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Cultivate yourself as such:
Let the seen remains seen, the heard remains heard and the thought remains thought.Meaning: Whatever you see, hear or feel does not translate into further action or hopefully further feelings. There is no sense of wanting to change or improve anything. You are happy with things the way they are.
As @Jeff_Nero pointed out, you can sort of be that independent person looking at your yourself from outside in. You just observe everything from a distance yet remain unattached and unbiased at the same time. Not being judgmental about anything because this “drama” goes on without requiring any input from you. You just follow the script whichever way it takes you.
I’m not sure if you mean 2 hours every complete 24 hours. Maybe you mean you only get 2 hours during the night in a specific time interval (eg 1-6am) but you are also sleeping on other times during the day as well or sleeping in and over your sleep window, taking naps or whatever. Of course if you engage in any of these, it will kill your sleep drive when your sleep window arrives.
I also went over your past posts on this forum and note that you have had insomnia for over what, 15 years??? Maybe your thoughts about sleep and insomnia are so entrenched that it’s almost impossible to overcome or you are just not convinced you can recover at all. The human mind is a powerful machine. It can make you believe anything, even blatant falsehoods, outright lies and hoaxes. Especially if you have had this for so long. For me, I am no longer afraid of poor sleep, and sleep takes up less and less of my mind that it’s almost gone completely and along with it, my sleepless nights. I don’t lose sleep over sleep anymore and from where I am now, it’s just not worth it. There are many other things more deserving of my attention. Sleep has become a chore and a waste of time in a sense. It exists only out of convenience and not necessity and I just do the least that I can get away with. Nonetheless, I wish the best. You are probably never going to get far if you continue to fear poor sleep and the role it allegedly plays in your life.
Hello
Firstly, a SW of only 5 hours is too short. It increases the pressure to sleep in such a short window and could worsen your sleep anxiety. An ideal starting point is at least 5.5 hours. But 6 hours is preferable and is more suitable for most people.In regards to your question about stimulus control, revert back to those times before your insomnia started when you couldn’t sleep and what did you do then? Then use this as a guide. If you didn’t get up from bed, then you don’t need to now. Your ability to sleep never changed. It’s your thoughts towards sleep that has. You are therefore reacting to a set of thoughts inside your head, or over-reacting in this instance. You are taking your mere thoughts way more seriously than you need to.
Most people recover when they start to take their insomnia less seriously and stopped chasing sleep. Getting more sleep just isn’t the cure. The real cure is being okay with any amount of sleep you get. It is no longer living with the phobia of poor sleep or letting this control every aspect of your life. Best wishes and good luck to you.
Can your body let go of the ability to breathe or eat? What makes sleep special that this ability needs to be protected??
Well why do you meditate? Is it only to sleep better or because you truly enjoy it? If it’s solely to sleep better, how does meditation help in that sense? If you meditate but don’t really enjoy it, that’s just torture. Might as well do anything else that you truly enjoy which really helps to get sleep off your mind for a bit. Then you have a better chance of practicing real mindfulness, where you are wholly engaged at the task at hand and can’t think of anything else including sleep. Of course sleep thoughts will always creep back and that’s okay (always allow this to happen), then gently refocus your attention back on the task. Ultimately, you want to be at a place where you enjoy what you are doing and truly live the life you want. Sleep doesn’t need any kind of assistance or intervention from you at all. It just happens when you’ve been up long enough, regardless of what you have been thinking or doing. Good luck.
Unfortunately, your question doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s like asking how can you eat 10000 calories a day and still not get fat. These things are just beyond your control!
Hello Dani!
Welcome to this forum. I recommend you read Cindy’s success story and how she overcame her postpartum insomnia, very similar to your situation. Her story is very insightful and full of wonderful advice on how to tackle sleep issues for new mums:Please don’t make how you sleep the main focus and determinant of how you feel or perform the next day. Because sleep really doesn’t define that. The suffering you go through because you feel you don’t sleep well is unfortunately, self-imposed. The key to sleeping well is actually being okay and no longer afraid of not sleeping well. It’s really a paradox. Focus more on other things like being a better mum, indulging in your hobbies and making a wonderful experience out of life. Accept that life isn’t always a bed of roses, and you won’t always get what you want but that’s okay, and there’s no reason to beat yourself up over it. Good luck to you and congratulations on being a parent.
You won’t die from unintentional lack of sleep in the same way you won’t die from unintentional food starvation or lack of oxygen
Hello!
You seem to confuse “should” with “must”. There is no strict requirement to leave the bed if conditions for sleep are right, ie, not overly stressed, no unpleasant wakefulness and you feel comfortable in bed. If still confused, always go back to your past habits before you had insomnia, you must have had occasions when you can’t sleep. What did you do then? Then go back to doing that. In overcoming insomnia, regaining your personality plays a big part.
If you didn’t have to restrict your time to falling asleep in just 15mins, would you be more relaxed in your approach to cbti? Don’t beat yourself up because you are not doing it perfectly. Because having done it myself and sleeping well now, I can tell you it doesn’t make much difference. Or at all. Now I pretty much break almost all of the rules of cbti, like napping, not getting out of bed when not asleep, fidgeting with my phone in bed and I still sleep pretty well! I guess it’s because I’m super relaxed about my bedtime routine. There is no pressure to sleep and that’s why I sleep. When you finish your cbti, this is what everyone should be doing. When there are no rigid rules or pressure, sleep comes easier. Don’t chase sleep, let it chase you. Good luck!
Isn’t it a bit weird to define total recovery that way? Because isn’t sleeping the main objective here? So why wouldn’t it be normal for people to think about the very act that they are going to be engaging in?
If suppose you allow yourself to think about sleep before bed, how that journey had been for you, with its ups and downs, and not try to penalize, judge or blame yourself for doing something that’s completely normal for someone who’s been through a traumatic experience, wouldn’t that be more liberating? Good luck!
Hello! What does 100% full recovery mean to you? And how many % recovered do you think you are now? What would do you differently in your daily life if you are fully recovered? Will there be much difference from your present life, if at all?
If the difference is miniscule, is achieving total recovery really that important now? Have a deep thought about this. Good luck!
Hello! How long did you try this? Don’t expect results immediately or in days, in fact some people won’t even see results in weeks and a majority of people would have some sort of relapse along the way.
If you approach cbti as a sleep “generator tool” to sleep more and wake up less, you will have limited success and get somewhere 4-5 hours on average. But after doing cbti “resets” your clock and you begin trusting your own body again and no longer fret over having poor sleep on ANY night, you will do quite well indeed! You won’t be talking or thinking your poor night at all because you just know whatever sleep you are lacking now you will get it all back in due course.
Hello!
I’m by no means an expert on this. The only other possibility when you can’t sleep when you aren’t overly anxious is because you just aren’t sleepy. Your body doesn’t need to sleep at that time. Aka you’re adequately rested. It’s that simple. Don’t spend too much time overthinking sleep. As a recovered person, I’m telling you upfront it’s just not worth it and a complete waste of time and effort. Your body knows how to sleep, those 6-8 nights of sleep (or 3-4 at your worst) are a testament to this. What more does your body need to do to prove to you that your sleep isn’t broken? Have a cry over it one last time and then resolve to no longer shed a tear or waste one more minute on it. Regular bed-timing and not setting any expectation of sleep is all you’ll ever need. The rest is up to your body.Plenty of people have got over this. Most have recovered when they did and worried less, but doing nothing and learning to desensitize yourself is the best remedy. I am no longer losing sleep over sleep, I’m sure most recovered people are just like me. It just doesn’t bother us anymore no matter how bad our sleep gets.
Think of it like this: When there’s a heavy thunderstorm outside, do you go out, shout at the top of your lungs, shake your fists and try to punch every rain drop? Or do you just stay inside and wait it out? All storms will pass. It’s pointless to fight and change something beyond your control. Good luck!
