[Bee]

Thanks hiung yong!

I am again having merely 2hrs on 2nd day of 0% med… it didnt give me much sleepless nights during the whole tapering off process, but i found the phase now (completely off medication) is toughest…

My baby is coming next week…hopefully i can pull through this phase and improve before the little one arrived!

I read through stephen sasha’s book earlier, thanks again for ur recommendation.

[Bee]

Thanks Martin!

It seems its becoming a habit that once im not able to fall asleep within 30mins, i will feel anxious automatically, and then i will want to remove myself from the bed… is this something normal for people that suffer sleepless nights for long? Or there should be some underlying reason which i really need to uncover in order to overcome this plateau?

Due to the lockdown in my country, i hardly can go anywhere.. so i have only very limited activities during the day, but i did follow ur advice not to cancel any plan after bad nights sleep. It seems i need to increase daily activities to build sleep drive, but somehow the more i did during the day, the harder i get to sleep ( i think its down to im expecting a better sleep after invest into more day time activities?)

[Bee]

Thanks hiung yong for your feedback and advice, appreciated!

Somehow i don’t really understand why i have such a 30mins criteria…. But it just seems if i wake up and realize its been already 1hr or more…i feel relief and go back to sleep fairly quickly, otherwise i will start to toss and turn for hours…
I understand that i shouldnt clock watch, but somehow not watching the clock makes me even more anxious…

I also notice that once i have a string of good nights, my sleep drive weaken and then i will have some bad nights again… the pattern repeats…….Is that normal? Any advice to overcome this psychologically? Or just working harder to build the sleep drive during daytime is the only solution here?

[Bee]

Need some help here to reduce the onset insomnia mentioned above.

The only different than i mentioned above a week ago is that i am no longer increase back my medication even if i didnt sleep properly for 2 days. Just sit with the discomfort and i will eventually sleep after days of sleep drive build up. However, after multiple days of proper sleep, the pattern repeats till i build up the sleep drive again, which is really tiring.

I would really wan to overcome the sleep anxiety if i am not able to fall asleep within 30mins. The anxious feeling is like automatically happened and it’s hard to calm myself down with all the self-talks/let it be there as suggested. I am lost on how to breakthrough this plateau.
Please advice…

[Bee]

Thanks Martin! Yes, i started my sleep restriction 😉

[Bee]

Thanks Martin for the feedback!

I think i fear of wakefulness because i couldnt find any enjoyable activities at night, as in i wil keep monitor if i am sleepy enough to return to bed, and backpain if i am not resting in bed after one whole day ( the anxiety gets worse if i stay in bed, so i just get off frm bed)… then next day i will just feel awful and might end up going into the depression loop (worrying, crying, nonstop permutations on how many more sleepless nights im going to get in future, not having interest on anything else all day long). I had been out frm this depression loop for quite sometime after went through your online video, and i fear all these sleepless nights would trigger this again which is really mentally tired and scary.

So far the sleep pattern i had is:- my 2nd bad night is always worse than my 1st bad night.. as in first bad night i might get 3-5hrs, and 2nd bad night i usually get 0-2hrs. By the time of 3rd night, i usually scared myself enough that i will increase back my sleep-aid dosage. I understand i have to sit with the discomfort of sleepless nights, somehow i lost the mind game battle. The above pattern happened 3x last month…

Kind of disappointed with myself on my mental strength to proceed further..
I tried to just let the thought be there not doing anything, but it seems it will not go away even though i told myself theres nothing i can permutate further since i cant control sleep…

Please advice…

[Bee]

Thanks Martin!
Ya.. it took me 3hrs to get to sleep yesterday.

I start to acknowledge that it is not the dosage cut which cause the sleepless nights, but rather my own mindset. I was having a bad night at 3rd feb(sleep pill dosage cut 20%). After some great nights’ sleep, yesterday(12 feb, dosage cut 30%) i was again having another bad night with only 4hr broken sleep… i think i really need a strong sleep drive to fall asleep, otherwise my mind just start to worry on sleepless nights and it took me hours to calm down and fall asleep (if lucky).

Sometimes i am just too frustrated why is that such difficult to get rid of the sleep-onset anxiety…. I have tried positive self-talk, challenge negative thoughts, drop all the sleep monitor effort, try letting go, switch to think of something happy/relax…..
Things get better, but on and off i will start come back to the same anxious point…. Is this a normal process on recovery?

[Bee]

Thanks Martin & Hiung Yong for the feedback&advice..

I think my anxious is mainly the fear of wakefulness…since i had gone through quite some sleepless nights within these 4 months. So now if i am still awake for more than 30mins, i will start to feel worry that this might be another sleepless night, and it might end up a string of sleepless nights which i think i cant handle with my pregnant condition…

Any suggestion to challenge this thought and ease anxiety to sleep? I keep telling myself wakefulness will build the sleep drive for next day, its okay not to sleep but i can still rest, dont panic on things i cant control, relax…….. sometimes i no longer anxious with these self-talk, but somehow i just couldnt fall asleep 🙁

I understand insomnia is kind of common in pregnant woman, but somehow i developed the sleep anxiety which i really wan to get rid of it before baby arrived…

[Bee]

Thanks for the reply. I get out frm my bed around 8.30am that day..i keep waking up between 6am – 8.30am and lots of dream in between. So i guess i get around 2hrs of broken sleep.

Its been 4 months im in insomnia.. i am still on sleeping pill and now in the process of tapering off. I can sleep for 8-9hrs when the dose is working, with 3-4wakes in between but no problem getting back to sleep quick. I tried to go with the taper real slow (like maybe 5% cut) each week, and yesterday is the first time i cut the 5% further and result in sleepless night.

I was trying to read book when getting out of bed in the middle of the night and listen to songs…but just few pages then i found myself keep yawning so i just close my eyes listening to songs in a chair downstair in living room..till around 30mins then i went back up to bedroom

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