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Hello guys! Thank you for being here and for participating. Yes insomnia can feel debilitating. The urge to find companions in a common struggle like this can be overwhelming. I don’t want to sound like an a** but allow me to explain why this is not the right approach. When you try to do this, it then becomes okay to have insomnia because you seek safety in numbers, right? What do you really want to achieve by reading about other people’s insomnia? Are you supposed to feel better because theirs are worse or could you get frightened over it because it could happen to you? It’s a double edged sword and it can go either way. Imagine someone being told they have cancer, are they supposed to feel consolation when they are then told millions too suffer from it?
I don’t know about you guys but self reflection might be a better approach. Sit quietly with yourself and really ponder the deeper issues involved and eventually coming to terms with it. There is no one way to do this, I encourage you to find a narrative that fits you and which you can relate to. Keep an open mind and be optimistic. I’ll admit though that reading stories about how other people overcame their insomnia might be sources of inspiration. Good luck!
I wanna add too that you slept well before because you were largely ignorant about it. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to sleep. Now that sleep has come under your radar, indifference becomes your cure. Try to ignore it and get on with your life. It’s really not a big deal, you must have had many bouts of insomnia in your life before this but they are all conveniently forgotten now. The point is nothing about your ability to sleep has changed, it’s still there and will stay with you for life. It’s just your thinking toward sleep that has.
Hi Robb
Great for you. The desire to improve is a common starting point. Although I might want to caution you about “right” or “wrong” things. When you are recovered, these things just don’t matter anymore. Because they really don’t affect your sleep in any significant way. Nothing you think or do really impacts your sleep, at least not permanently. The body will regulate itself if you just let it. You will find many different scenarios where you’ll be up for different reasons. If you find yourself sleepless because you were worried about some thing, including sleep itself, then it’s becomes quite unpleasant. Or if you are staying up because you really want to, like chasing a drama series or out partying, it’ll be pleasant. Ultimately, it’s up to you how you evolve your thinking about sleep thereby how you evolve your way out of insomnia. In simple terms, this boils down into a time management issue and how you prioritize sleep in each 24 hour day. When you are back to yourself like before, you will likely revert to your old sleeping habits and sleeping whenever you feel like it. And there’s really nothing wrong with that! Good luck.
Hi Robb!
I am sorry to hear about your recent struggles. I am sure you are doing something to address your sleep troubles already. You probably already know the importance of regular bedtimes so probably do not need reminding now. Other than that, I can only say to let nature run its course which usually settles down on its own. It is interesting when you say you have hopes for everything to be as it was before. And that’s really the key! So what did you use to do before? What were your bed time routines and your bed times? Try to regain your personality and identity as much as you can in this aspect. It also means if you are taking pills to sleep now when you never did before, you might need to work out a plan to taper off them. Take it easy and one step at a time. Be kind to yourself and try not to be easily discouraged because you are seeing results you want or fast enough. I also encourage you to explore what is it about poor sleep that you fear and dislike so much about. Your true chance of a real and lasting recovery will depend on how you change your mindset around that. Good luck!
Hello! I’m just a bit curious here. How exactly does having a DARE buddy help you cure yourself of an anxiety centred around sleep? 🤔
It’s good to hear you are still resting after waking up. So my question then is have you researched biphasic sleep? It means you divide your sleep period into two distinct segments. You can look up, Biphasic Sleep: What It Is And How It Works, in google and an article by the sleep foundation, which is fact-checked, explains what it is and how it works. Apparently, it is really common among humans and other animals alike to sleep like this. A lot of normal sleepers wake up after sleeping for 3-5 hours, myself included. That first part of sleep is usually quite deep, when I would pass out and remember nothing about it until I woke up. Then I would get up, use the toilet and go back to bed to sleep for the second part. The later part is characterized by more light sleep, lots of vivid dreams and a lot of morning glories if you are male too. I heard this is when most of REM sleep occurs because dreaming happens more. So if I told you that what you are experiencing is actually quite normal, would you feel more at ease? Don’t fight the wake ups, accept them and move on. After waking up, going back to bed is your first choice to try to see if you can fall back asleep. Otherwise, you could get up and do something light and non strenuous and try again after an hour. I read most people in pre-industrial age actually did this so perhaps what you experience is just an remnant of what people used to do then. Good luck.
Hello!
When you woke up at 330-400 what did you usually do? Get up and start your day or just continue lying in bed?
Hello and welcome to this forum!
You asked a good question and it was something I asked myself when I had insomnia but felt very sleepy during the day outside my sleeping hours so I wondered if it was okay to take naps since my body obviously wanted it but cbti says naps are strictly forbidden. Also, the way you are asking it is as if it is wrong to take naps and you will get “punished” for it at night. I felt the same at the time too. My answer to myself now and to you is naps are okay, it really doesn’t hurt your nightly sleep as long as it is reasonable. Don’t beat yourself up over it, take the nap when you feel sleepy during the day and nobody is blaming or punishing you for it. Who says not being able to sleep that well at night just because you took an afternoon nap is bad?? It’s your anxious mind that puts that narrative there, you begin to readily believe such nonsense and hereby unnecessarily derived yourself of such a simple pleasure in life.
I now occasionally take naps and still sleep great at night too. I really don’t care what kind of sleep I get at night or how naps might affect my nightly sleep. I think because of that, I continue to sleep great. I have no taboo and I don’t limit myself in any way. Strict rules are not necessary and make no sense. Research already shows power naps improve performance and memory so that’s all I need to know. I seem to do better after naps and I get refreshed and energized. I feel like I could run a marathon after taking a nap so how is that bad? Therefore, please enjoy your siesta. Leave the nightly sleep to the nights. Just listen to your body, if it needs to sleep, it will tell you by making you sleepy.
Forget about sleep. Move on with your life and one of the things that you can actually do is TEACH. It makes you forget about your problems for a while. When you put your utmost attention and dedication into something, it becomes a form of mindfulness. You don’t just have to meditate, doing things and being mindful about them is actually quite the same thing.
If you could forget about your insomnia, then it actually ceases to exist, that is the weirdest thing. Insomnia exists because you defined what insomnia is inside your head, such as having all nighters. But to someone else who also have all nighters but doesn’t think it’s a problem, then insomnia can’t exist. Take for example someone who parties all night and then turns up at work, hardly ever slept. That person is not obsessed about sleep and sleeps well. The difference is your mindset and how you see things.
If you can’t forget, try to ignore it by being engaged in other things. If your mind keeps warning about insomnia, just acknowledge it and then refocus the attention back on what you are doing. Remember your purpose in life, is it just to sleep? Or to experience life to the fullest? On your death bed, what do you want to remember about your life: just how badly you slept all the time or how well you lived your life? The choice is yours.
The simple answer is why don’t you find out? Why won’t you continue to teach regardless of how you sleep? If you never step out of your comfort zone, you will just continue living in fear. Think back to those times when you slept very little but continued the next day seemingly oblivious. Something like christmas eve when you were much younger. Or high school prom. Wedding day eve. Going on your honey moon. Surely you must have had a blast and sleep was the last thing on your mind. Be that person! Go out and do things, don’t just stay in waiting for sleep to happen. You only get live once, make full use of it right here and right now. Otherwise it’s all wasted. Time waits for no man, fate is not going to extend your time or lifespan just because you have insomnia or whatever other problems in life. Everyone will get their eternal sleep one day, why miss it so badly now when you are guaranteed to get it in unlimited amounts later? It makes no sense.
Hello Yasmin
Welcome to this forum! Yes having insomnia can be quite unpleasant but it’s not the end of the world. Insomnia is usually a result of too much unnecessary worry, overthinking and trying to over-troubleshoot things. Although of course, it can have a underlying health issue but this is usually quite obvious such as pain or discomfort and it makes sense to seek medical attention to address these.
But otherwise if you don’t have any health issue, the reason is usually psychological stress and therefore, purely of a mental origin. You are basically losing sleep over sleep itself. You take this issue way too seriously than needs be. It becomes an unhealthy obsession which then develops into a phobia. A phobia of poor sleep and an incessant, relentless and unhealthy urge to get out this as much and as quickly possible. It drives you to seek unnecessary medical attention such as seeing mental experts and popping pills. These are not a permanent solution but actually erodes your confidence and damages your prospect to a more natural and long term solution.
The reason to want to avoid insomnia is entirely understandable. But unfortunately, it is not practical because sleep is a regular activity that people do everyday. And so every night, the nightmare is relived over and over again with no respite in sight. If you have another phobia such as travelling in a plane, then you can just skip that entirely and you can live your life normally. Unfortunately with sleep, this is entirely unavoidable.
You must find a way to take your insomnia much less seriously. This lessens the stress. The way out of this is actually having more insomnia! That is really weird but true and even paradoxical. Doing the opposite is what helps people overcome insomnia. Things like sleeping less which then strengthens your sleep drive, getting out of bed to remove negative association between bed and unpleasant wakefulness. And the most important of which is having a regular bed time, especially getting out of bed consistently at set times. This realigns your biological clock and helps regularize your nights. Your body has the ability to right itself if you just allow it!
Start trying to reframe your insomnia in a different light. Having poor nights actually develops your skills in how you handle them and over time, getting desensitized by them. A sleepless night or even a string of sleepless nights is pretty harmless, you are just over-reacting. Taking a step toward recovery does require a change in mindset. How you view poor sleep and ultimately how respond to them is your key to a complete recovery.
LOL…. what more do you want to hear about something that’s “normal”, according to you? Leave sleep alone dude. It will sort itself out
Yep I graduated from Martin’s course almost 2 years ago now. I sleep great now. I have a super relaxed bed schedule, bedtime is any time between 11-2 and I get out around 8-9. I am not obsessed with sleep anymore and it has stopped bothering me. The bottom line is I don’t care anymore
These are personal choices you need to make. It’s like asking what dress you should wear to an event, what jewellery you should wear, what you should eat, etc. Because none of all that really matters. Nothing of what you are asking should be done (like whether to use an alarm clock etc) has any connection to your ability to sleep. Do whatever you like. If sleep is not the main consideration, how will you choose? Then just go along with that. Always remove sleep from any decision you make and you remove anything your mind tries to associate with sleep. Be independent and brave. DO NOT FEAR POOR SLEEP ANYMORE AND STOP TRYING TO AVOID IT! FACE IT WITH COURAGE AND HUMILITY. THIS IS THE KEY TO A COMPLETE RECOVERY AND REGAINING YOUR IDENTITY AND PERSONALITY.
Hello!
Whenever the event causes a temporary sleep disruption is over, then try to move on with your life. Don’t change your sleeping habits like going to bed earlier, sleeping in, trying to sleep more, taking pills, researching sleep, asking endless questions about sleep and so on. Just continue to get up at the same time and get on with your day. It’s helpful to accept that sleep can be affected for a while and it takes time to settle down. This is normal and happens to everyone.Whenever you have bad nights, try not to think too much about it. It’s just a bad night and means absolutely nothing to anyone including yourself. You can tell yourself to try again on other nights and that you can do better next time. Don’t stress over it because it’s pointless and the night is already gone. Focus more on your present moment and the future will take care of itself. Ultimately, re-evaluate your relationship with bad sleep, why must you take sleeping badly so seriously? What’s so important you must sleep well every night? Is there a prize to be won for being the best sleeper? Be okay with poor sleep by slowly desensitizing yourself to it. Good luck!
