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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.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.
