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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.Hello and greetings!
Solid sleep means what? 8 hours straight with no interruptions? This is the problem. People who don’t understand sleep say as if they can make sleep happen at their command. It’s like saying I DEMAND to go to bed at 10:30:00 pm and I want to sleep until 6:30:00 am with ABSOLUTELY no awakenings, and I must sleep 8:00:00 hours EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, and not A SECOND LESS. And oh yes, I must have the perfect bed and perfect bedding, perfect blackout curtains, absolute darkness, no lights can penetrate from outside and I must have perfect silence, absolute no noise from neighbor’s dogs barking, no cars must be passing by, and my partner absolutely can’t snore or turn in bed, and I need to drink my sleepy tea and take melatonin or ambien or whatever, and my room room must be at 18 deg C, AND OH YES I absolutely must have my weighted blanket and I must first take a warm bath with lavender oil etc etc etc. Stop setting impossible conditions to sleep for yourself! You will sleep great if you couldn’t care less about it.Hello and greetings!
Your condition isn’t even considered severe. I have encountered a story of a guy who went without sleep for 4 days straight due to severe sleep anxiety and despite this he was shooting rifles and sprinting during the day because he was drafted in the military. He then suffered from on off insomnia for 15 years before he finally “gets it” and sleeps great now! Realise that CBT-i doesn’t need you to take meds or seek any “external” help because what you need to sleep well is already inside you. This has always been the case and always will be. The ability to sleep is really innate to every person or animal. It is just your irrational thoughts and behaviors that are keeping you stuck indefinitely. Insomnia isn’t really an illness, it is just a term to name someone whose sleeping pattern are all over the place, ie, falling asleep at different times and sleeping different amounts each time. But overall, your average sleep duration should be the same over the long term. Between 6 to 7 hours. It is very similar to eating a similar amount of calories each day. And fear of not sleeping well is really like a fear of not eating well. How is that even possible?? Because everyone knows how to eat and they will eat when they eventually get hungry enough. It’s exactly the same because you will sleep when you get sleepy enough. CBT-i just helps make your nights become more regular. Good luck!Hello Jake
Thanks for sharing that insight! I had a similar discovery too, that people can still sleep despite being anxious. If everyone probed further, they would find that fear of not sleeping well has no rational basis at all. It would like having a fear of not eating well but then finding yourself feasting when the hunger drive becomes too strong to ignore. Eating and sleeping are regulated by your own body, it decides when and how much, so worrying is not only unnecessary but also unwarranted. If you didn’t sleep or eat well on one occasion, no reason to fret on it as there will be plenty of opportunities later on to catch up.Hello people!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. The issues about doing harmless stuffs affecting sleep are way overblown. It would be like getting bitten by a mosquito and saying “omg, i’m never going to sleep tonight or ever again”. In reality, it’s really nothing at all. It’s just your mind playing games with you and as long you buy into them, you will continue to have sleep issues over harmless nothings.Hello!
Nothing really significantly affects sleep drive and therefore how you sleep apart from being awake long enough. As long as you continue to tie the things you do to sleep, your sleep issues will continue to bother you. Good luck with the vaccination and best wishes.Hi Jaylogan!
I experienced similar too. If I consistently slept in and delay getting out of bed, my sleep would progressively get worse over time. Looking back, this was why I developed insomnia in the first place! The frequent oversleeping. My ideal spot is usually between 6-7 hours. So now I don’t follow any tight bed time schedule anymore. I go to bed when feeling very sleepy (head nodding off and difficulty focusing) and get out at my first awakening which is usually about 6.5 hours later. I don’t care what time it is when I go or get out of bed. Ironically, I feel more alert and energetic during the day sleeping less like this than sleeping in and doing 8-8.5 hours. I think it must be because I am getting more deep restorative sleep by restricting and consolidating my time in bed than spending 8-9 hours and getting only more light sleep out of that.Hi Jake
The converse seems true too. If you slept badly due to excessive worry, you’ll likely be sleeping well going forward until you oversleep again. Inadvertently. Then the whole cycle repeats. I found restricting my bedtime to no more than 7 hours helps keep my nights consistent. Sleep to live and not live to sleep, that’s my motto. When you are recovering, it can be tempting to overdo it and oversleep. Then you run into difficult nights and wonder why.Greetings and hello!
6-6.5 hours is the optimal amount of sleep to not run into difficult nights again, at least for me. I found how we sleep for one night is not important, what matters is the average amount of sleep we get over the longer term, ie, this always works out to around 6 to 6.5 hours. If I am not overly anxious, difficult nights are usually a result of consistently oversleeping by doing 7-8 hours nights. The body regulates itself and you can choose to worry about sleep but it would all have been over nothing. Studies show insomniacs and non insomniacs actually sleep roughly the same amount on average. The whole thing is a hoax all along.
