Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I also liked the interview with Nick Wignal. In fact it prompted me to introduce one CBTI rule into my practice: wait to get sleepy before going to sleep. We will see how it goes. I also liked the Simpsons story of the interview and I will try something similar. I decided to give myself some time IN BED reading/watching something easy before sleep. In fact that what I was often doing before insomnia. Then, when I tried rigid SRT, it was very frustrating to intentionally sit in leaving room waiting for sleep window. Now, I will allow myself to just lie in bed (rest for body) and watch something till get sleepy (don’t forget to turn on blue light filters/night mode on your devices!).
Regarding other updates, I think that frustration is my current obstacle. My sleep anxiety is minimal, yet I still have sleepless nights, sometimes two in a row, even when I lie calm and relaxed toward wakefulness. While anxiety is easy to befriend and let go, general frustration with sleep/insomnia had proven to be more challenging. I suspect that occasional waves of frustration during daytime contribute to sleeplessness.
gsdmom,
Yes, it sounds similar to my case: a lot of overthinking. Sleep is somewhat better recently, but it still takes a while to fall asleep. Sleep onset is pretty much my only problem. Even I wake up in the middle of the night, it never feels as a problem and I can drift back to sleep easily. With the sleep onset issue, lack of sleep expectation is really the key for me. I continue working on letting this expectation go. I was not yet able to just easily go for a ride with whatever happens, like we all did before insomnia.
Perhaps you need more time. When I switched to ACT after my attempts with sleep restriction this summer, first several nights were very, very bad, with a lot of anxiety. It was all over my body, couldn’t do anything about it. Hopefully, these symptoms will improve.
Definitely, ACT takes time. I still struggle often, not completely surrendering my desire for sleep. I think it will take time and patience for many of us.Karen,
I am no specialist and others forum visitors may have different opinion, but it sounds like your daughter doesn’t have typical insomnia issues, since she falls asleep easy when your are around. If she is scared to be alone at night, then perhaps, consultation with psychology specialist may be the most beneficial approach. Hopefully, it will be easier to treat than insomnia, which is a nasty thing.
And Deb,
I did that exercise that you recommended: to lie and rest during daytime to feel what it feels like just to rest. I caught myself applying sleep effort even then! This behavior this attempt to sleep when eyes are closed, is so, so engrained now after months of insomnia. I need to mindfully bring myself away from this behavior every night.
Yes, Deb, that’s exactly how it feels for me on the nights when I am able to be willing to be awake. Sleep just comes so fast and easy like insomnia never happened! And that sabotages me on a next night! Because I know that sleep is within reach and sleep anticipation kicks in, then attempts to let it go follow, then overthinking.
Experiments of the last few nights came at a price of very little sleep, but they were useful. I was trying to understand why I couldn’t sleep on many nights even when anxiety was close to zero (in fact daytime and nighttime anxiety was at minimal level recently). Now I learnt that sleep effort is my default behavior in bed and I think it sabotages me the most.
I was experimenting last few nights to figure how much sleep effort I apply. I used to think that when my head hits the pillow I let my mind go loose. On last few nights I was neither trying to ‘be willing to be awake’ (as Guy Meadows puts it) nor forcing sleep onto myself consciously. I was just closing my eyes and allowed myself not to do anything or do whatever. I realized that either me or my mind is actually actively trying to sleep, trying to drift off unconsciously. Needless to say last nights were not great. I realized that I need to gently bring my mind back to quiet wakefulness and acceptance away from sleep attempt. It seems that during these months with insomnia, sleep effort became an automatic ingrained behavior, which I need to be working on.
I was going with ups and downs. I think occasional stretches of good nights were throwing me off at times, because I was starting to think the cure is near and upon next bad night I was starting to overthink what went wrong: whether I was struggling too much and didn’t sleep because of that, whether I applied too much of sleep effort etc. This overthinking was leading to more frustration and worries.
Looks like patience is the key, and I was losing it sometimes. I need to be more patient and just relax more into my insomnia, which may last for a while.My main issues at night now are overthinking and emotional spikes. Last night I went to bed seemingly in good state, ready to relax and just rest with no expectations. Then, I felt good about my state and sleep expectation with excitement came in. I acknowledged them, but it was hard to return that no expectations acceptance state. Need to be prepared for those spikes of sleep expectation. I still apply to much sleep effort without recognizing it.
Hi all and thanks for checking on us Deb,
My nights are still variable, though they are sure better on average than during the this summer. When I am able to get into acceptance state, I fall asleep fine. But on some nights I still struggle and don’t catch myself in struggling promptly. For instance, when I almost fell asleep on a recent night, but woke up immediately, I started overthinking whether I am accepting or struggling and I couldn’t figure it out till morning. Obviously, I was struggling, but couldn’t catch myself in how exactly I was doing it.
Interestingly, anxiety was much diminished recently. It is now mostly overthinking that I am struggling with recently.
Hhpositive,
I think everyone would love to know the story of your recovery and what you think helped the most. So why don’t you just post your recovery story right here like some people do?
Way to go gsdmom. Looks like you are having some improvements.
My results are mixed so far. I am trying to implement no sleep expectation at night and that really allows to be more relaxed in bed and overthink less. This resulted in one light sleep night and then two full good sleep nights. But the last night was no or just some light sleep (hard to say) night. Still can’t adapt to daytime thoughts/worries about sleep, especially after a night like last one.
Faithlessinsomnia,
In this thread we discuss ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for insomnia, based on Guy Meadows books: Sleep Book, How to Sleep Well Every Night (available on Amazon). It differs from CBTI.
CBTI aims to show you that you can sleep, for instance by restricting your time in bed and increasing night time sleepiness. This should restore your confidence in your ability to sleep and hence allow you to be more relaxed in bed and hence improving your sleep etc. CBTI works for many people, but its strict rules cause anxiety in some people, making the approach less efficient for them. For this reason we discuss alternative approach, ACT, in this thread.
ACT teaches you to abandon desire for sleep and to be relaxed about being awake in your bed, which should eventually restore normal sleep.
If you want to try ACT, get Guy Meadows book and read this thread, which addresses some questions that you may get while reading the book. And you are welcome to post new questions here, people here are willing to help each other with sleep issues.
Slight euphoria.
I often type from my phone, when posting here and I don’t always catch my typos, as I am sure everyone has already noticed 🙂I don’t do paradoxical intention. Today I just went to bed with intention to rest till morning while leaving sleep an optional possiblity. I got some sleep, I think it was mostly light, but I feel surprisingly good today. I will need to work on my intention every evening before bed to keep relaxed attitude toward being awake. But I must say it was so pleasant to lie in bed awake when I was able to remove a performance pressure to sleep. In fact it seems to me that I didn’t sleep much today partially because of sight euphoria after catching this relaxed attitude of being awake in bed.
