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Hello Monica,
Your mindset and possibly poor sleep hygiene such as going to bed much earlier and/or getting out of bed at inconsistent times could be the key reasons you are stuck in this. Go to the success stories section and find out what others did and the kind of thought work that went into their efforts which finally freed them from their dilemmas. Mindset is very important here. You must have the right mindset to finally free yourself from your struggle with sleep. Essentially you may need to do the complete opposite of what seems logical when confronted with this problem. Spending less time in bed, stop chasing sleep and stop saying “I need my sleep, or else etc etc”. Desperate, frightened people desiring more sleep won’t sleep. You get it when you don’t want it, ie, being more willing to spend more time awake and not being afraid of not sleeping anymore. Everyone’s journey is very similar but learning what others went through may shorten the learning curve a lot as long as you are open to lesson and willing to tolerate some discomfort during the journey. Good luck!
Great story! What makes it even better is giving back after recovery, to help and inspire others on their journeys towards a better place where they find relief and sleep much better. Thank you for sharing.
Hello
I am sorry you experienced a poor night sleep. Everyone gets them once in a while. Not going to write a long post here but all I can say is you can only get out of your insomnia by developing the right mindset. It is the key to everything as mindset determines your attitude and behavior towards sleep. Read the success stories here and find out what they did or more importantly what they thought to get past their insomnia. Everyone has what it takes to overcome their insomnia and you too! Good luck and may you find relief soon!Hello Carissa,
It’s great to hear you are making some progress in your sleep after following CBT-i techniques. During this stage, it is very common and very human to want to protect your progress so far and you will find yourself going all out in making attempts to protect future sleep. My advice to you is please DON’T. I caution you against taking these steps, because you are starting to obsess over sleep and are falling back into the hole of insomnia by giving it more attention. Remember insomnia feeds on attention and obessesion. Before you had sleeping problems, did you already have your pet? Yet you still slept fine, didn’t you? So your pet isn’t the problem, your obessesion over sleep is. It is when you have given up ALL efforts and truly not caring how you sleep anymore that you start making further progress. When you reach this stage, you begin to realise that night time sleeplessness isn’t a problem anymore, being more open to and willing to experience sleeplessness. Then you start sleeping really well! That’s when you know you are truly recovered. Good luck!Hello Anna!
It is very very normal to have multiple awakenings in a night. Even normal sleepers have it, in fact it’d be abnormal to not wake up during the night at all, otherwise you’d be in a coma! X isn’t the problem, your reaction to X is! You have simply conditioned your mind to perceive waking up during the night and dreaming as a threat, that something’s wrong and needs to be “fixed” when they are a normal occurrence and nothing to fix at all. You become hyperaroused when this happens, and confusion between asleep and awake states often occurs when you have hyperarousal and sleep drive happening at the same time. It is kinda like driving a car with the emergency brakes on. For normal sleepers who are not hyperaroused, they typically wake up then fall back asleep right away, frequently forgetting they even woke. Try to accept these awakenings as much you can, realise it’s not abnormal and in fact very common, especially in the early mornings when REM sleep is more prevalent. Deep sleep tend to occur early during the night when your sleep drive is very strong then progresses to lighter and REM sleep towards early morning, where dreams and awakenings become more pronounced. Another reason for this is you could be going through menopause or are pregnant or just given birth as hormonal changes during these periods affect sleep too. Otherwise, what you are going through is normal and not reacting vigorously to them will give you the best chance of reverting to normal restful sleep again. Good luck!Hello Michael!
I don’t think listening to other people’s stories about their sleeping problems is going to help you in any big way because insomnia feeds on your attention and obessesion with it. In fact, it could get worse when you hear about horror stories and you then start to panic over it, thinking something’s broken with you. The best course of action when dealing with any sleeping issue is to do nothing about it, make no attempts to “fix” it and continuing on your current sleep schedule (getting into and out of bed at your usual times). That’s it! Good luck!Hello.
Would like to add that sleep works a lot like hunger, they both build up the longer you go without sleeping or eating. The normal period of wakefulness for most people is about 16-18 hours to generate 6-8 hours of sleep, provided you are not anxious or worried or doubt your own ability to sleep unaided. From now on, just go to bed based on the amount of hours spent awake continuously and not what time it is, you can try 17-18 hours at first and then slowly reduce that to 16 hours by going to bed earlier in 15 minutes increments while keeping your out of bed time the same. Keeping to a consistent bedtime schedule is paramount to sleeping well, the most important of which is your out of bed time. You must get up from bed at the same time every day regardless of how you slept because this is how you can get that 16-18 hours of wakefulness in a 24-hour day which then produces the sufficient amount of sleep drive needed to fall asleep and stay asleep for 6-8 hours. Once you understand sleep and how it works, it gets pretty easy. Good luck!Greetings!
Occasional bad nights are very common and normal, even to people who purportedly “never” have sleeping problems. The difference is reaction to them. Some people just shrug it off and never think of it then their sleep pretty much go back to normal, while others start to get worried and then go on an endless exercise of remedies to “fix” the problem like taking melatonin, sleeping pills, going to bed earlier all of which only makes the problem worse. The best course of action after having difficult nights is always do nothing. Just go to and get out of bed at your normal times and that’s it. This is the only way to get out of the vicious cycle of insomnia and/or prevent yourself from getting into one in the first place.Hello!
Question is why within 30 mins must be able sleep? This creates unnecessary pressure to sleep which can drive further sleeplessness and is entirely self-imposed because there is no fixed rule on this. What is the worst that can happen if you just took longer to fall asleep? Why cant you fall asleep on your own terms instead of being dictated to, out of nowhere, like this 30 minutes rule? And what do you do if you cant sleep within the self-imposed 30 mins? Do you get out of bed? And how do you know it’s been 30 mins? Are you constantly checking the clock? Go timeless with your nights. You don’t check the time anymore so you don’t know how long you’ve slept or not sleeping, no need to obesses over it therefore you remove all the pressure to sleep. You are just creating unnecessary conditions for yourself. Just let it go…if your body won’t let you sleep then fine, think about the activities you can do, like reading books on parenting, or you can think about what names to give your child, what activities you would like to do with your child, what schools to send your child to, what kind of qualities or personalities you want to instill onto your child and much more. There are so many other things to think about or do as a parent other than sleep. Which is more important to you: being a better parent or the best sleeper in the world? And so what if you’ve become the world’s best sleeper or even the best sleeper in your own town. Is there even a reward or prize to be won for that?? If there is nothing to be gained, why bother? Just let it be and sleep will take care of itself, all by itself. Be the better parent first. Good luck!Hello Sophia!
Greetings and welcome to this forum. I think everyone here can completely relate to your story. Otherwise normal sleepers may experience just one sleepless night and this then starts them on a path of endless worry and anxiety, often unnecessarily, mainly because they begin to think something’s broken with their system and that ultimately erodes their confidence in being able to sleep unaided. Since you are only 16 now, and you said you’ve taken medications for 6 years, that means you started at 10?? That’s a very young age to be on sleeping aids. What’s your parents take on this?As a former sufferer, I can tell you that everyone can sleep naturally and sleep is actually very easy to understand and simple to achieve. Sleep works a lot like hunger, both are natural biological drives that accumulate the longer you go on without it, ie, not sleeping or eating. So you can ask yourself, how do you get hungry? Well simple, you just go on without eating for a while and you then *WILL* get hungry eventually. You don’t actually need to do anything to get it, it is completely natural and effortless because the body takes care of that all by itself. Everything is a constant state of recharge and discharge, kinda like recharging your phone after using it for a while.
So how does this apply to sleep? Well, you just go to bed after a certain number of hours of *being awake*. For most people, the magic number is 16-18 hours of wakefulness that generates 6-8 hours of sleep. It is as simple as that. From now on, set a time you want to get out of bed and by initially allowing 6-6.5 hours of sleep, you arrive at the earliest time you should go to bed. Always get up at the same time every day no matter how much you slept. Do not compensate for lost sleep in any way (sleeping in, taking naps or going to bed earlier). Your sleep should improve after several weeks of doing this. Then as you slowly build up your confidence, you can increase your time in bed in 15 minute increments every 10 days or 2 weeks by going to bed earlier while keeping your out of bed time the same. Keep doing this until you reach your desired sleep duration.
Bear in mind, since you are currently taking medications you might want to discuss with your doctor about a tapering off plan. Also expect the journey to be ups and downs, the improvement will not be linear because:
1. You have been living with this fear of not being able to sleep for so long now and your brain will need a bit of “reformating” to unlearn the fear. Also, because you are likely falling asleep at irregular times, your body will need some time to readjust to the new sleep schedule.2. You will naturally have some bad nights after a string of good nights. This is a very clear sign of improvement because when you start sleeping well, your natural sleep drive will get lesser as you are no longer as sleep deprived anymore. This will manifest itself as taking longer to fall asleep or waking up earlier than you would like and then finding it harder to fall back asleep. All of these are very common and normal during the recovery process. Not reacting to them strongly will give you the best chance of overcoming them. Try to practise acceptance as much as you can instead of avoidance.
Always be patient, practise self kindness and try to be non judgemental on how you sleep for a particular night. How you sleep in any night has no bearing on how you sleep in the future so always start every night on a fresh page and try not to be attached to the outcome. By practising these simple steps diligently you should be well on your way to sleeping well and naturally in the long term. Good luck!
Greetings!
Great to hear such enthusiasm and optimism. I can see you well on your way to sleeping well again. I hope as you embark on this journey, you eventually come to a realisation that there is no enemy and no battle to fight at all. There never was. This whole thing was just a set of misconcepted perceptions and your incredibly strong reaction to it. Once you reach this stage, you will get your “Aha” or “Eureka” moment. Then you will reach sleep nirvana, the moment when you achieve a state of an enlightened truth and you start to understand the whole picture. Good news when you reach this stage, insomnia will never bother you again, sort of like you got the “insomnia jab”. Good luck!Hello flight!
If that’s the case, then don’t expect a fast remedy. I have yet to meet anyone who’s journey to recovery took just couple of weeks. How long have you had sleeping problems? Because most people’s insomnia are chronic cases, they’ve most likely lived with this fear or doubting their ability to sleep for quite a long time and it *will* take time to resolve. I would recommend you to go to youtube and check out this series of videos called insomnia insight by daniel erichsen. Lots of info there about sleep, insomnia and how to get over it. Good luck!Have you done a medical evaluation or seen a doctor? You may need that to rule out your cause of insomnia isn’t caused by an underlying health issue. Check your thyroid. How’s your heart health? Do you have other comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes or hyperlipidemia?
Hello flight…
Why are you flushed and sweaty? Are you sleeping in a hot environment?You need to keep your room cool, dark and quiet for the best sleeping experience.
Hello!
Are you now getting out of bed at inconsistent times depending on what time you fell asleep and then at the next day you are going to bed at the same time or earlier? This is the classic reason why sleep problems develop. Getting out of bed at inconsistent times and then trying to sleep after being awake for less than 16-18 hours. From now, set a time where you get out of bed at the same time regardless of how much you slept. Keep your out of bed time consistent and that is your anchor, no more sleeping in, no naps during the day and no compensating for lost sleep by going to bed earlier. Do this for at least a few weeks and you should return to your 7.5-9 hours sleep routine.
