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Hi Phoebe
It may sound ironic but the best sleep remedy is actually doing absolutely nothing, being completely easy and relaxed about your sleeping hours and spending less time in bed, not waiting for sleep.Hi Alex!
How long have you been doing cbt-i? From my experience, i dont think you should do that for more than 2 months. After all, cbt-i is only supposed to help make your nights become more regular, increase sleep confidence and dissipate sleep anxiety, and it seems to have done its job for you. After that, hopefully the subject should improve their sleep further as their confidence increases and their anxiety abates. Do you still have a huge amount of sleep anxiety with dented sleep confidence? Because here’s the thing about cbt-i. It is not meant to be used as a tool to generate sleep forever for anyone, which is what you are trying to do here. After cbt-i, everyone should have a really relaxed bedtime schedule and nobody wants to follow a set of sleep rules forever, really. Have you ever explored what happens if you just continue to use your extended sleep window despite the initial setback and you feel you just had to go back and restrict your window? Just try it with no expectation of any outcome. Allow 6 hours in bed, you may or may not have as good as a sleep efficiency with a more restricted window but the key is really trying to “see” what the other side looks like once you’ve allowed yourself to potentially sleep this much. Imagine how the New World, the American Colonies and now the most powerful country in the world, the USA, would have lay undiscovered if people back then didn’t want to explore beyond their horizons and still thought the world was flat. Or if you still unsure stick with the 15 min increments for few weeks and try to resist rolling back because you want to “protect” your current sleep. Be brave and take that step forward, it might make all the difference to you because you may start discovering that you actually *can* sleep, even for 5, 10 mins and then that develops into 30,45 mins, 1-2 hours, it happened like that to me and I am sure almost everyone else here has a similar experience. Stop using cbt-i as a “tool” to sleep because it really isn’t! The best sleep remedy is actually sleep confidence and a very relaxed approach towards sleep, not a rigid, inflexible one.Hi and thanks for sharing your story. I guess everyone’s a bit different in the path to recovery. But whatever helps them to overcome their fear of sleeping poorly is going to be helpful. I really encourage everyone to be funny and creative about their circumstances. Make jokes and be light hearted about it. Dress up your fear/anxiety in different mascots and watch how funny they’ve become. For example, dress them up as a santa reindeer and going ho-ho-ho all the way for entertainment sake. Or as Mr. Bean taking an exam in an exam hall, that was really funny. And for those who like to do gym and martial arts, paste a piece of paper with “insomnia” written on it onto a punch bag, then have your fill of punching, kicking, knee-ing and head-butting it. Or if you enjoy shooting guns/rifles on a target, paste “insomnia” on it then shoot at it. Then when you go bed and your brain asks you “What happened to your insomnia/sleep anxiety?”, you could say “Well I shot it” or “I beat the crap out of it today, it’s probably too injured to bother me now”. Laugh at your own insomnia and start making it less scary! Because if anyone’s ever watched the film IT, it’s all really inside your head, only you can make it as scary or harmless as you want it to be. In the end, that fear is just made of air, it’s really nothingness!
Hi!
If sleeping is what you want, so how come you get aroused when you are just about to drift back to sleep? Doesn’t this sound a bit ridiculous to you? Shouldn’t you just allow sleep to happen naturally and effortlessly? I think at this point, it would be better to just face your fears head-on and not listen to any music, videos or podcasts any more and just lay in bed and try to get comfortable. Accept that you might or might not sleep. But whatever the outcome, it’s fine to you. The magic of sleeping comes when you try less to sleep! I think watching videos or listening to podcasts have developed into a sleep effort at this point. Just stay in bed and enjoy the silence and serenity of the moment. Who knows, you are probably more likely to fall asleep if there’s some sleep drive left and there’s nothing like music or videos to distract you any more. Best wishes!Greetings!
Someone posted a very similar question here few months ago. He would go to bed at 10pm, frequently woke up around midnight, cant sleep until 3am then would sleep till 7am when he would frequently snooze his alarm till he got out at 8. The remedy was quite simple, just go to bed later. In his case, midnight. For you, I think 11pm would work. You only sleep 7 hours on average so a sleep window of 11pm-6am would be quite appropriate. Just try going to bed at 11pm and get out at 6am for a few weeks and see what happens. Be patient as your body will need some time to adjust. Best wishes and good luck to you!Hello Alnav!
I can completely relate with your experience because I went through it all myself. I probably can’t talk you out of your anxiety now, I doubt anyone here can. But I guess this is a phase that most “insomniacs” will have to go through in order to get over it. For me, I just started becoming less afraid of sleeping less the more often they happen as I kinda settled into that narrative “god it’s the same old shit all over again, alright cmon now, show me what you’ve got this time” And it’s always the same. I guess you could say I got bored by it. I don’t know when the mental shift started, but it happened and I just became desensitized over time. Then I started discovering the way to sleeping great is actually sleeping less. My sweet spot is between 6-7 hours, actually people sleeping this amount is very healthy and live longer than those doing 7.5-8 hours according to a NYTimes article. I had hit both ends of my sleep journey, so to speak. When I slept 5 hours, I woke up very sleepy, dazed and would be sleepy all day. Conversely if I did 7-8.5 hours, I would also wake up tired, fatigued and lacking energy all day plus I couldn’t sleep at night. So now I only sleep 6-7, I found I slept more deeply and woke up feeling refreshed and energetic. I guess for many “insomniacs”, the real lesson here is that you sleep your best when you actually sleep less. Has it ever occurred to you that you might need less sleep than you actually think? That it is your lying in and occasional oversleeping that keeps those sleepless nights coming back. The average sleeping duration for the normal person is actually only about 6-6.5 hours. So if you had 7-9 hours days wedged in between, you are probably more likely to experience sleepless days down the road. All this is just a way that your body is regulating itself, so that over the longer timeframe your average sleep duration stays pretty much the same. Nothing is actually wrong with getting 4 hours if you were routinely sleeping more than you actually need to start with.Hi!
Since you sleep during the day, what do you do at nights when you are not sleeping? Are you taking naps?You said you average 4 hours per night, over how long have you arrived at this average? Have you maybe missed out on some days where you slept for 6,7 or more hours that you failed to account for and perhaps only choose to fixate on those days where you slept much less and are stressing over this?
So if you choose to fixate on this 4 hours average, what is it about 4 hours of sleep that stresses you much? I will put the question to you in another way. How many calories per day do you eat? 2000, 2500, maybe 3000? So let’s say you only ate 1800 or 1500 per day for a week, would you stress too much about it? Or let’s say you somehow convinced yourself you have to breathe 300 times/minute, eat 10,000 calories per day and you became convinced something horrible is going to happen to your health if you don’t, that you can’t function at all, ask yourself do these concerns have any rational basis at all? Because here’s the thing about breathing, eating, peeing, pooing and sleeping, all these processes are controlled by your own body, it decides what’s enough and it’d be quite ridiculous and even dumb to worry about such things and trying to actively control them. Just let them be!
If there is no concept of time, you don’t know what time it is, only going by sunrise and sunset, and everyone just go to sleep when really sleepy and wake up when they have enough, will insomnia then exist at all? Will anyone know how much they slept? Answer is no in both cases, because they let their body decide how much is enough, just as naturally as breathing and eating. It is when we try to force ourselves to sleep X hours, saying to ourselves that we must sleep between 10pm and 6am or whatever timetable we set ourselves, that we need to do things to sleep like CBT-i, ACT, taking pills or whatever, that puts us in a sticky situtation, because we are trying to take control away from our own bodies which decide such things, that is not only impossible but also silly and futile. I hope you get the message. Go back to basics if you have to, sleep when really sleepy, eat when only hungry, because that’s how it’s supposed to be! Accept that if you can’t sleep or eat at a particular time, then it must mean you just aren’t sleepy or hungry at that moment in time. But they’ll eventually come back. Best wishes!
Hi!
Are you taking naps at other times? Or are you sleeping way more than 3 hours on other nights?Hello Hanah!
LOL…yours is a typical insomnia story that I find it amusing when people said “Oh I’m so worried I will sleep badly for the rest of my life, I will never be able to function in life and society again.” Really ask yourself “Is this realistic?” Because it would like saying “Oh dear, I’ve forgotten how to breathe or eat, I’m so worried I’ll always be out of breath or always go hungry because I can’t breathe or eat properly”. How ridiculous does this sound?? Very indeed! Your body regulates all these functions by itself, eating, breathing, urinating, defecating and sleeping. So worrying about them is really like watching a kitten chasing its own tail, very amusing and funny indeed but completely pointless, unnecessary and even outright dumb. So why does your insomnia never go away? Because you were chasing sleep, modifying your bedtime schedule to allow more time in bed and therefore possibly sleeping way more than you realise or need. You won’t sleep well if you are too well-rested! To sleep really well, you need to spend less time sleeping and therefore in bed, just like eating feels so damn good when you’re starving. It is as simple as that. Don’t treat sleep like a skill you need to acquire by doing a ton of things, because it isn’t a skill, it’s something that’s innate and natural to everyone and absolutely no skill is needed to make happen at all.Hi Elle!
So what time do you go to bed now and what triggered your sleeping issues? If you have a lot of anxieties, I would suggest spending some time every day writing your worries down and the actions you plan to take to address them. Also make a list of to-do items that you really look forward to every day that makes you excited to get up and start your day. Things like making your breakfast, doing your laundry, feeding/playing with your pets, trying out new recipes, gardening, yoga, an early morning walk at the beach or anywhere you find peaceful and enjoyable, things like that. Try to engage in things that lift your mood and take your mind and pressure off sleeping. If you enjoy watching the telly in bed, I really think you can too! It would kinda useful to start re-associating your bed with things you used to enjoy (I don’t see any problem with this because you could sleep pre-insomnia doing these things and nothing’s really changed). Anything that helps you to relearn associating your bed with pleasant experiences would be helpful. As for me, I used to think I needed to just use the bed only for sleep, never clock watch, never take naps during the day and get out of bed if not sleeping etc well all that didn’t help me to relearn the association of bed with pleasant things. So I ditched and broke almost every rule in CBT-i, by watching youtube in bed on my phone, took naps whenever I felt sleepy, reinstalled a clock in my bedroom, started using an alarm clock that I now always use to check the time whenever I awoke, and refused to leave my bed when I couldn’t sleep and instead started playing games on my phone or watching movies, I did ALL these to show myself I wasn’t afraid of not sleeping anymore and I COULD sleep regardless. And guess what, I can! I think for every person who has sleeping problems to start being brave and dismantle those false beliefs one by one to prove to yourself nothing can stop your body from sleeping if you’re really sleepy and if you aren’t sleepy, nothing will make you sleep even if you checked yourself into a luxurious suite costing 50 grand a night and taking meds. What determines whether you can sleep is actually the amount of time spent awake, the longer you go without sleeping, the more sleepy you get. So this means if you have insomnia, it actually means you must be sleeping really well to begin with! Sounds twisted but true. It is your chasing sleep, spending too much time in bed, and perhaps sleeping way more than you realised that perpetuates the problem. Stop chasing sleep by trying to sleep when not sleepy. So all along there never was any problem at all, you thinking that there is a problem becomes the problem!Hi Sue!
Thanks for providing the link. But even when you’re well, it’s sometimes also useful to listen to your body and just go to bed when really sleepy. That’s how my cats do it and they seem happy. I do occasionally sleep in and take naps (when sleeping makes me feels really good) and I feel great! Nobody wants to follow a set of bedtime rules forever, really. There’re lots of things to enjoy in life (sleep is only one of them) and I intend to live my life to the fullest while sleep is something that my body will take care of, all by itself. Good luck and wishing you a speedy recovery.Hello Sue
If you are sick you shouldn’t do sleep restriction, and you should rest according to your body’s needs. In fact, Martin has spoken about this in a youtube video.Hi Jake!
How much are you sleeping before you hit another bump? Do you have a really liberal bedtime schedule? Where you go to bed at a fixed time but are really lax about getting out by frequently sleeping in because you actually find you could sleep? And perhaps taking naps during the day as well because you thought you can celebrate now (maybe thinking yay!, all my sleep problems are solved, I don’t need to worry about insomnia anymore!) because you are sleeping well again? Well there are consequences to oversleeping, and this manifests themselves as having difficulties dozing off, getting only light sleep, having frequent awakenings and the anxiety that comes rushing back because you don’t understand why this is all happening all over again makes them worse. It was all those oversleeping that got you into trouble in the first place and now they’re coming back because you are repeating the same mistakes. Restrict your bedtime to make your nights more regular, or continue to adopt a really relaxed undisciplined approach to sleep but expect those difficult nights to happen because they will. Nothing wrong with either method, your nightly average will still stay the same over the long term, but you will be worrying unnecessarily over nothing.Hello Elle!
If you can’t stop thinking about sleep, then don’t. Just shrug and smile when your brain wants to keep bombarding you with sleep thoughts. It is completely normal to be obessesed about something if it really bothers you. Just accept that you can think about sleep all you want, that your thoughts don’t affect your sleep or sleep drive and sleep related thoughts are processed exactly the same way as non sleep related thoughts, that your body will sleep when it wants to. Just let go and allow thoughts to come and go, make no attempt to avoid them but resist the temptation to do anything about sleep, because they actually do nothing. It’s your own body that lets you sleep or don’t! Setting a goal for sleep like 8 hours is counterproductive, it’s like saying I need to breathe 100 x a minute or eat 10,000 calories a day or something bad’s gonna happen. Is this realistic? It doesn’t matter, your body will regulate your sleep as it does your breaths, appetite etc. Just allow it to happen naturally. Best wishes to you.Hello!
Yes, your worries are way overblown and unnecessary. Ask yourself: Do you worry about never eating again? Or worry that you somehow have forgotten how to breathe? Answers are most definitely NO. In fact, it is ridiculous and even stupid to worry about these things. WHY? Because your body takes care of them naturally. Sleep is exactly like that. Your body takes cares of eating, breathing, going to toilet to pee/sh*t and sleeping all by itself. So why must you worry? If you are not sleeping enough, your body will eventually force you to sleep by making you extremely sleepy, in the same way your body will force you to eat or breathe if you try to hold them in. It is when you try to control sleep that you run into problems. Expecting ridiculous things about sleep like saying “I DEMAND TO GO TO BED AT 10:00:00 PM AND I WANT TO SLEEP FOR 8:00:00 HOURS AND WAKE UP AT 6:00:00 AM WITH NO AWAKENINGS IN BETWEEN! I DEMAND TO GET MY SOLID SLEEP EACH AND EVERY NIGHT AND I MUST SLEEP 8.00 HOURS, NOT ONE SECOND LESS!”. Why be so hard on yourself by setting impossible sleeping goals or getting obesessed over it? Be natural. Just trust your own body, it knows exactly what it is doing. If you can’t sleep, accept that you can’t sleep and that your body just doesn’t need it at that moment in time. But it will return, eventually. Don’t chase sleep, let it chase you! Sleep only to live and not live your life only to sleep. I hope you get the message and best wishes.
