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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.
Hello Tlusebrink
You are on the right track! By doing these 3 things you will do extremely well:
1. Have a regular bedtime schedule. Trying not to sleep at other times. This alone is 75-80% of the work already.
2. Being NATTO, aka, not attached to the outcome, ie, not attached to how you sleep. Trying to create a distance between your thoughts and emotional well-being and acknowledge that many things your brain warns you about, especially about sleep, are way overblown and dead wrong. Over time this will get easier as you begin letting go.
3. Try your best not to research too much on sleep, or have too many questions because of over thinking and just accepting sleep as it is. I found sleep is basically just a numbers game. If I am up for 16-18 hours continously, then sleep is extremely likely to happen because sleep drive works a lot like hunger and accumulates the longer you go on without it. Best wishes.Hello
Your story is so extremely familiar and very typical of a person struggling to sleep. It almost always starts with a poor night, and then you begin to panic over it because of perceived bad outcomes like purported health consequences or having a bad day at work. This then develops into an obessesion and you end up trying countless methods to “fix your sleep” or “figure this out”. My advice is don’t go down this rabbit hole of trying the various fixes because there’s nothing wrong with you. Your sleeplessness isn’t the problem, but you thinking that there’s a problem, that becomes the problem in itself.Your most effective solution to break the cycle of insomnia is to always not react strongly to poor nights and continuing your normal bedtime routine, practicing non attachment, being non judgmental on how you sleep and a lot of patience. Ultimately you want to reach the stage where you have complete confidence in yourself agian. Normal people sleep well because they are confident of sleeping and having this confidence back is what you want to achieve. For most people with sleeping problems, they continue to have problems because they get impatient with the process and become frustrated with how long it’s taking. Don’t commit this common mistake! Just get into and out of bed at your regular times, don’t worry if you can’t sleep well initially, don’t track your sleep by clock watching or using sleep tracking devices, be patient and compassionate to yourself if poor nights happen (which is common anyway because everyone gets bad nights occasionally) and truly believe that your sleep will get back on track over time. This is how you will recover. Best wishes.
Hello Galina!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. You finally see the light in this! That saying rings as true for sleep as
for eating which is “sleep to live, not live to sleep”.Hello Edgar!
The best quick fix is do nothing. Challenge your deeply- ingrained notion that “you absolutely MUST sleep, by hook or by crook”. It’s perhaps your unwillingness or even stubborness to explore the other side that you can still do well despite sleeping less
and coupled with your impatience and frustration why results aren’t coming quick enough that you continue to run into trouble for years now?Hello Cindy
Just one word. WOW. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story. I guess everyone’s journey is slightly different but they all lead to the same place. Towards having that confidence of being able to sleep naturally again and that nothing you do or think can shake that confidence. As well as enjoying bedtime and sleeping again, as you so eloquently describe it. For me, I realise keeping a distance between my thoughts and emotions are key to my recovery and the realization that sleep is just a numbers game. Eventually I manage to keep my thoughts so distant from affecting me that they become fleeting (comes and goes) and sometimes I even laugh at myself for reacting so strongly before. I eventually came to realize that if I am up for X hours, then sleep is extremely likely to happen. I began letting go and trusting my body again. Congratulations on your newborn and I hope you find smashing success in your music career.Hello Chez,
If you can’t sleep past 6 hours, have you ever entertained the possibility that you actually do not need to sleep more than 6 hours per night? Well if you have eliminated some of the possible causes, those left behind become much more likely and if only one is left, then that must be one. Our sleep changes as we age and older people do need less sleep. Perhaps stop comparing how you sleep now to before when you were much younger? Ironically, one of the most effectively cures for insomnia is to stop seeking answers and becoming more accepting of your own body. Try it. Stop researching sleep, stop seeing the professionals and not caring how much or how you sleep from now on. Just have a regular bedtime schedule. Sometimes that can be the final piece of the puzzle, to give up completely. Best wishes to you.
