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Hello Harvey!
Great to hear you are sleeping better. I too discovered many things about sleep when I developed sleeping problems back in Aug. Now I considered myself completely recovered. What I now know about sleep is that it is just a biological process that inevitably happens after a person has stayed up long enough. And that’s all there is about sleep, really. Ahsolutely nothing else except just a biological process your body goes through. I found waking several times during the night is very common too! It is how you respond to them which makes falling back asleep easier or more difficult. Forget about the 8 hour sleep myth. No healthy person gets them, really, because nobody falls asleep for 8 continuous hours and then wakes up like someone flicked a switch inside their heads from asleep to wide awake. The human body just doesn’t work like that. It is governed by a myraid of hormones such as melatonin, cortisol etc which controls pretty much everything from sleepiness to hunger, mood etc. Because of the influence of hormones, there is a spectrum of sleepiness that everyone gets. Like I said, it is not a switch that gets flicked from sleepy to wide awake after you spent X hours sleeping. So inside every wakefulness there is always a bit of sleepiness and vice versa! Kinda like a yin-yang thing. So during sleep, there will be brief moments of wakefulness too. Sleepiness and wakefulness are two sides of the same coin. That’s why people can fall asleep at almost anytime, especially shift workers who need to work inconsistent hours. The duration of that sleep will depend on sleep drive, which then depends on, like I said, the amount of time spent awake. Nature gaves us this flexibility so we can forage for food depending on the season or to look out for danger guarding the community in coordinated shifts.It is very common and normal to have deep sleep in the earlier part of the night when sleep drive is strong and drifting between lighter and
REM sleep towards the morning where wakefulness and dreams will get more pronounced. You may also get lots of morning wood in the early morning and that is very normal and healthy too! Once you have fallen asleep, your body completely takes over and you then go through all the stages of sleep in the same way your body goes through digestion after having your meals. Both processes cannot be consciously controlled. I would like to end this post in wishing you continued success in your journey of self-discovery about sleep although you may not discover anything new other than what you already are experiencing now, because sleep is really passive and no amount of effort, mental or physical, can alter it.I will reproduce the contents of the article here. I don’t mean to plagiarise any of the material but simply to benefit the sufferers here to take comfort in the fact that sleeping 6-7 hours is very healthy! So here goes:
Study Ties 6-7 Hours of Sleep to Longer Life
Research suggests that adults live longer if they get six or seven hours of sleep a night rather than the accepted standard of eight hours.
The research is based on a nationwide survey of 1.1 million adults. It found that those who slept eight hours a night were 12 percent more likely to die within six years than those who got 6.5 to 7.5 hours of sleep. The increased risk was more than 15 percent for those who reported getting more than 8.5 hours or less than about 4 hours nightly.
The participants were ages 30 to 102. Few reported frequent insomnia, which was not associated with an increased risk of death.
”Additional studies are needed to determine if setting your alarm clock earlier will actually improve your health,” said the lead author, Dr. Daniel Kripke, a psychiatrist at the University of California at San Diego.
The study was published in the February issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Sleep experts said the research had several flaws. The study was not designed to look at sleep’s effect on longevity. It relied on patients’ recollections of their sleep habits and did not ask if they took naps. It did not look at the quality of people’s sleep or whether they felt drowsy all day.
Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s sleep disorders center, said participants who got little sleep or slept eight hours or more may have had medical problems that would explain their increased death rate.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 15, 2002, Section A, Page 14 of the National edition with the headline: Study Ties 6-7 Hours of Sleep to Longer Life.
I experienced my first sleepless night at the end of Aug 2020 and was back to sleeping normally by Dec same year. What I actually realise now is that I had beaten insomnia way earlier, perhaps by Oct but I was still chasing and chasing sleep before realising I had hit the end of the road in my recovery in Dec. Most people who have insomnia don’t realise this. The end of the recovery road is much shorter than most people think and that they may actually be there already. Do not chase that 8 hours myth because most people don’t actually sleep for 8 hours continuously and that 6-7 hours are pretty much more normal. Studies show too that people who sleep in the 6-7 hours are in the sweet spot, as reported in the NY Times, under an article titled “Study Ties 6-7 Hours of Sleep to Longer Life”. Look up the article in google, read it and relish in the fact that more is not better, in fact it may be more detrimental to your health.
5. Try laughing. What about laughing at your insomnia?? Be creative when your mind presents you with a sleep worry thought. Repackage that thought as Mr. Bean dancing around hilariously, as a kitten chasing its own tail, as a reindeer pulling Santa around, or anything that’s really funny and therefore, less believable. Be playful with your own fearful thoughts, but doing so, you show them they don’t control you.
Hi there!
What do you mean sleep naturally? Are you currently taking medications to sleep? By definition, every healthy person is a natural sleeper with the exception of extremely rare familial insomnia cases. The difference between all sleepers is just whether they are having normal or disrupted sleep.Oh yes, that is very typical of recovering from insomnia and is a good sign that things are going really well. The reason you are regressing is because you are sleeping really well! Naturally your sleep drive is getting reduced and because of this and you are recovering from being sleep-deprived. I went through this as well. I too got out of bed when I couldn’t sleep within 20 minutes and it was super counter-productive. Getting out of bed got me super anxious and made awake for at least 2 hours more while if I just stayed in bed, I would have drifted back to sleep in much less time. That is just my personal experience, everyone is different. If you are not anxious about being awake in bed, just stay in bed like I am. Or for normal sleepers for that matter. Normal sleepers don’t get out of bed every 20 minutes, they just stay in bed. I now allow 8.5 hours for sleep, I find I can sleep straight for 6-7 hours, before getting up the first time to use the toilet and going back to bed. The second leg of sleep is usually lighter, often drifting between light and REM sleep and comes in intermittent bouts. I discover my minimum sleep duration is 6 to 6.5 hours before my body will wake me up without fail. Any sleep I get after that is considered bonus to me, which my body doesn’t really need but is giving me anyway, because: 1. I am completely relaxed and not anxious at all. 2. The ideal conditions for sleeping are present namely being in a cool, dark room and getting really comfortable between the sheets. Sleep is no longer some mysterious black box to me, I discover it is the staying awake long enough that is putting me to sleep pretty quickly and unfailingly every single time, not what time it is when going to bed or taking any sleeping medications or doing any kind of sleep efforts like the so called relaxation/breathing techniques, the sleepy teas or the apps designed to help calm/relax you in bed. I got rid of them all and went from sleepless nights to sleeping really well now! Sleep is a paradox, the less effort you do to sleep and the longer you stay awake, the better it gets!
Hello
You are alloting more than 9 hours of sleep, which is way too many for a person of your age (I assume you’d be in your sixties). Most people your age would do fine with just 7-8 hours. If you want to sleep really well, paradoxically, the solution is sleep less. When you sleep less, you spend more time awake thereby building up your sleep drive. Sleep drive works exactly the same way as hunger, they get stronger the longer you go without sleeping/eating.Hello Sandra,
I think you are confused between taking longer to fall asleep and not being able to sleep? I also went through that myself, and I blindly followed the CBT-i technique of getting out of bed whenever I couldn’t fall asleep within a certain time and when that happened, I would always get anxious about not sleeping and a poor night would ensue. Now, I just stay in bed no matter how long it takes me to fall asleep, I always fall asleep in the end, but just might take longer and that’s just because of having slept well the night before.Hi Sandra,
The classic yo-yo sleeping pattern is very common for someone who is recovering from insomnia, I went through it myself and now considered myself cured. The reason you are having “poor” nights after good ones is because you are sleeping too well from your good nights! When you slept well, naturally your sleep drive is less for the following night and you then find it harder to fall asleep. How many hours are you alloting for sleep each night? If it is more than 8 hours, you might be oversleeping on your good nights, and this combined with the anxiety and surprise why the good nights can’t be repeated consistently, often sets you up for a subsequent “poor” night. Try reducing your time in bed and find what works for you. Most people only spend 7 hours in bed and are sleeping for 6, because regular awakenings throughout the night, of which most people won’t even remember, could take up an hour or more of their time in bed. I still find it harder to fall asleep occasionally, this is often when I’ve slept more than 8 hours the previous night, so when I go to bed at my regular time, I’ve been up less than my usual 17 hours to generate that 7 hours of sleep. But I don’t do stimulus control of getting out of bed anymore because I am no longer anxious about not sleeping in bed, I just stay and relax in bed, very often without fail, I would find myself drifting off to sleep. This is now my typical “poor” night. Just taking longer to sleep after sleeping really well the night before! Try it and see it solves your yo-yo sleeping pattern. If you can condition your mind to not get anxious about being awake in bed, then just stay in bed and you may find yourself drifting to sleep like I am.Hello Tatyana
First time I wanna say is There is absolutely nothing wrong with you! It is just your thoughts about sleep that is causing and perpetuating your sleep disruption. Nobody sleeps fine one night and then “lose it forever” afterwards. It just doesn’t happen that way. Most likely it is your fear and anxiety that is causing continual insomnia because everyone can sleep! Absolutely no doubt about that. When you went to bed early before all this started, how long have you spent awake? If it’s less than 17-18 hours then of course you found it hard to sleep. Sleep drive is a lot like hunger, it builds from not sleeping (or eating) long enough. Let’s say your regular bedtime is midnight, and your regular wake time is 7 or 8 am. That’s 16-17 hours of wakefulness that generates 7-8 hours of sleep. If suddenly, you then go to bed early at 9 or 10pm due to an early morning engagement the next morning, and you’ve woken up at 8am that morning, you’ve only spent 13-14 hours awake and that amount of waketime is simply not sufficient to build the sleep drive you need to fall asleep and stay asleep. I find the amount of time spent continuously awake is the single key determinant of the quality of sleep we then get. Nothing can generate sleepiness, no medicines, no sleepy teas, no supplements EXCEPT being awake SUFFICIENTLY.Excellent for you! I too have recovered from insomnia. I am much more educated and aware about sleep. I now sleep very soundly, in fact, I sleep even better than before my insomnia!
So you are saying you sleep until 8am every morning then go to bed again at 10pm? That’s just 14 hours spent awake. Normal human beings need to be awake at least 16 hours to generate 8 hours of sleep every night. But most people sleep only 6 hours anyway so 18 hours of continuous wakefulness is more appropriate. Sleepiness is like hunger, it builds from not sleeping/eating. If you try to sleep after just 14 hours spent awake, your body might think you just want to nap, which is kinda like having snacks before your main meal. Then when you’ve taken your snacks, of course your hunger is reduced. Try going to bed at a time based on hours spent awake continuously, not what time it is. In your case, I think it would be appropriate to try 17-18 hours. You’ve just told me you stayed up until 2am on a Fri, after which you slept all the way to 9 am? Well that’s a hint there because if you wake at 8am and then stay awake until 2am, that’s 18 hours spent awake, most people would have a healthy sleep drive after being up this long. Experiment what works for you, try 16,17,18 hours. I hope you find this helps. Good luck!
Hello there,
In that long post, you havent mentioned what time do you wake up after falling asleep at 3am? I am thinking something along the line of a sleep chronotype thing, that you might be a night owl, i.e., you tend to sleep better with a later bedtime. Have you tried going to bed at midnight? You also haven’t mentioned how you feel during the day after your perceived poor sleep. Do you feel sleepy or keep struggling to stay awake throughout the day? Some people naturally only need 5 hours of sleep and normal people actually only sleep 6 hours instead of the usual eight, actually spending roughly an hour or so awake. Again I’m no expert, maybe Martin or Scott has a better answer for you. But in any case, I hope you find something that works for you in the long run.
Hello Stu
I am so sorry you are going through a rough patch now. Sometimes it is the struggle with sleeplessness that is making it worse. Indeed that was the case with me and I now consider myself recovered and no longer having insomnia. I realise during my recovery that it was my struggle with sleep that were making the symptoms worse, like being lethargic, nervous, scared and having physical symptoms like you described, all day. I got involuntary muscle twitches very frequently too. When night time came around, I would get very nervous and of course, I then couldn’t get any sleep. These symptoms are very common with people who are struggling mentally and physically with something that just doesn’t respond to any type of effort, mental and physical. A mental struggle can be as exhausting as a physical one. I eventually got better once I gave up the struggle. Being okay with not sleeping and not caring how I slept for a particular night. Be friends with wakefulness because being awake is not a threat and you have simply conditioned your mind into perceiving it is a some sort of danger that needs immediate addressing. So you need to work on that aspect. Other things that helped include only going to bed when sleepy, for me that’s being awake for at least 16-18 hours, having no expectation of sleeping (in other words, not being attached with the outcome and lying in bed resting can be as comforting) and the more I gave up on sleeping, the faster, better and longer I slept. That is basically it. Sleep is natural and effortless, not a struggle. Don’t treat like going to bed as if going to battle or going to an exam hall to take a test. There is nothing to learn or fight against when it comes to sleeping. There are no prizes to be won for winning the “battle” or passing the “exam”. It is just something every human being is naturally good at. Sleeping!
