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The answer is very subjective. Because insomnia itself is very subjective and personal. Insomnia is essentially a problem of your own definition. You think sleeping anything less than X hours, you automatically think you have insomnia. On the other hand, another person sleeps 4-5 hours but doesn’t think there’s a problem, therefore he doesn’t have insomnia.
Yup. That’s normal. It still happens to me. But I’ve learnt to see these as my overprotective brain pinging me with useless crap. It’s trying to make me fear poor sleep again and fall back into the loop of insomnia all over again.
But I’m better equipped this time, I ain’t falling for that trick again. Simply because I don’t care even if I sleep poorly again. It doesn’t mean anything except I slept poorly for one or two nights. Are you going to worry for the rest of your life just because you bang your toes once? Or will you worry about eating again because you had a case of food poisoning? These feelings are very fluid and they change all the time so it’s pointless to entertain them.
Hello Martin!
Unfortunately, these are very personal decisions you have to make. It’s like asking if you’re on a diet, and there’s going to be a party a couple of weeks from now, should you attend or not?
Actually, you should question why you should even bother asking the question. What are you really afraid of? Because sleep that’s gone when attending the event shall never come back? It becomes then, why do you need to protect sleep so much? How has this been allowed to take up so much space and time in your life that it affects every thing you do or every decision you make?
I don’t know how you’ll end up choosing, but one thing is for certain. Sleep is still sleep. You will still get it in some form regardless of what you end up doing.
The best tip is just don’t do anything else except going to bed at regular times. Insomnia will resolve itself if you just leave it alone. Trust yourself and the process. Good luck.
Hello!
This is a very common pattern. First you had bad sleep, which is normal because it happens to everyone. Then you fear not sleeping (fear that your sleep is broken or may never recover). Then it starts branching out and you basically start fearing fear itself. It comes in all sorts of shapes and forms. It can be fear of discomfort during the day (feeling tired, sleepy, unable to focus, foggy brain), fear of being unable to do things like driving etc. Even when you are sleeping well, you fear having bad nights again etc. The remedy is to recognize this early. And telling yourself all this is unsubstantiated fears. The outcomes you fear haven’t even happened yet. You don’t know you can’t drive 4 hours until you tried it. So stop fear-mongering yourself. Recognize this all branches off the same thing. It is the fear of not sleeping well. You have to get over this fear in order to recover. And this usually means you must be okay with bad sleep. Once you stop fearing it, it has no control over you.
So you also said you feel tired during the day? Do you actually get sleepy? If you do, that’s actually a surefire sign your sleep system still works. So what are you really worried about? Your body has been trying to tell you that all along.. literally screaming on top of its lungs, “Hey I’m doing well. Everything still works. Stop getting unnecessarily worried because that’s getting in the way of me doing my job!”
Any sleep lost will always eventually be recovered. It’s only a matter of time. Be honest with yourself, “Is tonight my only shot at sleeping so it has to be perfect?” Or will there be the next night, the night after and so on. The answer is always the latter so plenty of future opportunities for sleep and catching up. Why worry now? Start practicing the habit of letting things be. Good luck!
Hello @greenleaf67
I read about your post in the other thread.
So you said you have a 5.5 hour window but only slept 4.5? I once had an experience with something of the sort. Sleeping well for 4-5 hours and then waking a wee bit short of my established wake up time and finding it harder to sleep again after exhausting the initial sleep drive.
So what did you do for that extra hour? For me, I just got out of bed early initially and but then for once, I went back to bed for a change and actually fell back asleep. As time went on, I started not getting out of bed anymore but I just went straight back (after getting up to use the toilet) and the times to fall back asleep started getting progressively shorter.
So for now, I spend between 7-9 hours in bed and I don’t track nor care how much of those were actually spent sleeping. Best wishes to you.
Good to hear about that. Hope everything goes well and I look forward to hearing that you are sleeping peacefully and naturally again without meds. Best wishes.
I’m sorry to hear you are depressed. Are you currently undergoing counselling?
Do you enjoy being in bed? Then by all means, please go to bed and enjoy some quiet and peaceful time there. Don’t worry too much about sleep because it usually has a life of its own. It can still happen with or without depression or whether you are in bed or not.
Good luck to you and I hope you find quick relief soon.
My experience with insomnia is, don’t try to fix anything if it’s not broken. A lot of times, it leads you down rabbit holes. It can make it worse too because all that sudden attention and monitoring can be mentally stimulating that makes sleep a bit harder to come by. Best wishes to you.
Hello!
A very rough estimate is more than good enough. In the end, you shouldn’t even track your sleep at all. Because optimal sleep happens when you track nothing.
In fact, you don’t even need to guess. Your body already does it all for you. It knows how much it needs and how much it gets, that’s why you wake up or feel sleepy! There’s already an internal clock going on inside that does all the tracking and regulating the sleep/wake cycle.
Just trust your own body okay? That’s how you recover. You slowly build trust and demolish doubt about your body. Ultimately, don’t turn your own body into an imaginary enemy that you need to fight every night. Because let’s face it, you expect to sleep every night so don’t turn that routine into a nightmare or some kind of competition that you need to win on every night. Sleep is not competition or race or a boxing match. Sleep is when you can completely relax and let go. The body takes over naturally and sleep becomes a by-product of that relaxation.
Easy does it. The more you let go, the better you sleep. Best wishes.
Yes. Even normal sleepers get transient insomnia. There is no big deal. Move on with your life. Sleep works itself out. You don’t need to do anything.
I would get off any meds too if I were you. Anything that causes you to doubt your own sleep ability automatically reinforces insomnia. The mindset that insomnia must be avoided at all costs actually causes it.
When people recover, they don’t necessarily sleep well all the time. It just means they are no longer fearful of insomnia. And that is the ultimate cure. Not fearing anymore. Not endlessly trying to control it. Stop this fight from within. Ultimately, who is the enemy? Who gave you insomnia? Nobody except yourself. The problem comes from within and it should end from within. Nothing external including any meds is really required. You just need to change your mindset. Best wishes to you.
Hi @sudu
You are absolutely right to question whether doing something is necessary for sleep. Because it will be discovered in the end, it is really not. Sleep is natural and effortless just like eating and breathing.
If you think your sleep is fine, then there’s no need to self-impose a set of sleep rules that you must follow. Because whatever you do or don’t, you will still sleep when your body wants it and won’t when it doesn’t.
Congratulations on being a parent and best wishes to you and your new born.
I enjoy taking occasional afternoon naps to stave off early evening sleepiness.
But I know that’s probably taboo because you’ve been told no naps, etc etc. All this rhetoric just to protect your nocturnal sleep.
But I am super relaxed about my sleep and I don’t mind feeling sleepy later or sleeping a bit less at night. Because I don’t fear poor sleep and am super relaxed about my sleep rules, I continue to sleep well.
You have several options really, you could
1. do the naps,
2. go to bed at 8-9 pm when you feel sleepy but expect to wake up earlier too, OR
3. do nothing and continue to fight the sleepiness. Actually feeling sleepiness is a surefire sign that your sleep system still works.
