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You are being unrealistic because you keep trying to escape that one thing which is natural to humans and all living things. Which is awakeness! Being awake is completely natural and a part of being alive! The only living thing that expects to sleep forever is, well, no longer alive. I think lots of people here have explained to you why it’s unrealistic to expect sleeping well forever, or to expect sleepless bouts can only get “this bad” and never “worse” because it can and it WILL but only if you allow it and you keep engaging in the unwinnable battles to make it all go away and never come back
Hello
The thing about feeling sleepy before your bed time is that you can’t control when your body feels sleepy or when it falls asleep when you finally go to bed.
There is no such thing as, I will set my bedtime at X and get out at Y and I expect to be completely asleep in between and be totally awake with zero sign of sleepiness outside of X and Y. The human body doesn’t work that way because it is not a switch you can turn off or on just because you are doing some things for sleep religiously! The human body works by hormones, and get cues from what you are doing or exposed to, for example, if you are relaxed and bored, doing nothing in a dimly lit room, you will naturally feel sleepy because the conditions are right for sleep. Whereas if you doing strenuous work like heavy lifting, go for a walk or are in an intensely bright room, then your body gets revved up and you become more awake. Stop having unrealistic expectations of yourself and your sleep. Sleep will always come regardless of what of you do or think, doing cbti or not doing it doesn’t make much difference, everyone will get sleepy as long as they have awake long enough and the problems start happening when people start “fixing” their times and expect to sleep X hours exactly and must stay asleep between whatever times they set themselves, because all these rigid rules only make it worse! Your best sleep happens when you do nothing, fix nothing, and expect nothing!
Excellent post from @Mr.Sandman and thank you for sharing it. It’s really heart-warming to read about success stories like these and deriving inspirations from them. I am a recovered insomniac myself so let me share my experience in a nutshell:
1. Insomnia is mostly a problem from overthinking and overdoing.
2. Sleep isn’t the problem nor the solution either. Thinking there’s a problem when there’s none becomes the problem. And it can quickly become self-sustaining, if you haven’t deconstructed yourself from the harmful thoughts and misconceptions about sleep.
3. Insomnia is basically losing sleep over sleep itself.
4. Your best sleep happens when you don’t try to fix things or go all out to make all the problems go away. The things you try to do often make little difference, if at all, but can be mentally stimulating enough to keep you awake because they cause you to go in self-vigilant and self-monitoring mode.When it comes to psychophysiological insomnia, just set your bedtimes and forget all about it. Get on with your daytime activities and take it one night at a time, sleeping badly on one night means absolutely nothing and it won’t be the last time you slept either so stop setting imaginary and unnecessary sleeping goals for yourself. Don’t fret!
Hello lynnbet!
Sleep isn’t your problem and isn’t the solution either! Because no matter how you slept, you are always gonna worry what the next night will bring. So this is an ongoing tussle with your own thoughts and has nothing with sleep. As long as you are unwilling to give up the mental battle and keep engaging in it by trying to figure out things related to sleep, go on forums like this one and asking endless questions, you will continue to struggle with no end in sight. Look, you just slept well recently, so what are you still complaining about? You will keep complaining regardless of how you slept anyway, so at what point will you resolutely and steadfastly tell yourself, enough is enough and that you will move on with this regardless of what happens?
Hello and welcome to this forum! If you are unsure where to start, I recommend you start with a minimum 6 hours window and by selecting a consistent wake-up that works for you, by subtracting 6 hours from that, you get your bed time. It’s that simple! You may or may not utilize all of that 6 hours sleeping but that’s okay! You are not in a race to be the best sleeper and neither do you win any prize being one. Set your times and forget it. Learn not to attach too much importance on the result. Because it doesn’t really matter. Over time, everything will settle down and eventually you just get used to sleeping or not sleeping. You get super relaxed with your sleep times, and you go to bed with wide ranging hours and you don’t get caught up in the finest details because you realize sleep is self-regulating, any sleep you lose the previous night will almost eventually be recovered on the next one or soon after, so you don’t worry because you just know YOU CAN SLEEP.
Well you just said it yourself. To be alive is to be awake. Not much of a life either trying to achieve X% sleep efficiency, or X hours every single night or whatever other unnecessary or unrealistic conditions you set for yourself. And then spend every minute of your waking hours worrying over whatever sleep metrics some author you never met or know well told you to keep monitoring. That’s not living. It’s like forcing yourself to eat an exact X amount of calories for every single day and you must eat at X, Y, Z o’clock, without exceptions!
I wouldn’t get too caught up with the formalities and numbers. It doesn’t matter what your sleep efficiency is, because ultimately, knowing that you CAN sleep (but duration is really not up to you to decide) is key and obsessing over the finest detail is really not that important nor helpful.
Hello Hannah!
Welcome to this forum. I used to think like you too, because of the common perception that good sleep strengthens the immune system and helps the body fight germs and disease right? Unfortunately, holding on to such thinking is not helpful and can often make it worse! So yes while rest helps you recover, you should slowly let go and take it lightly. Your best sleep happens when you don’t pressurized yourself too much! For now, change your thinking from sleeping to resting, meaning you don’t have to sleep, but resting in bed or quiet place is already sufficient for your body to recover when you get ill. The sleep will happen naturally, just don’t push it. And yes, getting sick means your body will naturally get fatigued easily and you will feel like not wanting to do much except lie in bed because your limbs hurt and you will naturally limit your movement anyways. Think of it like hunger, when you don’t eat for long enough, you will eventually get hungry after sometime so getting worried or upset just because you don’t feel hungry now is futile. Good luck to you.
When it comes to sleep, there are no rules. Your body will sleep when it gets sleepy. It also comes easier when you don’t keep asking yourself, should I do this or that? Or should I sleep X hours with no waking up or whatever. Because these things are mentally stimulating and is enough to keep you awake! But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter and your body will get the minimum sleep it needs regardless of what you think anyway.
None of those things ever “helped” you sleep 😂. It was your body that slept by itself all along
The more you try to “figure it out”, the more sleepless you will get. This is exactly what insomnia is all about. Overthinking and overdoing, and basically fear-mongering yourself awake. Losing sleep over sleep itself. Sleep only comes from a complete lack of effort and in a way, thinking. The only thing you need to do is just get in and out of bed at regular times. That’s it. The rest is up to your body and totally beyond your control. The more you try to “fix it”, the stickier your insomnia becomes because all that effort and brain exercise is very stimulating to your mind and keeps sleep at bay.
No supplement ever works for sleep. Your body already has what it needs. People generally take supplements simply because of the ” I feel safe taking these” factor, thinking they have delegated the effort of falling asleep to something else external, which can be a supplement, soothing tea, yoga, or whatever but none of these ever does anything to your sleep.
Hello and welcome to this forum!
Absolutely you can! Your ability to sleep is independent of everything you do or think, it will happen just as long as you have been sufficiently awake to be sleepy. Think of it like hunger, you may not feel hungry now but you will at some point when you haven’t eaten and it will happens regardless of whatever you think affects your appetite in any way
Perhaps you need to learn to stop being biased or at least actively take steps to recognize that this is exactly what’s going on (start being aware of it) and moving towards acceptance and therefore being less biased. If you have two children, one being normal and the other having some sort of disability such as down syndrome or autism, will you favor one child more than the other? Of course not, they are still both are your kids regardless, in any way, shape or form. Or perhaps you might even show a bit more love and attention toward the disadvantaged kid because that’s where it’s probably more needed. So what’s stopping you from doing exactly the same for yourself where sleep is concerned. If you love yourself for who you are and learn to not hate yourself where it fails to meet your expectations, then you will love and accept whatever sleep your body is giving you, at any time. Good luck.
If you get back into a sleepless pattern after a period of “doing really well”, that usually means you are routinely overdoing it by oversleeping! Which actually means you are sleeping really well, and sleeping too long for far too long! That’s why your body is making you regurgitate back out all those good nights by making you sleepless again. In cbti terms, it is a cue you need to re-limit your time in bed again or if you are like me and don’t freaking care, continue to oversleep but stop complaining! Even you yourself admitted you were sleeping really well before this happened (sleeping well after your dad died even) so why are you not giving yourself credit where this is due and only start complaining when everything starts deviating from your expectations?? Why the bias here?? Get on with your life, you won’t always get what you want, nobody will.
