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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!Hello and greetings… I am sorry with what you are going through. For many people, it’s often the frustration with the process and impatience of why it’s taking so long that makes it feel so hard to move forward. Maybe for now just go to bed and kinda expect your heart to race a little for a while. Accept that it’s gonna take a while for your heart to settle down and it’s okay! Be kind and patient to yourself, try to stop this self blame game because your brain is only trying to protect you. Re-establish that loving relationship with your bed in your own way. Some people like to read in bed, do a bit of yoga or light stretching, or ultimately, for me because I have gotten adventurous and am not trying to protect my sleep anymore, I just get on my phone and start watching youtube videos, play games or place stock trades on the stock market because I know all these stuffs have nothing to do with my ability to sleep. I slept through it all, sometimes even when the markets move against me and I woke up to find I lost over 5k overnight or gained 8k or whatever. Sleep happens independently, just have the courage to explore what works for you and ultimately stop caring about sleep. You can do this because so many others have! It’s not as hard as you think, you just need a little of patience, discipline and self-love. Best wishes to you.
I’m not belittling the pain or suffering but it CAN be done. Thousands if not millions of people have gotten over insomnia adopting a carefree attitude and the spirit of letting things be. If insomnia was so impossibly hard to overcome, everybody would still be insomniacs today and if insomnia had adverse health consequences, then people would die by the millions everyday since it’s “incurable”. And you said you’ve got it for over 30 years? Haven’t you already gotten used to it? Besides sleep is something that nobody ever has any control over so it is pointless and futile to be worrying over such things, it would be like worrying over your own breathing, whether you are getting enough oxygen, worrying about hunger, and whether you are getting enough nutrients to the exact proportions. Is there any point to be so obessesive about such things to the point of paranoia? What about just shrugging your shoulders and saying “I just can’t control sleep, nobody ever has” and completely giving up control whenever the worry or anxiety about sleep arises. Of course, I am talking about sleep related anxiety and the uncomfortable sensations that you may feel is somehow connected to bad nights. This means accepting the discomforts too because it is the only way to get out of it! Be accepting and optimistic instead of controlling, pessimistic, always doom and gloom. Of course, if your insomnia has other causes such as chronic pain, it makes sense to seek medical attention to address the underlying cause. Otherwise, insomnia is mainly just a mental issue developed as a result of a learned response to difficult nights that connects them to bad outcomes, which are often wrong and misconcepted, that keeps the insomnia ongoing.
Greetings! So what is it about sleep and insomnia that have you worried over 40 years?? Yet 40 years later, there you still are, nothing bad has happened to you at all, still able to come onto this forum, type sentences and ask questions. You seem very normal to me! Has it ever occurred to you are just being in a state of confusion for the past 40 years, you really don’t have insomnia at all because everyone has bad nights once in a while and that’s normal. Worrying about sleep is kinda like worrying about being hungry, actively trying to avoid it and seeking endless ways to cure your hunger. But then you still eat 3 meals a days, still feel every day is a misery because you are afflicted with hunger daily and asking people and almost every forum out there if anyone has ever found a solution to cure this thing called hunger forever. Sounds dumb and ridiculous?? You bet! Because that’s exactly the same thing you are doing with your insomnia, still worrying about it, asking endless people endless questions about sleep. But you know what? Sleep still happens regardless because everyone has sleep drive in the same way as hunger drive. Going forward, you can still worry about sleep. Or you can just ignore it and go on your life as usual. Either way, sleep still happens but you will just carry that worry and anxiety over absolutely nothing. Best wishes to you.
Hi Ezzo
Good news! Easily falling asleep at the start of the night and beginning to wake up earlier is two-thirds of the way to recovery! That final step is … well, complete and total acceptance of the process, not seeking to improve/fix your sleep any further and not actively seeking to sleep longer. This takes the pressure to sleep off your mind and actually allows the process to happen easier. It happened like that for me and I believe many others as well, there has to be a voluntary shift in mindset and a 100% belief in it! If you go to utube, look up Insomnia Insights #396, sleep physician Daniel Erichsen talks about this in greater detail. Good luck and remember you can do this too. Because so many have.Years have come and gone despite having insomnia. And nothing has happened, you are still able to come here and type sentences onto this forum. It’s really up to you. You can choose to be anxious and worry about sleep. Or you can choose to ignore it and go on your life as usual. Either way sleep will still happen regardless. But you’d have carried this unpleasant feeling over nothing because nobody ever has ANY control over sleep at all
Hello flight11
Unfortunately the only way to not be bothered or intimidated by sleep thoughts anymore is ironically, having more of these thoughts! Ask yourself in another way: How does one get over the fear of anything? Well the most effective and recommmended treatment adopted by most psychologists is getting their patients accustomed to them through repeated exposures. And the normal human response in these cases is eventually becoming bored and fed up by it over time that they don’t seem scary anymore. And that’s how you recover! By not doing anything to escape or avoid it, you just get desensitized over time. The mindset will start shifting “oh no I need do x,y,z to escape this” to “you know what, I just can’t be bothered anymore” or “fine whatever, I just don’t care anymore, there’s nothing i can do!”.Hello Tommi!
My advice is just do what you feel like doing. If 8-10 hours makes you more happy and productive, then allow yourself to sleep this much while accepting that you are probably overdoing it and therefore making difficult nights down the road become more likely. 6-7 hours is the minimum amount of sleep that a majority of people need and is your core sleep, anything more than that is probably bonus sleep and discretionary which tend to manifests as more light sleep, lots of dreams and awakenings in between. There is no right or wrong here, trying to control sleep or anything related to it such as dreams etc is probably futile because ultimately it’s been always your own body that decides what kind of sleep and how much of it that you need and actually get.
