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Karen, yes it sounds similar to Guy Meadows (be in the moment).
However, idea of sleep meditations always confused me. Dr. Meadows just asks you to go to bed and be relaxed, but sleep meditations want you to do some mental efforts (breath this way, imagine this, count backwards etc)
Borgesbi,
I will ask, but I just assume we should follow the book: light relaxing activities are ok, better not to use devices because of light the produce. I am interested though if blue light filters remove these concerns. I will ask about that.
Not sure if I can ask question about aches (posted earlier) because I didn’t experienced them and may not be able to describe them. If someone can post good description of those aches, I will try to ask.
I will ask about sleep restriction.
I talk to her on Thursday morning.
Karen,
Could you please briefly describe your journey with CBTI and ACT? It seems from the older posts that you were strict CBTI proponent and got disappointed with ACT, but you seem to incorporate ACT now. Could you describe this journey in one post?
Karen,
How did you like specifically their falling asleep meditations (in 10%app)? Are they helping you?
Steve,
How often do you do noticing and welcoming during the day? Only when feeling anxious or more often? Sometimes, I don’t have any anxiety during the day but still practicing body scans. Maybe I overuse the tools.
Thank you gsdmom. Yep, I should not forget my breathing exercises. I didn’t appreciate them until recently. I think they help to slow down my train of thoughts.
After initial progress with ACT with 2.5 weeks of not a bad sleep on average, I am getting some roadblocks. Last 4 nights I only slept well only every other night, and today anxiety hit me in the night unexpectedly. Acknowledged it, but did not sleep well any way. Definitely something to ask the sleep doctor, why I got such a wave of anxiety, despite having accepting attitude toward being awake.
Deb,
In fact I sleep quite well last week or so. And on average me sleep was very acceptable in the last two weeks. Thank you for support.
At some point I thought about cancelling/rescheduling, but I decided that’s it’s really to early to consider myself cured and it’s better to talk to the doctor. So, yeah, I will talk to her on the 29th. Questions for her are welcome.
Steve,
You always record a very detailed log of sleep. Just today I found news that, “sleep tracking apps contribute to insomnia”. You can Google the news by this title, it’s on University of Washington when site. They suspect that being obsessed with sleep quality feeds more insomnia.
I stopped logging my sleep about 10 days ago, and I think it helps. Not all nights were perfect, on some nights I slept through the night. After some nights I was waking up quite refreshed and energized and first memory after a night was that I fell asleep fast and wasn’t waking up during the night. Upon further thinking I started recalling that no, I didn’t fall asleep right away, it took a while, and I had some wakenings during the night. But hey, I felt quite good in the morning, so should I really analyze my sleep and thinking that it is still not perfect or just proceed with my day happy and pretty energized? I stopped logging sleep, and I think it helps me.
I bought another book on mindfulness for insomnia and they highlight that key to restoring sleep is “willingness to lose control over your sleep”. As part of losing control I dropped sleep log. If I feel ok in the morning, than it’s great, even in the night wasn’t perfect. If I don’t feel ok, then there is no need to feed the insomnia monster even further by fretting, overthinking and overanalyzing last night sleep.
Maybe your should stop sleep log, at least for a while as a mini experiment?
I want to support what Borgesbi said with my own observations.
Couple weeks ago, when I fully committed to ACT, I had a night in which I couldn’t fall asleep for half of the night. I was lying there peacefully, and gently analyzing myself. I realized that I was not stressed, I was calm, my mind was not racing and yet I was awake. I compared my feelings to one of the prior night, when I fell asleep easy and I realized I felt myself about the same on both good and not so good night, yet couldn’t fall asleep on that not so good night. It is that night that helped me to realize there is nothing I am doing wrong at any particular night that distinguished bad night from good night. It is just state of a brain (maybe too much activation during the day) which I can not control right away. I fully realized back then the “biologiness” of the process – there are some changes in my brain, with which nothing I can do right away and they will require time to get back to normal. Whatever those changes are, it is through continuous pacification and nurturing that I can eventually bring my brain back to normal. Whatever I inactive or activate in my brain through mindfulness tools, it helps. My sleep is getting better.
Deb,
It’s not what I meant. I meant that perhaps mentally allowing yourself to have one less than ideal night can help to restore more accepting attitude. But you know yourself better of course, so just do what feels right for you.
Steve,
I got a feeling that Sasha’ book (effortless sleep) is just a CBTI with a personal touch. She advocates strongly for SC and positive thinking, arguing against SR.
Since beginning of April. 4.5 months now.
I don’t know if I already have this attitude, but I will try to develop it. And I think Guy Meadows says in the fifth chapter that the key to long term recovery is to accept that bad nights will be happening sometimes, just like with normal sleepers. I think we all need to develop this long term accepting attitude to occasional bad nights.
Perhaps, it may be good for you Deb to allow one poor sleep night to happen to reinforce relaxed attitude? Or does it sound crazy?
My road to recovery is bumpy, although the sleep was definitely better for the last two weeks, when I committed to ACT.
To maintain accepting state, I just prefer to think that I am in prolonged recovery process. Even if my sleep will be cured in few months (for instance), after that I will still try to think that I am on asymptotic recovery curve: 1) yes my sleep is getting better, I am approaching my pre-insomnia state, 2) poor nights are still possible, however I am in a journey for recovery, which is healing by itself even if I am not at final destination yet.I think this line of thinking may help to maintain accepting attitude for longer until sleep is solid and super consistent.
I am shooting for about 7.5 hours. Today was not good night for me either. Maybe because of good night sleep on previous nights, I was not sleepy enough or maybe something else. Maybe got expectations too high after a good week. Anyway, I am trying to stay positive and using tools. I definitely need to maintain acceptance and keep expectations low.
