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Greetings
Sleep is perhaps the only thing that backfires the more effort you make. It works like this: the longer you go without it, the sleepier you’ll get and therefore the more likely you will fall asleep. So stop overthinking and overdoing it, have a regular bedtime schedule and let the dust settle down. Then you will slowly ease back into your slumber like before. Easy does it and best wishes to you!Hello!
There is no good or bad sleep as far as your body is concerned, sleep is just sleep, and there’s almost no way your body can do it wrong. Haven’t you already noticed this by now when you said you slept better after a stretch of poor sleep?The problem, like everyone else’s, is not about the bad sleep itself, it is how you feel and think about it and ultimately, your relationship with poor sleep or a perceived lack of it. Sleep in some shape, form or size will still happen no matter how you feel about it, you can either worry (which would be over nothing) or be completely carefree, because nothing can stop nor control sleep, including cbti or the so called sleep hygiene, this thing is hardwired into your body and cannot be altered or modified in any way. Therefore, worrying about it will be a complete and needless waste of time and effort, it will be like worrying about breathing or eating, your body knows how to do it if you just let it! Just go to bed at regular times and let your body take do all the work for you. If you keep doing this and slowly overcome the fear of poor sleep, you will do very well, maybe exceed your wildest imaginations because you have, so far, completely way underestimated your body’s innate ability and need to sleep.
Hello!
So what time do you get out of bed to start your day?
And any particular reason why you go to bed at 10pm other than struggling to stay awake? It might be a bit early for some people. The reason I’m saying this is because some people are night owls and they naturally stay up until midnight. How much sleep do you estimate you are getting on a average night, including all that light, broken sleep that you said you are getting?Hello frozensun
Have you considered the idea that nothing is wrong?? Waking up few times during the night is common and even normal for everyone! You are trying to find a problem when there isn’t one. Therefore you are endlessly trying to solve an inexistent problem and chasing a ghost for 6 years! And all that efforts led to poor sleep because you are trying so hard, you didn’t find the solution and you become so frustrated and angry that your body gets into a heightened state all the time, possibly affecting your sleep.Of course, this is just an idea. You should talk to your doctor if you have other health concerns. Nobody here is qualified to give any medical advice for psychosis or other severe mental issues. I wish you the best and hope you find relief soon.
Greetings to you!
This is a very common problem for everyone who is recovering! And it is also a sure sign everything is working perfectly well so far, because if your sleep drive is reduced after sleeping well, this naturally means your sleep gets a bit worse and you wake up more often and earlier.The solution to this? Do nothing. Just stay faithful to your sleep window. It’s ironic and even paradoxical because if you attempt to do too many things at this stage, you risk making it worse and end up back in the hole of insomnia! Stop trying so hard to sleep. Be okay with waking up and maybe sleeping a bit less. In other words, get comfortable with the frequent early wakenings. Just go back to bed if it’s still too early and I suspect you will fall back asleep faster as time goes on or you can get up and start your day a bit early if it’s already close to your scheduled wake up time.
For everyone who has recovered including myself, this problem is not about trying to sleep better or longer anymore. It is more about how you feel about waking up and being okay with that or continue struggling with it! The decision you make at this juncture will decide your success or failure. If you constantly overstrive and overdo, you will fail very badly. Because you are showing your brain waking up is bad and must be avoided at all costs. But nobody can control sleep or waking up! Or if you choose the path of least resistance, least work, being accepting and friendly with wakefulness and staying faithful to your sleep window, you will succeed beyond your wildest imaginations! At the end of all this, the ultimate lesson for your brain is to stop fearing poor sleep again. Good luck and best wishes to you.
Hello
Try not to avoid it but welcome it instead. So instead of going “oh no, that old witch hyperarousal is here again”, you can go “oh hi old friend, it’s you again, howdy”. You must be open to welcoming bad thoughts in order to get the handle on this. Avoidance magnifies the threat to your brain and presents it as a much bigger danger than it really is. Then the warnings become more pronounced and alarm bells start going off inside you, your heart races, you break into a cold sweat and etc. Ultimately, thoughts are just thoughts, they can’t hurt you but your brain has become conditioned to think that they can. The only way to get out of this is show your brain bad thoughts and poor sleep are not dangers, but are otherwise harmless and insignificant. Stop fearing and start accepting! After a while, these thoughts just become fleeting and they don’t bother you anymore. Best wishes!Hello!
Good luck to you. And please don’t think poor sleep is something bad and needs to be avoided at all costs! Because it’s normal and everyone gets them occasionally. It’s your response and overreaction to it that continues the struggle, try not to fall into this trap! It can get difficult sometimes, but in general, adopt an accepting, open mind, welcome both good and bad nights as well as both good and bad thoughts, but try not to do anything or overthink about them and just let them pass, you will be very successful. Ultimately you will reach a stage where you don’t think your sleep is broken and poor sleep doesn’t terrify you anymore. Best wishes.Hello soxfan,
There is no “good” or “bad”, because sleep is just sleep, and there isn’t really a lot of ways your body can do it wrong, kinda similar to eating or breathing. As long as you keep to a regular bedtime schedule and trust your own body, you should do very well and you’ll be on your way to leaving insomnialand. Best wishes to you, try not to stress over the occasional bad nights or the waking up too early, the important thing is try not to struggle, accept and be friends with wakefulness as much as you can, you will pass with flying colors.Hello!
Your sleep will take care of itself as long as you stick to a regular bedtime schedule consistently. Don’t give up now. It can take a few weeks for it to settle down so try to be as patient and consistent as you can. The important thing also is try not to stress over one or several days of poor sleep, this is normal! Have faith and you should do quite well. Best wishes!Hi Mona
I do agree in a kinda way that everyone’s different. But from my experience, the suffering, especially if associated with insomnia, only persists because people want so badly to escape it and are very unwilling to experience whatever unpleasantness that they think is causing them and in some cases, end up spending a lifetime fearing and hating it so much. Since you said you’ve had this for decades and seen a ton of therapists, so where has all that gotten you anyway? Why hasn’t anything worked? Has it ever crossed your mind that actually nothing’s wrong and you are trying to solve an impossible puzzle?I am also not sure why you think anyone in a forum like this, people who hardly know you let alone seen or evaluated you face-to-face can offer any form of beneficial advice above and beyond what these experts you are seeing or have seen haven’t already given you. I don’t think anyone here is qualified to give advice on mental illness, this is just a forum to improve sleep. But I would like to add that sleep still happens regardless what state of mind a person is in anyway. I am not sure why, after claiming to suffer from this for decades, that you think something is horribly wrong while you are still around after so many years, safe and sound, and that if something horrible were to happen from all this, it would certainly already have by now. You sound pretty normal to me! Maybe you are just being confused but having had this for so long, you may have conditioned your brain to fear something that’s completely normal and harmless (which is that some degree of sleeplessness is normal and happens to everyone) and your response becomes automatically triggered by harmless nothings over time. Anyhow, I wish you find some relief soon and best wishes.
Hello
Don’t shut out unpleasant thoughts out because it doesn’t work. Just accept them as well as your obessesion with sleep while trying to get on with your life as much as possible. Very slowly everything is going to settle down and you find letting go easier as you go along. Learn to get comfy with being awake and not fear it. By being very patient and sticking to a regular bedtime schedule, you will slowly but surely get better.Greetings!
No, you are not new to the world of sleeplessness. Everyone must have had some periods where they slept much less or not at all such as moving to a new house or neighbourhood, becoming first time parents, starting a new job, taking a long haul flight crossing multiple timezones, staying up all night studying for an exam and etc etc. Some periods of sleeplessness are very common for everyone, way more common than you think and this is completely normal! So what makes you think your sleep is broken or you are “damaged goods”? Also, question why you think having some degree of insomnia is so frightening that it keeps you up at night. You must address this source of stress to get ahead. Or slowly regaining confidence that nothing is wrong at all, if ever. Only by doing those or both will you be able to leave insomnialand behind forever. I also stress that being recovered doesn’t automatically mean sleeping much better or that you won’t get insomnia again, because as I’ve just said some sleeplessness is pretty common in everyone, it just means you are no longer afraid of it! That said, I hope you find relief soon and best wishes!Great insight! Recovered doesn’t automatically mean sleeping much better but it’s not being in a state of fear anymore. Good luck!
Greetings!
Your story is a very common one and it’s always the fear of poor or no sleep that keeps you up all night. You have to be able to manage this fear well to get ahead. Start accepting bad sleep, be okay with being awake, allow unpleasant emotions or thoughts to happen instead of shutting them out and generally stop making this such a big deal because it’s not! Other than that, the only thing you can do is just getting in and out of bed at generally regular times and let your body do the rest. I hope you find your relief soon and best wishes.
