[Bronte]

Well… Sandysnore, isn’t that interesting!! The childhood trauma, the highly stressful career. That’s got to be clear causative evidence. It’s all about neural pathways becoming ingrained from childhood. Feelings of insecurity that keep you on high alert.
I have done a lot of work with Mindbody theories and techniques (maybe you are already aware as a retired psychotherapist) and I have found it to be so helpful. Looking at childhood adverse experiences and subsequent personality traits (hyper vigilance, self critical, altruistic, etc). I have worked through a lot of my past traumas but still struggle to resolve the hyper vigilance and to feel safe and to trust (as you said). Let me know if you need any good authors.

Thank you for your reply as it helps me to validate my own theories and to understand causative factors. Like you, I find it’s hard for family and friends to understand. It’s interesting that your Mum had it too?

Do you live in the UK or US? I’m in the UK and I find it’s certainly difficult to gain any support. I no longer have prolonged stress in my life but unfortunately my brain has not yet received the memo 😂 and I think it’s very difficult to unravel those ingrained neural pathways.

I wish you lots of luck too. I am getting better…slowly and intermittently, so hope you can improve too.

[Bronte]

Hi Sandysnore
You describe the torture of insomnia very well. Like you, I have had insomnia for over 40 years and can’t remember a time without it. Unlike you I never really had any times of respite when I slept well. I have always been taking some kind of medication to help me. Over the years it was initially sleeping tablets, which for me were the least useful as they made me feel so hungover the next day I may as well have been awake all night. Then it was amitriptyline, these were great until I realised they were causing me very bad gut issues. Then it was promethazine hydrochloride which were probably the best but I discovered long term use can cause dementia 😳.
So I have tried CBTi and paid for two sleep programmes, as well as Martin’s course. I found Martin’s principles and techniques to be the best and I quickly realised that insomnia is entirely about your mindset.
I also discovered during my research that it can be associated with trauma, particularly childhood trauma and the subsequent impact on your nervous system. I had emotional childhood trauma and prolonged stress in my adult life related to numerous bereavements and a highly stressful career in nursing. I believe all of this has disrupted my nervous system and caused me to be very hyper vigilant and to struggle to relax and ‘let my guard down’. Like you, in recent years, I have also suffered with a number of health issues that have left me with awful health anxiety. I have managed to escape most medications (like antidepressants) mainly because my gut won’t tolerate any of them.

After doing Martin’s course and listening to a lot of his podcasts I decided to give up taking the promethazine. Listening to peoples’ stories of how they overcame their insomnia helped me so much to get things into perspective and accept that there is nothing wrong with me, with my ability to sleep, with the mechanism that brings about sleep. It is all about giving it too much attention, focusing on it all the time and allowing the insomnia to dictate my life. It is overwhelming and it does make you feel awful. You can’t think clearly, it becomes hard to do your job efficiently, it impacts your social life, your happiness. However, in my opinion there are three main elements that cause it and perpetuate it.
1) FEAR – the fear of not sleeping and how it makes you feel the next day and then the terror of the complete and utter exhaustion and you still can’t sleep!!
2) ATTENTION – you think about it all the time. How bad will it be tonight? What if I don’t sleep again? How can I cope with an important event etc, etc….what is it doing to my health?
3) FIX IT – what can I do to fix it? What can I try next, meditation, podcasts, warm bath, hot milk, turning off phone/tv, other rituals. Which medications can I try? Calms, herbal, blah, blah

You have to find a way to turn all these elements off.
The first thing to realise is that people who can sleep well don’t need any rituals or habits, they just go to bed and sleep. None of it is necessary and in fact any kind of aid that you can use to help you sleep just holds you back and makes things worse.

I became so desperate. I stopped all medications and thought I would never sleep again! Sometimes I would be awake all night, for even 3 or 4 consecutive nights!! Never having more than 2 hours, never making up for sleep loss by having a ‘good night’. Sometimes I could get to sleep but then woke up numerous times in the night and by 4am that would be it, no more sleep. Other nights I could not get to sleep and I would read a book for hours. There are different theories about getting up and leaving the bed if you can’t sleep after 20 minutes, to break the association with poor sleep and your bed, but I didn’t find this worked for me (everyone is different). To me it told my brain, that’s it, it’s time to get up and get on with the day so I never felt sleepy again.
I discovered that if I just laid in bed awake and told myself I was resting and relaxed that I actually slept more than I thought I had (using a Fitbit).
So what I’ve learnt….. only go to bed when you are feeling sleepy (not tired) there is a difference. It doesn’t matter what the time is, in fact cover up the clock and don’t look at it at anytime. Obviously if you have to get up for work, use an alarm. I became so desperate that I actually stopped caring whether I slept, or not. There was nothing I could do to manipulate it so I stopped giving a **** whether it happened, or not. It’s one of the most powerful things you can do, but it’s not easy! It’s taken me a long time to get my head round this but when I go to bed now I think ‘it doesn’t matter whether I sleep, or not’, ‘there is nothing I can do to make it happen so I accept this in my life and I’m going to crack on anyway’.
STOP trying to fix it, STOP giving it attention and STOP the fear!!! It won’t kill you if you don’t sleep. It doesn’t matter. Take away its importance and reduce its power over you.
So…. I still, unfortunately, have bad nights and I never sleep more than about 5-6 hours. I still feel the hyper vigilance at times but I find meditation and journalling during the day really helpful. I don’t have to go to work anymore (yay!!) so I don’t put any emphasis on time. I don’t analyse my sleep, I don’t measure how much I’ve had, I just get on with my life and accept what each night brings.
Thanks for reading this. I hope it helps you to know that you are not alone with the insomnia misery and that you CAN sleep when you reduce its importance in your life.

[Bronte]

Hi Tim
Your message is very powerful and I thank you very much for your words. You raised a lot of points that really resonated with me. I have had the same experience as you when your brain just flips back to the negative thoughts, telling you that you are relapsing to the ‘can’t sleep’ mode. I feel it’s like a switch flicking in my brain and I can’t find my way back. I don’t know why it happens, or how to resolve it, but many of your words have guided me to know the way back. You have been so thoughtful and articulate and I’m sure it will help many people.
I think once you’ve had insomnia it’s always there in the background and you have to work hard to frequently practice the techniques that help you maintain your progress. I hope I can find the right path in the maize again and your words will comfort and guide me. Thank you.

[Bronte]

Hi Sleep

That’s amazing!! Great news! It’s all about acceptance and not analysing it. Now you’ve done it once I’m sure it can continue. It proves that we have to stop the struggle and worry and just accept whatever happens.

I hope to be joining you in your success soon 🤞 I think I’ve been thinking about it too much lately so I will follow your strategy and stop worrying about it.

Best wishes to you and thanks for the chats x

[Bronte]

Great news Sleep!! Keep the positive attitude and the idea of acceptance. I believe that acceptance without fear is the holy grail and I find if I adopt this attitude with many aspects of my life then things gradually improve and begin to resolve. It’s as if you have to spend some time with acceptance before your brain begins to realise that you are no longer going to struggle with whatever it is. Then the brain and nervous system calm down and things improve.

Thank you Martin, for everything you do.

Good luck Sleep, I think you are 90% there now.

[Bronte]

Thank you Martin, you always help me to question my thoughts.

I agree with Sleep that there’s something peaceful about sleeping in late in the mornings. I think it comes from working all your life and not being able to do it. It’s like a reward on your days off! However, for me the reason I find waking up so early annoying is because it puts me off staying up later in the evening. If I go to bed later, because I’ve been socialising, then I will still wake up early and then feel dreadful the next day. Does it matter? No, not really 🤔 but I have had so many years of always feeling so tired I just want to avoid it if I can. As you say, Martin, it’s all about that ‘control’ and accepting that we can’t precisely control when and for how long we sleep for. I am sooo grateful to be sleeping for 5-6 hours now that I do accept this. Life is not about perfection! I feel that I have finally stopped experiencing the fear and obsession around sleep and those are the big ones to conquer!

Thank you Sleep, I was so pleased to read that I had helped you with some previous comments. I think I am more of a night owl, like you, so I like to stay up later and I function less effectively early in the morning. Finding peace and gratitude in other things is great advice!
I’m sure there are plenty of people reading our messages who would just love to be sleeping at all and would feel irritated by our ‘problem’. I’ve been there too and understand now that it’s overcoming the fear that is the path to sleep. It’s hard work but you can get there.

[Bronte]

Hi Sleep

I have exactly the same problem. I always wake up between 5am and 6am. Occasionally it’s 4.15am and I can’t get back to sleep. I have had severe insomnia for more than 40 years (I am also retired now). I had a very stressful career and I longed to be able to lie in and not get up so early. It’s taken me about 18 months to come off medication to help me sleep. Martin’s techniques have helped me more than anything else I’ve done, including CBTi. Initially after stopping medication I was barely sleeping at all. Like you, I am grateful to be getting 5-6 hours.

Regardless of when I go to bed I always wake up too early and I then get very tired early in the evenings, which is annoying. Sorry I don’t have any answers, but maybe someone may have some ideas. I don’t analyse this situation and I just accept it but it is still pretty annoying if I think about it.

Good luck to you and hope things improve for you. You are not alone with this problem.

[Bronte]

Hi

Yes, sleep like your old self will return but it takes time and a change in mindset.

The anxiety during the day about sleep is very common. You have proved that you can sleep well sometimes. If you prove that you can function on the days after a bad night then that helps to take the emphasis off ‘needing to sleep’. Once you can create a firm belief in your head about those two facts (you can sleep sometimes and that when you don’t sleep you can function) then you can reduce the worry about sleep. It’s all about convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter whether you sleep or not, you will get on with your life regardless. Gradually the anxiety and constant thoughts about sleep reduce and disappear.
Good luck!

[Bronte]

Hi Tony

As you may have learnt from this course and forum sleep is out of our control and will happen naturally. However, if you are currently waking up in the night and not going back to sleep it is a good idea to try and use what we can to enhance sleep. One of those things is to create good sleep drive. This means having a sleep window of about 6 hours, say from 12-6am and then not giving yourself any other opportunity to sleep during the day. This means that the drive to sleep when you go to bed is greater and increases the likelihood of it happening.
Once you are back in the habit of sleeping at night (this takes time) then naps in the day are probably ok. I do know how hard it is to stay awake during the day when you haven’t slept the night before so my advice is to keep the naps to a minimum as much as you can.
Hope that all makes sense and good luck.

[Bronte]

Thanks Edgar

I agree with your psychiatrist and think your insomnia is quite likely related to your MS and your epilepsy. I believe health fear is very powerful. What will happen in the future, will my symptoms get worse, these questions are always in your mind. I’ve had health scares and still have health issues and I empathise with you. You have a lot to deal with.

I’m glad to hear that you have reduced the fear associated with insomnia, although you still wake early, but maybe sometimes we have to learn to live with these nights, as I do too. As Martin says we don’t all need the recommended 8 hours! It’s great that you are able to live your life fully regardless of the insomnia and I’m sure you will gradually get some better nights with your positive mindset.

Actually CBT didn’t help me. I have gained a lot from Martin’s principles and also from the Mindbody arena. I prefer ACT and find that very useful with insomnia. I wish you luck and also hope that some of what we have all said can help Teresa a little.

[Bronte]

Hi Edgar and Teresa333

I agree that you need to have true insomnia to understand it and appreciate how debilitating it is and how it cripples your life. Yes you can’t stop thinking about it and the utter desperation for sleep overrides everything else in your life. I do believe that Chee2308 has been there and fully understands how you and poor Teresa333 feel.

I feel desperately sorry for you Teresa333 as you clearly have a lot of problems. I too have TMS and neuroplastic chronic pain. I have had insomnia for 45 years. I did have a period of 10 days with no sleep at all. Fortunately I have responded to medication during my life to help me sleep and that is how I have survived it. It is only in recent months that I decided to come off all sleep aids. Hence I found Martin’s course and forum.

Teresa333 unfortunately I am not able to offer any advice based on your religious beliefs. However, I can comment about your struggle with TMS and pain. Interestingly the principles and treatments for these conditions and insomnia are the same. In fact insomnia is a TMS condition. They are all derived from a hyper alert nervous system, fear and ingrained neural pathways, usually stemming from childhood. I suspect you have experienced some kind of trauma when you were young. These neural pathways can be retrained and your nervous system can be calmed. I recommend looking into Curable.com (there is an app). After listening to this and exploring all the information you might feel up to reading some of the big authors who are Alan Gordon, Howard Schubiner, David Clarke, John Sarno to name a few. There are also podcasts.
With insomnia Chee2308 is absolutely right that you have to learn to change your mindset. You cannot just continue on the same track with the same attitude. You will not get better, sadly. You have to be receptive to changing the way you think about sleep. It is very hard work and it takes time to reduce the fear and improvement is gradual. You have to be very patient. I can testify that I have felt as desperate and exhausted as you but I have been able to find my way out, even after decades of problems.

Please look into Martin’s principles and open your mind and listen! I have also made great progress with the Mindbody techniques and education that you can get from Curable. Once you are able to calm yourself you can use this forum to gain knowledge in how to resolve your insomnia. I am still in the process of recovering but I can have some good nights, with the bad nights, which I never thought possible. Open your mind to new ideas and accept that you do need to make changes to the way you think. The help and information is out there for you so reach out and embrace it if you want to recover. Good luck!

[Bronte]

Hi ktMD

Like others, I like reading. I love a good psychological thriller and I then (almost) look forward to being awake so I can find out what happens next 😁
I find it also helps me go to sleep at the start of the night because I’m thinking about the storyline and that stifles out the negative thoughts.
I never get up and go to another room as, for me, that is game over and my brain thinks it’s time to get up and that’s it for the night. We are all different. I agree it needs to be an activity that you enjoy and anything that keeps you calm and stops you feeling that panic when you can’t sleep.
I have a mantra ‘it doesn’t matter if I don’t sleep, I am relaxing!’ 😁

[Bronte]

I’m not an endurance athlete but I can empathise with trying to come off sleep aid. I admire your training toward the 50K trail and have no idea how you do it on poor sleep, you deserve a medal already!

It sounds like you are doing fairly well with your sleep and I recognise the bad nights in anticipation of something important the next day. I think the stage you have to reach is not caring about sleep anytime. You have been functioning amazingly well without great sleep and that’s what you need to keep reminding yourself of. I don’t need sleep to live my life fully – I’m going to do it anyway. Those thoughts help to reduce the importance of sleep and reduce your attention to it.

I know how hard it is to give up sleep aid meds and yes it adds to the layers of negative thinking when you go to bed without taking them. I found it to be a gradual process. I told myself that these pills are just a placebo and I don’t need them. If I had any sleep without them that would give me confidence that I don’t need them. It’s such a great feeling to be without them. The other thing that can help is to take them every other night when you start and then you can tell yourself ‘it doesn’t matter if I sleep badly tonight because I can take a pill tomorrow night’. If you then sleep on the off night then that confirms you don’t need them!

It’s all about reducing the fear around sleep. Stop caring about it and focus on life, concentrate on your 50K trail and put sleep in its place. You are going to do it and you will do it well, regardless of your sleep. Good luck!!

[Bronte]

You don’t need to do his longer course. Save your money. You can learn all the principles and work towards resolving the insomnia without it.

Sorry to hear about your worries. Hope you can work things out 🤞

[Bronte]

Ah you are welcome! Yes I did do the 6 week course and the free 2 week course. I found the 2 week course the best. I didn’t really get on with the 6 week one (I was a bit angry at that time 😖😁).
Martin is amazing and he’s the best for insomnia and has helped me so much with his principles. I did find the podcasts excellent where clients talk about their recovery. I learnt a lot from that. You can access those too.

I have done previous longer courses (not with Martin) but they were rubbish. I’ve also had CBTi counselling (not useful) and read a few books about insomnia that were helpful. I’m also into the Mindbody stuff as I also suffer from chronic pain and gut issues and have researched that a lot. Insomnia comes under the umbrella of Mindbody too so those principles help with all of it.

How are you getting on with your sleep problems?

[Author]

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