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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.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.
