells me that around 6.5 hours is good for me. i’ve been trying too hard to follow a schedule that doesn’t work for me and then worrying about why it’s not working.
thanks again!
you’re right. there is a lot of elevated bedtime anxiety in my system right now. i realized this morning that the main worry is that i won’t be able to fall back asleep if i’m woken up. that’s it. it’s that simple (but not really, lol). that’s why i had the issue with my husband waking up at 4 to go fishing. now i worry that if he comes to bed later than me and wakes me up then i won’t be able to go back to sleep. so guess what happens – i get in bed at around 10 and then anticipate him coming to bed and waking me up, and then when he does come to bed (usually around 10:30) i’m still awake and it takes me forever to fall asleep. so i DO fall asleep, maybe not when i think i’m supposed to, but it DOES happen. and when i wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, it takes me about 15-20 minutes to fall back asleep again. so i AM able to fall back asleep if woken up, but i’ve taught myself to believe that i can’t do it. i don’t know how to reprogram my brain to not worry about it, though; i guess just keep challenging the false beliefs? i know that’s the “C” part of CBT 🙂 and the “B” part would be to get out of bed, like you said. this morning, i woke up at 4:30, gave myself 30 minutes to fall back asleep (my alarm goes off at 6), and when that didn’t happen i just got up for good (i didn’t think i’d be able to go back to sleep, but you never know). i don’t feel the best, but i also know what it’s like to not sleep at all so i’ll take it.
i’ve also noticed a new perfectionist thought process – if i’m not nodding off before 10, then i get frustrated because i’ve recently trained myself to think that’s how it “should” be. unfortunately, this frustration just adds to the anxiety. i also get frustrated because, before this phase, i was a decently steady sleeper who had no trouble getting in bed and falling asleep before her husband and i can’t figure out why i can’t just go back to the way i was, although i suspect that it’s because of the way i’ve taught myself to think. i’ve been thinking in very black-and-white terms (“if i don’t get 8 hours of sleep last night, then it will be a total failure”) when i should probably be thinking in shades of gray (“4 or 5 or 6 hours of sleep is better than zero, and i’ll be okay today”).
it’s funny – when i was getting more and more frustrated about falling asleep last night (after my husband had come to bed), i started telling myself that if it didn’t happen i could just get up at 2 or 3 and bake christmas cookies and that would be okay since i’ve survived sleepless nights before…and then i fell asleep. it’s like i gave myself permission for the first time. that’s something that’s been lacking since this phase started.
if i have trouble tonight i will get out of bed and do something holiday-related! thanks again for responding.
thanks for replying, and sorry for the late response. he hasn’t gone fishing since the weekend before thanksgiving, and my saturday nights have been better (5-6 hours of sleep) but there’s still the residual anxiety hanging around on sundays (i can feel it in my stomach all day, and i know this is what’s affecting me at night). this weekend, however, i got 6.5 hours of sleep on BOTH saturday and sunday nights! i feel like dancing, lol. i need to write this down.
getting out of bed only makes me more anxious because i feel like i’m putting pressure on myself to feel sleepy again and the anxiety wakes my brain up too much. i actually do better just lying in bed and focusing on my breathing, or imagining a relaxing place, or thinking about a craft project, or picking a random 7-letter word and seeing how many smaller words i can make from it (my brain needs something to “chew on” in order to relax). i’ve also started practicing mindfulness during the day and i’ve learned from observing my mind that it is generally somewhere in the future (which is normal for most human beings, but can also make you anxious if you latch onto the potentially negative stuff). thanks for the suggestions, though!
