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I recommend you go to success stories section and read how others dealt with their sleep anxieties. Basically stop the fighting, stop avoiding bad nights like the plague, stop the struggle, really and truly giving up control over sleep. Practise as much acceptance as you can instead of avoidance. Always be kind to yourself, be non judgmental about how you sleep on a particular night. Start every night on a fresh page with optimism and confidence. Try not to be too attached to the outcome. Treat sleep not as an achievement where you must sleep X hours, but more as a process which you have no complete control over which you can make more likely to happen once you know you are awake a sufficient amount (at least 16 hours). You can do this, so many people have overcome their sleeping problems and absolutely no reason why you can’t either. Good luck.
Hello
Yours is a very typical story. When you’ve made progress, it becomes completely natural and humanly to want to protect that progress made so far plus the relentless drive to make further improvements becomes all too enticing. Your mind will come up with a million things that it thinks could affect your sleep and will keep asking you to take care of them. You then go down the rabbit hole of trying endless sleep efforts, as your mind bombards you with thoughts like “what if I do this or that” , “was it the melatonin that made me sleep well” and the list goes on and on. Then before you know it, you fall right back into that dark, bottomless pit of insomnia as you become completely consumed in your obessesion with sleep. My advice is to always ignore those thoughts and the temptations to try different things, and to accept whatever outcome you get. You can listen to your mind, acknowledge those thoughts but do not fight them because it is futile (you can never win a battle against your own mind). Just choose to do absolutely nothing. The key is always acceptance with whatever your mind presents you with. Accept whatever thoughts and outcome you get, so over time, you train your mind to not focus only on results and outcome, to become less attached to them. Then as you sleep better, your confidence will improve and thoughts have less power over you until you are not bothered with them anymore. Then comes the point where you know you can and will sleep no matter what your mind says. That’s when you know you are truly recovered. When you’ve recovered, you may even laugh at yourself when your mind tries to scare you into believing that you can’t sleep because you know it’s completely false. Building up your confidence is key. Good luck!
Hello Kelly
Keep going! Ultimately you want to replace the words “I hope” to “I know I can” or “I just can so I’m not worried anymore”. Best of luck.I see that you are a client so maybe it’d be best to refer to your coach on how to address those issues. I have also written extensively and nothing has changed since then. It is your mindset and thoughts that’s keeping you up, refusing to give up control over sleep, refusing to experience discomfort and refusing to accept nothing less than a “perfect sleep”. Your worries always remain regardless of how you sleep anyway, so why bother anymore?? Over time, you start to realise the futility of it all and you give up trying or controlling, that’s when you start sleeping really well! It will take time to remove deeply ingrained thoughts and behavior. Remain patient and committed!
Hello Connold!
The thing about anxiety is the more you try to escape it, the more hold it has over you. The whole thing then spirals out of control and you get caught up in the vicious cycle. Look up Dr Claire Weekes and her method for treating anxiety disorders. Basically stop escaping your fears and confront them head on. Sometime even challenge them by saying “Is that all you got??” Over time, you get accustomed to them and are not afraid anymore.Are you sleeping at regular times? Getting into and out of bed at regular times are crucial for sleeping well, especially the getting out of bed! Normal human beings need 16-18 hours of wakefulness in order to generate 6-8 hours of sleep. So if you have had a disrupted night and you then compensate for it by sleeping in and/or going to bed earlier the following night, you run into problems of not sleeping or having fragmented sleep. From now on, just get up of bed at the same time every day regardless of how you slept. No sleeping in, naps or going to bed earlier. But you can go to bed later just not earlier, whatever the time you went to bed, always get up at the same time because that’s how you get the 16-18 hours of wakefulness to generate sufficient sleep drive to fall asleep and stay asleep. Just do this for at least several weeks and your sleep will improve. Stop any clock watching and go completely timeless. Resist the urge to track or monitor your sleep.
You will find after sleeping well, you find it taking longer to fall asleep or you may wake up earlier than you want. This is normal and to be expected. Ignoring them the best you can will help your sleep improve further with time. Utimately you reach a stage where you have absolute confidence in your ability to sleep and sleep great, like all normal sleepers! Be patient, persevere and try to be non judgmental about how you slept for a particular night. Good luck!
Hello Connold!
Your story is so very normal and you are not going crazy. You are just overreacting to a natural phenomenon. Nobody knows why hypnic jerks happen, but they frequently occur during times of intense fatigue or heightened arousal, as in your case. Normal sleep happens like this: slowly, slowly then all at once, before you even know it. It’s kinda like being in an airplane during landing, very rough when it first hits the ground, bounces off then hits the ground less roughly again then everything just smooths out after that. Go to youtube and research hypnic jerks, there’s plenty out there including one by Martin Reed. Good luck. Once you start not reacting so strongly to them, your sleep will get back on track. Good luck!Hello Kelly!
You are doing fine, in fact you are doing very well because it shows you can sleep without aids. What you need now is building self-confidence in sleeping on your own. At this moment what is your level of confidence? Do you think these statements are true to you? “I’m not a normal sleeper, I’m not like everyone else.”, “Other people can go to bed and sleep, I just don’t or I’m unsure.” If these ring true to you, then it’s your mindset that’s keeping you from sleeping. It’s only when you reach the stage where you are 100% sure of your sleep ability, you start sleeping well again. Continue doing your cbt-i techniques of going and getting out of bed at regular times as you build your confidence. I recommend you go to youtube and search for this video “cure your chronic insomnia by effortless sleep method” by yousquared. A lot of universal truths about sleep there in that short 10 min video.You are a critical junction of the recovery path and building confidence is of utmost importance. Therefore don’t go down the rabbit hole of seeking cures, trying endlessly to find “something” else other than your own ability. That will only take you further deeper into the hole of insomnia as it undermines your own confidence. The story you tell about your sleep *will* eventually come true. Therefore if you don’t believe you can sleep unaided or are unsure, it becomes self-fulfilling.
Do only these two things:
1. Continue keeping to a regular bed time schedule.
2. Stop trying so hard to sleep = being okay with wakefulness = building self confidence = believing you can sleep on your own.You will start sleeping more as your confidence improves. Be patient and persevere. Good luck!
Hello Bee!
Great to hear you’ve made progress! You are finally experiencing true natural sleep which is surely better than 8 hours of drugged sleep. I read your post and the thing is this: *The story you tell yourself about your sleep WILL come true*. Which is exactly what’s happening in your case. Go to youtube and search for “Cure chronic insomnia by the effortless method” by Yousquared based on the book “The effortless sleep method” by Sasha Stephens. It is just a 10 minute video but is full of the universal truths about sleep. Ultimately you want to get to the stage where you have complete confidence in your ability to sleep, much like every normal sleeper. Keep going and you will get there! Good luck!Very good video on youtube on insomnia based on the book “An effortless sleeping method” by Sasha Stephens. Search “Cure Chronic Insomnia with The Effortless Sleep Method” by YouSquared. Only 10 mins long but full of universal truths about sleep. The ultimate clutch to get you sleeping and indeed also for everyone else is to “believe in the ability to sleep, all on your own”. All recovery paths no matter how different they look will take you to this place eventually.
Hi Sophia
Very typical story of a path toward recovery. I told you after sleeping well, you will find it harder and taking longer to sleep at first or you might wake earlier than you want to. All these are manifestations of sleeping well because of reduced sleep drive. Just continue the regular getting in and out of bed at consistent times, and personally, I wouldn’t get out of bed when I cant sleep, I just lay there and let sleep catch me. Good luck.Hello…
People who have sleep anxiety and trouble sleeping like yourself typically share an identical recovery path. So your case is not unique or uncommon. The most important factors to sleeping well are always:
1. Go to and get out of bed at consistent times with no sleeping in between. Start by allowing 6 hours and slowly increase that once you feel ready.
2. Develop the correct mindset. I suggest you read the success stories section to find out what other did. This is very important because mindset determines your behaviors and attitudes.Like everyone else who has gone through and overcome insomnia, you can do this! Good luck.
Hello
So sorry to hear about your condition. You need just two things to sleep well again:
1. Go to and get out of bed at consistent times. No sleeping in between. Start at allowing for 6 hours then slowly increase that once you are sleeping more and feel you are ready.
2. Develop the right mindset. Go to the success stories section, learn how others dealt with their problems and ultimately how they got out of the vicious cycle of insomnia. Things like letting go of control, not caring how you sleep and being non jugdmental about your sleep. Very very important. You must have the right mindset because it is what shapes your behaviors and attitude towards sleep. Good luck! Everyone can overcome insomnia including you.Hello Anne-Claire
What an excellent insight and so very inspiring. Insomnia isn’t always a bad thing, if anyone is willing to look at it from another angle, not only do you get over it, it also teaches you some very important things about life in general. Things like acceptance, letting go of control, patience, perseverance and ultimately, compassion not only toward oneself but also toward others. Keep on inspiring!Thanks for posting. You should enjoy your time awake and not feel like you are being forced to do something if it isnt something you enjoy. There is no fixed rule for what you can or cannot do in bed or out of bed when you cant sleep. Because nothing can generate sleepiness or cause you to fall asleep except being awake long enough which builds sleep drive. Good luck!
Hello Sophia!
Great to hear from you again and that you are sleeping better. What you are going through is extremely common to everyone during this part of the recovery, thoughts like “What if my insomnia comes back??” The answer is always acknowledgement and acceptance whatever your mind wants to tell you about. Worried you cant sleep because you neighbour dog keeps barking? Accept. Worried drinking too much water before bed causing you to go to toilet more often therefore affecting your sleep? Accept. Your mind will come up with a million excuses of how your sleep will be affected. Your response: Whatever man, I accept these thoughts. Just accept whatever your mind tries to warn you about. Never fight or try to escape from your thoughts because this is what your brain is wired to do, keeping you safe from any potential threats like not sleeping. You cant avoid your thoughts but you can choose whether to believe it or not. Do you have to believe every single thing your mind keeps warning you about? Well, no because most of them are likely future events and who knows what can happen in the future. You live in the present moment so try to enjoy your day as much as you can, do things centred on your personal enjoyment and development, not sleep. Tell yourself you will deal with any sleep disruption WHEN it happens, not before, IF it happens. But you are much more likely to sleep if you follow the rule of allowing enough wakefulness before going to bed so these thoughts and the associated anxiety will start become fleeting (pops into your head then pops back out again because you pay less and less attention to them) then disappear completely. Then if you do sleep poorly occasionally, which is normal because everyone gets poor nights once in a while, continue your day as if nothing happen and be non jugdmental about it. Your sleep should recover the next day if you do nothing. You are doing great and slowly getting there. Hope to hear about your success story soon! Keep it up!
