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Greetings!
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with what you are doing. You are just too impatient. And nothing wrong with waking up during sleep either! Did you try to go back to sleep? For many people, eventually they discover they can fall back asleep, usually in small amounts first, like 10,20 mins, slowly increasing over time.When it comes to sleep, just throw out everything you think is right and should be doing about sleep and just completely accept that what your body does about it is always correct, because it will always be the body that decides how much sleep you need and get, not you! Just don’t question it, ever. This is where the problems always lie. Think of your body as an extremely cranky person, everytime you try to challenge it, you receive a slap back and more troubles!
Greetings!
Your question is not new and you have been posting the same exact “problem” a couple of months back! So when you are truly going to give up the struggle and being accepting of whatever sleep you get?? Because nobody ever has any control over sleep to begin with. And you know coming here and asking endless questions about it probably won’t help you in a big way anyway. The way sleep works is: Less sleep on one night = increased chance of better sleep next night or the night after, and vice versa. It’s not rocket scienceHello Kimbiana,
Great post! Everyone who recovers will most certainly have an “aha” moment like this, when they finally understand the futility of struggling against an uncontrollable element like sleep, which leads them to abandon the struggle and ultimately finding the inner peace within themselves. And that’s really the key to sleeping well where there’s no struggle, no fear, just tranquility.Hello Trish!
Thank you for your kind words. The vocabulary you use still indicates a lot of struggle going on. As I read it, words like “persistent”, “practicing”, “eventually”, “I must do these techniques to sleep!” suggest a lot of impatience and the enormous pressure to put yourself under to “get rid of this thing ASAP”. What about not trying so hard, slowly abandoning all the techniques and not being persistent?? Do this at your own pace, or sometimes accepting that these issues will be here to stay for god knows how long and really giving up the struggle might be useful. That really helps take the pressure off. Try to reestablish the loving relationship with your own bed in your way. It doesn’t have to be sleeping just to enjoy being in bed. I hope this helps and best wishes.Greetings!
Nobody has ever beaten insomnia. For people who “recovered”, they just started caring less, doing less and they stopped fearing poor sleep. This is how you deal with difficult nights, which are completely normal and happens to everyone. It is your obessesion with sleep, unwillingness to experience some poor nights and your frustration at efforts to pressurize sleep to happen that makes you go down the same hole again. When it comes to sleep, just do nothing, modify nothing. Go on your life as usual, enjoy your day and your sleep will get back on track on its own. Best wishes!Greetings!
Nobody is immune from having bad nights, however you can be immune from the struggle with sleeplessness by adapting your response and mindset. It’s often your response to bad nights that becomes the problem! When you start seeing having bad nights as a huge problem, which needs to be solved and quashed no matter what, that’s when you run into bigger problems! The key to freedom is no longer getting stuck in the struggle by endlessly engaging in battles with yourself but more towards embracing it, doing absolutely nothing to fix it and continuing to enjoy your life as usual. When it comes to sleep, the key is always do nothing, modify nothing. Good luck and best wishes.Hello momup!
That’s great news and you have finally “got it”. Sleep is something nobody ever has any control over. So it is pointless to worry about it or do stuffs to make you go to sleep, it is this pressure that makes sleeping so hard! Going forward, as you sleep better and letting go of control, you care less about it and hopefully never struggle with sleeplessness again, even if it happens, you just don’t struggle like before and the difficult night just comes and passes. This is normal! Sometimes you look back and might even laugh at yourself! You may think ” Wow, did I use to do all those stuffs just to sleep?? Man, that’s crazy!”. Eventually, the realization sinks in that you CAN sleep, it doesn’t matter where or under what circumstances, your body just takes care of sleep all by itself.Hello dbaldino!
To not struggle with sleep, you have to not fear sleeping badly. You also have to give up all sleep efforts, because it is when you have done nothing, then there’s nothing for your mind to monitor anymore! Best wishes to you.Hey Dbaldino!
Very common to have rebound insomnia when you stop taking meds. Because when you do something different or change a standard routine for sleep, automatically your brain starts monitoring for results! It is this active monitoring that makes sleep a bit harder. That’s just human nature. Thoughts like is this going to work? What if it doesn’t? Will I need meds for the rest of my life? These worries are very common at this point, and people generally go two ways from here, some become scared and immediately flee back to the safety of taking meds, resigned to their “fates” that they will forever need to take meds to sleep, they never to get to see what the other side looks like because they are too scared to venture beyond, OR, for people who are braver, they continue to do nothing to sleep, still not taking meds and slowly their sleep begin to improve as the excitement and bewilderment die down. So it depends on how scared you are at this point. It’s your choice. But I can tell you need absolutely nothing to sleep, even when you do cbt-i, which doesn’t involve taking anything external so all that sleep has to be produced internally inside you. Whether taking drugs or not doesn’t affect this natural process in any way.Hi Ms Carrie!
The things I did or did not do:
1. Establish a bedtime routine. When I was doing cbt-i I was pretty strict about my bedtime. As time went on, I started getting more relaxed. Now I pretty much don’t care about this. I just go to bed when sleepy, eyes heavy and head nodding off.2. I stopped being scared about not sleeping or waking up during the night. Ultimately this led me to not caring about sleep anymore and stopped chasing it. I realised you can still sleep really well even a bit anxious, this is the bit that most recoveries hinge on, then you slowly build on your successes bit by bit until all that anxiety about sleep disappears and you start letting go of control. Recovery won’t be overnight or linear, be patient and accepting of your situation, this means accepting any discomforts that come along with it. I stopped taking stuffs to sleep such as meds, melatonin, researching sleep, asking questions or anything related to sleep. I gave up and that’s it!
Anyone can do this. Be patient, disciplined and self-loving. Best wishes to you.
Hello!
Interesting post especially point 2. My take is getting preoccupied with horror movies takes the pressure to sleep off your mind a bit so that allows sleep to happen more easily. But other than that, sleep really happens quite independently of all actions and thoughts. The twisted truth about sleeping well, you have to not fear sleeping poorly.Hello and greetings!
As a recovered person, I can tell you that worrying about bad sleep is a complete waste of time because nobody ever has any control of sleep. People naturally get sleepy after being up long enough just like being hungry. So absolutely no point worrying over it. Sleep happens independently whether you worry about it or not, or worry about other things, to your body it makes no difference as sleep and anxiety are independent of each other. It is possible to have some anxiety and still sleep well! To manage the anxiety part, you can start letting go of trying to control sleep, accept the thoughts about it but do nothing because there’s nothing you can do, really! Be accepting and inviting of scary sleep thoughts instead of avoidance and trying to escape them. Over time you begin to understand that sleep happens independently and that your thoughts has little bearing on your ability to sleep well after all.Greetings!
Relapses are very common! It is an early sign of recovery and a manifestation of sleeping better on previous nights. If you accept them as they happen, and continue the cbti course with the same discipline, you have a better chance to see continued progress. But remember to be very patient and be kind to yourself because ultimately sleep just can’t be controlled and difficult nights can and will happen to everyone and is completely normal. In the end, you start letting go of control and truly understand that sleep best happens when there’s complete absence of struggle or any pressure to make it happen. Best wishes!Hello
Great to hear you are getting optimistic again! You can do this too. Always remember to be very patient and kind to yourself. If you are having a difficult night, just shrug your shoulders and say “I simply have no control over sleep, no one ever has, sleep happens all by itself without any intervention, so it’s not my business to worry about it anymore.” You should do very well with the right mindset and attitude. Best wishes!Hi whitelori
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Accept that bad nights happens even to normal sleepers so it’s not a big deal. It’s often the frustration with the process and impatience with how long it’s taking that makes it hard to see much progress. Deploy self kindness to yourself, accept that you are trying to control something that’s virtually impossible so it’s okay to be frustrated when you don’t see results immediately. Be patient, disciplined and love yourself for the things that you have often overlooked, like your resilence at how long you have struggled with insomnia but somehow still managed to get through the days, year after year! That wasn’t an easy feat! Other than that, try to keep your bedtimes consistent so your body knows its routine. Try to enjoy your wakeful hours the best you can. Instead of worrying and obessesing over sleep, make a list of things you really want to do but haven’t got the opportunity nor time to do so yet. Make your mornings enjoyable and something you look forward to. Accept that you are only human and it’s only natural to do what is humanly possible whilst enjoying yourself in your own meaningful way. I hope you find your joy and happiness in life. Best wishes!
