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Hi Jake!
I discovered worrying about not sleeping well was a hoax all along. I found what really matters is the average sleep duration over the longer term, and this tends to balance out. Usually for me, this is somewhere between 6-7 hours and I found if I slept 7-8 hours by frequently sleeping in, this sets me up for progressively difficult nights down the road. So you can choose to worry about it, but it would all have been over nothing.Hello and greetings!
If you are suddenly relapsing after sleeping really well, it is almost certainly because you are overdoing it by oversleeping. Try restricting your time in bed. Try sleeping 7.5 hours instead of 8. Then cut that down to 7 if the difficult nights still persist. Your sleep history affects your future sleep, nothing unusual going on there. Think about it for a moment. Your body is an efficient survival machine, and it is during sleep that we are most vulnerable, less productive and your body undergoes the essential maintenance. So ideally it will only want to sleep just enough to keep everything functioning well whilst keeping you safe and productive. Best wishes to you.Greetings
Sleep can seem unrestful if you try to sleep with a weak sleep drive, aka not sleepy, or you have lots of sleep related anxiety or both. Try not to think too much about sleep. Your body will sleep when it wants to, and try not get caught up in trying to control it. If you have anxiety about not sleeping well, then this is almost impossible because it is like having a fear of hunger, but then you instinctly go and eat when your hunger drive gets so very strong it overrides everything else and you just had to eat. Same thing with sleep. Let your body tells you when it wants to eat, sleep or be active. Sleep only when sleepy. Eat only when hungry. Don’t worry, be happy, everything’s fine and there’s nothing broken with you.As I read your post, I wonder if you ever felt true and pure sleepiness? I have and when I get it, there’s no space inside my head for anxiety, worry, hyperarousal or whatever; the craving for sleep is so intense and I just want to sleep and that’s it. Maybe your frequent alcohol binges to knock yourself out has made you forgotten what it really feels like to be extremely sleepy. Yawning endlessly doesn’t cut it. I think you have conditioned yourself to be this way after years of trying to control sleep and not letting your body decide when it wants to. You know what, have zero rules, go to bed when extremely sleepy and get out whenever you feel like you’ve got enough. My cats do this and seem happy. Nobody is making this any difficult than it has to other than yourself trying to actively interfere in a core biological process.
Greetings!
Since you tried so many stuffs and nothing worked, what about not trying anymore?? Just give up completely. Go to bed when sleepy and get out 6 hours later. That’s it. Stop trying so hard! Sleep is easy and natural, no effort needed.Greetings!
Best wishes to you and I hope you do well. Try not to be obessesed about sleep and be patient and kind to yourself. Your situation is not unique; all parents suffer from some kind of sleep disruption and that’s okay! The human body is built to be super flexible about sleep to cater for different needs to ensure our survival such as parenting, foraging for food, hunting etc. Good luck.Greetings!
The short answer is yes. You can be flexible with your sleep window to suit your lifestyle. Before I had insomnia, I was a night owl and only went to bed at 3-4 am, sleeping until 10-11 am. Then I selected an initial sleep window of 1-6 am, giving myself only 5 hours. As I got better, I went to bed progressively earlier in 15 mins intervals while still getting up at 6am no matter how much I slept. My bedtime is now 10-1030 pm to 6-645am. As long as you get out of bed at the same time everyday, it doesn’t really matter as you will find yourself getting sleepier earlier in the evening if you consistently get out of bed earlier. Be patient with yourself and the first few weeks may be tough as you may experience more sleepiness throughout the day. But stick to the plan and try not to sleep at other times, you should do well. Best wishes!Greetings!
Meds don’t make you sleep. It was your body that did all that all along. All meds do is sedate you and sedation isn’t sleeping. The thing is the story you tell yourself about your sleep tends to come true, ie, if you tell yourself you can’t sleep without meds then you can’t. Or if you do the opposite and believe you can sleep without meds then you can sleep. Actively seek evidence in the past or even in the future that you slept without meds and slowly build on that narrative that meds are a non factor in sleeping. Nothing ever was or will. What did was the regular bedtime schedule because human beings tend to be sleepy naturally after being awake 16-18 hours. Going forward, make this your anchor where if you know you’ve been awake sufficiently, then sleep is extremely likely to happen as long as you don’t get in the way with excessive worry or anxiety. Good luck and always be patient and kind to yourself.Hello kjs16
It is always not reacting to bad nights that your improvement continues and you begin climbing out of the hole of insomnia. Continue on your daytime activities as if nothing happened. Resist the overwhelming temption to go down the rabbit hole of trying different things, trying to “fix” things, trying to avoid the bad nights, it was doing those things that got you into trouble in the first place. Over time, hopefully you start becoming more comfortable with both good and bad nights and pay very little attention to how you sleep, then you sleep really well! It is always the fear of sleeping badly and the fear of returning to those sleepless nights that drives people to pressure themselves into sleeping and that’s when things get really tough which develops into more sleepless nights. Stop trying so hard to sleep well, sleep should be natural and effortless. Do nothing, expect nothing is your best way forward. Best wishes to you and congratulations on becoming a parent.Hello Rosie!
After how much sleep do you find yourself waking up to use the bathroom? Instead of thinking you MUST sleep after that, why not change your mindset and begin asking yourself why is it you must force yourself to sleep, is it truly important that you sleep? Could you redirect your thoughts into some other things other than sleep like, what do I feel like doing today, or can I just have an early start to the day and have breakfast since I can’t sleep anyway? Or just enjoying the peaceful moments in your bed, appreciating the serenity and silence, the warm and comfort of your bed? Try not making sleep the focus, being totally accepting of your situation because you have no control over it anyway and letting go may just be your answer! Best wishes.It always gets tricky whenever you try to figure out sleep and its related components; it just isn’t helpful to launch barrage after barrage of questions about sleep, and quite frequently these questions are not very easy to answer and the answers you get may not help you or anyone as they can lead you further down the hole. Always practice acceptance and non reaction as your first step. After that continue to maintain your regular bedtime schedule. The answer is usually as simple as that. Or if you have genuine concerns that this might be something else or is health-related, it’s better to consult your doctor to do a physical examination because nobody in this forum is able to help you on this other than just giving moral support and guidance.
Greetings!
You are doing very well! By letting go of control and letting sleep happen you seem to be on track to sleeping normally again. Going forward, I would advise you to stop questioning your sleep too much and just accept whatever comes. Your mind will have many questions, no doubt, but by not actively trying to seek answers or “fix something that isn’t broken”, will ensure you don’t go down the slippery slope down the hole back into insomnia again. Ultimately, you wanna reach a stage where despite your mind having all these questions, you go “The answers don’t matter anymore, they don’t help me sleep better or the answers may lead to more questions and grow bigger and bigger and just never stops coming.” So you need to draw the line and say to yourself “I think that’s enough now. There’s nothing wrong with me and there’s nothing to fix here”.Do nothing except keeping to a regular bedtime schedule and enjoying your day the best you can, you will do very well! Accept that occasional bad nights may still happen, don’t react to them and recognizing that they are a sign you are sleeping really well. Best wishes!
Greetings!
Dreams are a healthy part of sleep. Occasional vivid dreams are pretty common too, just don’t react too strongly to them and you’ll be fine.Hi Anastasia!
You will continue to have problems as long as you continue pressuring yourself to sleep and deem sleep as something that can be controlled with futile efforts instead of just letting happen. The best you can do for sleep are just things that promote sleep such as having regular bedtimes, getting out of bed at same time everyday, cool dark environment for sleep, enjoying your day etc. The rest is up to your body.Hello!
As someone who’s recovered, I can completely relate to your story and I’m telling you that worrying unnecessarily over bad sleep is what’s causing your sleeplessness, which by itself, isn’t a problem. But you thinking there’s a problem as if your life or death depends on it and your subsequent over-reaction, that becomes the problem in itself. Your impatience in trying to fix this quickly and the frustration over how long it’s taking makes the problem persist indefinitely.Very often, you can fix this by just having a fixed bedtime schedule, ie getting into and out of bed at the same time everyday and no sleeping at other times, enjoying your day the best you can and being very patient with yourself because full recovery isn’t going to happen overnight but slowly over weeks sometimes months depending on your personality and how accepting you are of your situation. At times you are just going to accept defeat and say “Insomnia, you win. I won’t try to fight you anymore because it’s futile.” Accepting that bad nights will happen no matter what you do, that worrying about them isn’t going to help and will instead make it worse and avoid taking measures to improve sleep and stop questioning too much what and why this is happening, is crucial. Just accept what your body is going through and do nothing for sleep except having a regular bedtime routine will ensure you don’t have to suffer longer than necessary.
Accept that sleep is just a number game, most people feel sleepy after being up for at least 16-18 hours and by not getting in the way of sleep with excessive worry and anxiety (these will take time to go away so please be patient with yourself), most people including you will eventually sleep well again. If you find you can’t sleep well initially, don’t be so hard on yourself because this is normal and you can either get up and do something enjoyable or just have an early start to your day. Over time your sleep will improve and you find yourself spending more time in bed asleep. Good luck and best wishes.
