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Hi!
U won’t get over this as long as you continue to fear poor sleep. It really comes down to your relationship with poor sleep and how you think of it. People without sleep problems just shrug it off and go on as if nothing happened. Poor sleep happens to everyone, there’s no such thing as a good sleeper, it’s just sleep in however shape, form or duration and there’s no way your body can do it wrong. The only other thing you can do is to keep your bedtime schedule regular which helps keep your nights more consistent. There’s no other thing you can do to sleep! This is really important and you must understand this before you can begin letting go of the struggle. The faster you let go, the faster you return to normalcy.
Hello!
Fine then so sleep whenever you feel sleepy and when you aren’t taking care of your baby. Disregard what the clock is saying or what conventional wisdom says about sleeping at regular hours; only go by how your body feels. If your body feels sleepy and you have the time for it, then take it! Who says this is wrong or prohibited?? It’s like slapping a fancy medical term on someone who eats whenever he feels hungry and then saying that’s abnormal because he doesn’t eat breakfast at 7 am or lunch at noon or dinner at 7pm. If everyone follows this, then technically the term insomnia doesn’t even exist. Because everybody can sleep. Your body is proving this to you every single day! Though it may just be 3 or whatever hours. Then sleep at other times too to feel rested! That’s how sleep’s supposed to work in nature. If people could stay awake indefinitely without needing to sleep, then we’ll all be doing that because sleeping is such a waste of time. But the fact is nobody can stay awake indefinitely. Sleep drive will kick in at some point, just like hunger will. So worrying about it is a complete waste of time and efforts, which might be better spent on being a better parent or doing the things you truly enjoy in life.
You don’t need anyone to tell you how to sleep lol. The fact is anyone should be able to sleep anywhere as long as the sleep drive is there.
To answer your questions, I don’t think I experienced 5 or more nights of poor sleep continuously. Mine was typically poor sleep one night when I hardly slept a wink, then I’d be thoroughly exhausted the next night and would sleep quite well again. I’m not sure about you, is it possible you actually slept more than you think? Try not to make this a numbers game, where you become obsessed with counting how many days you slept poorly or how many hours you slept on a particular night
For me, now, I just stay in bed during all of my bedtime. If I can’t fall asleep straightaway, I would just lie in, close my eyes and think mundane things until I eventually drift off and fall asleep. I don’t care how long it takes, I always fall asleep in the end. I don’t get caught up in counting the minutes spent awake in bed or doing stimulus control. I found this kept me up more! When I implemented SC, the pressure to sleep increases and the frequent process of getting in and out of bed very frustrating. Now I just get into bed at X and out at Y. I don’t care what happens in between or how much sleep I got.
Hello guys!
The thing is stop pressuring yourselves to sleep. Because the truth is you dont have to sleep well every single night. Stop making bad nights such a monster because it really isn’t and you must be friendly and accepting of them in order to stop being afraid. When you start thinking you must do something to avoid it, like taking a pill or doing cbt-i or whatever, it means you are still afraid and you probably will encounter more bad nights more often.I highly doubt anyone here can help you with your problem because I believe nobody is an “expert” on sleep except Martin, well he’s got some certs or something under his belt. Speaking about your “light sleep” problem, there’s another person too who purportedly has the same problem as you: Jess84. Maybe you both are the same person so why are you flooding this forum with the questions, asking endlessly about the same stuffs for years. If you aren’t her, then go to that thread and see if you can find anything helpful, though I highly doubt it.
Hello!
Angeli is right. You only take something if you think there’s a problem to be solved and then you become stuck in the false belief that your sleep is broken for god knows how long. Sleep isn’t the problem, but thinking there’s a problem becomes the problem, makes any sense?
Thanks for sharing. But I am not going to write a long post anymore because it is not going to help you or me or anyone else by making big issues out of it. All I can say is setbacks are very common, even for recovered persons like myself, I couldn’t care less about how I sleep, all I know is my body takes care of it all by itself. And nobody is saying you will miraculously sleep well suddenly after doing cbt-i for only days or even weeks! Cbt-i isn’t a sleep generator but it does help make your nights more consistent. True recovery isn’t about sleeping well, it’s really about how you respond to difficult nights in the end.
You went to the experts who gave you all sorts of advice and medications, none worked so what makes you think anyone here can help you without even seeing you in person? The only thing I can say is you are spending too much time in bed (1 am – 830 am) plus naps, the longer it is, the lighter the sleep tends to get. Also, what is your definition of light sleep? How do you know you have it? Have you done a sleep study (polysomnography)?
Hi @illiniwek9!
“I worry that lack of sleep is going to give me Alzheimer’s or lead to premature death.”
You already mentioned the root cause of your sleep problem. It’s always the fear of getting poor sleep that keeps it going indefinitely. As a recovered person, I am telling you this fear is completely irrational and way overblown but do you really believe me? Most likely not otherwise you wouldn’t be making such a fuss about it here. Yes, so you haven’t slept well for 4 nights but so what? Just get on with your days regardless. It is pretty common to experience hiccups along the way. Give yourself permission to have bad nights, this isn’t a contest about who’s sleeping the best or the most for the longest because nobody is judging it except yourself. Accept any sleep on any day and just move on. Don’t dwell on the past. Begin each night on a fresh page. By sticking to a regular bedtime schedule, your sleep should get pretty consistent and your emotions will settle down eventually. I get some bad nights too occasionally but it never crosses my mind to come here and ask about it or seek advice. Because I know there’s nothing I can do except accepting and moving on. Like I said, it’s all about your relationship with poor sleep and how you think about it. If you don’t think there’s a problem, then there’s none. Good luck and best wishes!
I cannot help but laugh at your statements about sleep ?. Sorry you don’t control sleep nor waking up! The faster you quit trying to control it, the faster you leave the struggle with insomnia behind. And this usually leads to a place of inner peace where you become okay with anything and everything about sleep, those awakenings and often falling back asleep with relative ease.
@daveka
Yes your future nights will be full of cycles of like these, stretch of good nights, followed by not so good, then back to good again and the cycles keep repeating. I got so used to them so they don’t bother me anymore. And I couldn’t be bothered to do any strict SR like what you are doing because they don’t keep the bad nights from happening anyway nor guarantee a good night either. I frequently take naps during the day whenever I get sleepy and/or go to bed at night whenever I’m not that sleepy also, I couldn’t be bothered to be obessesed over what kind of sleep I get on any night, it simply doesn’t matter! If I sleep badly on any night, I know it’s just a matter of time I’ll get the good nights back so why fret or get unnecessarily anxious over it.Hi DK!
Are you avoiding your bed until bedtime? In this instance, I would recommend you spend more enjoyable time in bed instead, doing things you like such as watching movies on your phone, play games or anything you like, try to reestablish that loving connection with your bed. Don’t try to use cbti as a tool to generate sleep, because nothing can generate sleep except sufficient wakefulness so it doesn’t really matter how and where you spend that wakefulness. Dont obesess over what time it is because cbti says so. Go by what your body is telling you. If you lose focus repeatedly then it’s time for bed. Your ability to sleep is independent of cbti or anything else you use to try to achieve this end. What did you like to do before bedtime prior to your insomnia? Then continue doing that! Restoring your personality will help regain your confidence and find that joy again. Best wishes to you.Hi DK!
I can only say some differences are to be expected from night to night. They are also much more likely to happen at the beginning of the recovery. But at the end of the day, sleep is just sleep, and there’s no way your body can do it wrong.I can understand where you are coming from, it is very human to want to do something to achieve some form of control, but therein is where your issues will stick. The more you do, the more attention you pay to it, the more struggle you will get. Try to be neutral and non judgmental about any kind of sleep you get. Be friendly to wakefulness as much as you can. Only then will your mind settle down to rest. Are you a bible person? It says God rested after 6 days of work. It didn’t say sleep. So as long as you allow yourself sufficient rest in bed, and not worry about sleep, you should be well rested. Sleep becomes a by-product of resting quietly in a comfortable place and you don’t actively strive or force it to happen.
You are only truly recovered when you stop seeking answers or asking questions after a perceived poor sleeping experience anymore. It comes from a realization that any sleep, good or poor, long or short, no longer has any hold over you.
Hello @daveka!
The solution to this is paradoxically not seeking to improve anymore. Sounds twisted but so true! Your body has already shown you it can sleep, is capable of improvement so what more do you ask of it? That it gives you 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every single night? You know that is impossible so when will the lesson ever be learnt that nobody controls sleep and nobody controls waking up either.Everybody will have bouts of poorer sleep after a stretch of good nights. Think of it as reduced sleep drive after getting so much good sleep so naturally your sleep will get poorer, there’s nothing wrong there and no troubleshooting is required. This is critical! The faster you realise that you can’t control sleep or waking up, and the less you do to try to control it, the faster you leave the struggle with insomnia. True recovery isn’t necessary about getting good sleep at all, it is really about your relationship with poor nights and how you feel or think about them.
