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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!
Hi Peanut,
I concur with Scott on this one because I went through it myself. I took 5mg Ambien like you did, didn’t feel the slightest hint of sleepiness then out of frustration, took the other 5mg which also didn’t work either. Just made me drowsy but not sleepy. I then realise it wasn’t those pills that made me sleepy, it was staying awake long enough! Back then, I was trying to sleep after being awake for just 10-12 hours, for normal people, a good level of sleepiness sets in after being awake for 16-18 hours. Try going to bed after being awake that long, you may find you actually CAN and WILL sleep without meds at all. I wouldn’t recommend using sleeping pills to sleep because of the extreme grogginess you get the next day. Sometimes it’s even worse than not having slept at all because meds obliterates the deepest and most restorative stage of sleep, preventing your brain from reaching this stage and hence you feel tired and lethargic no matter how long you slept.Hello there,
How long have you slept before you wake up feeling anxious? If you have slept for at least 6 hours, it is very likely you are quite well rested and waking up is normal. And waking up during the night is pretty common for most people too! So why are anxious about not sleeping? Is it because you feel sleep is like a black box and therefore mysterious, and your fear that lack of sleep will damage you in some way? Actually sleep is very easy to understand, it is a lot like hunger. Sleepiness builds from staying awake long enough, in the same way as the longer you don’t eat, the hungrier you get. The process of eating is analogous to going to bed, you allow the ideal conditions for both processes to take place. What happens after that is entirely controlled by your body, in the same way digestion takes place without your intervention, so when you fall asleep, your body goes through all the stages of sleep on its own. Sleep is easy if you understand it. So why are you still anxious about not sleeping? Does it mean you worry about not eating then? The process is the same, if you delay eating your meals, you end up hungrier and therefore may eat more. Same way as sleep. If you haven’t slept enough for one night, your body will make up for it automatically the next night by making you sleepier earlier so you go to bed earlier. But over time your body will determine the amount of sleep it needs and the process is self-regulating. What you need to do is just go to bed after being awake long enough, for normal people, that’s 17-18 hours. When you go to bed, tell yourself it is okay if you don’t sleep because your body will make up for it the next night and when you feel like sleep might come, just close your eyes and don’t monitor if you haven’t fallen asleep. Just let your mind drift and before you know it, you have fallen asleep! You might jerks as you fall asleep and that’s normal! Just don’t pay any attention to them and you will fall asleep eventually! Good luck! Great sleep is easy, natural for everyone and completely effortless.
