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Interestingly it is the opposite for me with waking up. During bad insomnia period, I used to be wide awake by 6am, even after no sleep night. Now I am waking little later, around 6.30 (and allow myself to lie in there for another 20 minutes) even after good night. I interpret it as being able to be relaxed in bed and enjoy being there, so the body does not have urges to be out of bed early.
Inspired by Deb’s success, on August 6th I decided to go with ACT with full commitment and no sleep restriction. Thanks to Deb and Borgesbi I got better understanding what acceptance is. I realized that previously I struggled with sleeplessness and didn’t have enough acceptance. I realized that while using mindfulness tools I still expected that unpleasant arrivals will stop coming eventually instead of truly making peace with them. With better understanding of the approach, I dropped all struggles and started going into my bedroom with simple intention of just rest and teach my mind night time tranquility.
Nights were different, on couple nights I fell asleep quite fast and slept all night, on some nights I spent half night awake (or maybe light sleep) and then eventually going into deep sleep for the second half of the night. And last two nights were nights of mostly deep sleep for almost entire night. What was helping me to stay calm when awake is the idea that while staying calm and at peace I teach my mind to relax and rest at night time. So instead of using night time wakefulness to get to know my insomnia (I know it pretty well already) I always view this wake time as an opportunity to teach my mind tranquility. Although nights were different, as I said above, there was no single night with no sleep at all or light sleep only. While it is too early to celebrate, this feels like a tectonic shift for me! My insomnia is sleep onset insomnia, and I had experience of going up to three nights in a row with no and very little of light sleep. Having no sleepless nights for entire week right from the start does feel like like half of victory already. I am now firm ACT believer. I know it does work the best for me and I will proceed with it. While sleep restriction was giving some immediate relief in terms of sleep hours, it did not give me daytime ease of mind. With ACT only, I was much more relaxed during daytime even after only half night sleep.
Acceptance is the key. Thanks Deb and Borgesbi for explaining it better to me. I think it is especially critical to maintain it now, when I partially departed from state of insomnia. Who knows, maybe I won’t sleep tonight. In this case I will use night time as an opportunity to teach my mind further to relax and be at ease.
I will give updates to report my ACT experience. My Skype talk with Sleep School doctor is still scheduled on August 29th, but right now I don’t know what to talk to her about.My two cents. I think indeed firm decisions and firm mindset are critical with whatever approach one is using.
I noticed in myself that couple weeks ago when I could not decide whether should go with more of SR or just rely on ACT this inability to decide likely contributed to wakefulness. I was lying awake and thinking that perhaps I am lacking enough sleep drive and I need to implement more strict SR and how strict it should be. And since I was giving myself choices what approach to use my mind was trying to solve sleep problem by weighing different approaches. It seems to me that firm mindset (regarding approach, pills etc) that does not let a room for sudden reactions should help to settle the mind.Thanks Deb. I definitely need to contact them to get Dr Kat’s Skype name. It should have been in the confirmation email, as website said, but it wasn’t there. And they instruct to add Dr Kat to your Skype list in advance of appointment.
I allow some flexibility with sleep window. Sometimes I wait till around midnight (aiming for sleep window of around 6 hours). Yesterday I felt tired and sleepy enough around 11, so I went to bed, aiming to just be there and relax and I fell asleep quite easily.
Borgesbi,
Could you describe your experience of acceptance? I don’t think I have achieved it yet. I know I have insomnia at the moment, and I am ready to go through sleepless nights to get better eventually, but worries feelings are coming often. I don’t understand whether I am lacking enough acceptance or welcoming. I am relaxed in bed at night, worrisome feelings only come during the day. At night mind is quite active in the beginning of the night, likely due to daytime worrying.
I scheduled Skype appointment with Dr Kat from the Sleep School for August 29th. If someone has questions for her, you can drop them here.
Deb, were you able to split the first session into two 30 minutes sessions? I don’t think I need the entire hour, but don’t know if I can split the very first session.
Steve,
I am also trying to get into this state of acceptance. In my understanding it is most important not be emotionally involved into thoughts about sleep. The goal of the therapy is to calm down worrying center of the brain. We understand the situation with rational part of our brain, so I guess it is ok to have thoughts, but we just need to be able to gently (!) shift from them or be with them without emotional involvement (easier said than done) day and night. After all it is that emotional, worrying part of our minds that keeps us awake at night. Just my two cents.
Nik.
The same, sleep onset. It is another reason why your story caught my attention. I usually have no problems falling back to sleep at night, because at that point I have no anxiety and fully relaxed. Just can’t yet achieve the same state in the beginning of the night. So I understand that full relaxation is the key, but it is not coming easily.
I was trying to use ACT but was frustrated by the nights when I was seamingly well relaxed but not sleeping or sleeping only very lightly. I am really happy for your improvement and hope to be in the same position some time soon. It is so tempting to just jump into pure ACT without restrictions, because I want to just sleep normally again with my wife and kid. But last night have shown that I may need some extra sleep drive to stabilize first.
Dr. Meadows does suggest to use mild sleep restriction to speed up the results. It is fantastic that Deb was able to recover even without it.
Perhaps I need to stick with ACT + SR. Just like during previous run on ACT without SR, I spent last night in a seemingly relaxed state but was only able to get light sleep closer to morning. I realize that I was not able to relax completely, but it was the close the best conscious relaxation I could get that night. And I felt that if I had a bit more of sleep pressure I would fall asleep earlier. Hopefully, current state of relaxation with SR to get more confidence in sleep and hence better relaxation eventually.
Deb,
Yes, I’ve read the book for sure. Just like you I was very excited first, then got frustrated and now I am trying to understand what did I do wrong. Let’s say my worries about sleep never subsided despite endless ‘welcoming’ and your previous comment tells me that I didn’t truly have acceptance. Thank you for that comment by the way.
Nik.
It makes sense to calm down amygdala eventually, but so hard to implement. So did you commit that for a while you won’t be worrying about bad nights to eventually pacify your nerves?
Deb,
One more question if I may. Your said that hardest thing for people is to accept. Maybe I don’t understand that right in the book. I don’t use sleeping pills, props etc. But sleep it’s still bad, and sleep thoughts are around all the time. Is there something more in acceptance that I might miss?
Deb,
Thank you for the response. Paradoxical intention is when you are calmly trying not to sleep, by lying in bed and keeping eyes open. I felt I experienced softer version of it few times recently, when I was lying in bed but with eyes closed and calmly watching myself being awake, taking it easy. Can’t yet achieve this state every night.
