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It’s normal to get discouraged, Rozey, but if you haven’t changed your plans because of insomnia and are still living according to your values, that is success – no matter how much or how little sleep you’re getting. I’ve had quite a few nights of pretty good sleep but had a bad night last night for no apparent reason, and I hear you about discouragement. Nights of poor or no sleep can really shake fragile sleep confidence. I also can identify with you about believing that the course will work for everyone except you. I’ve had those thoughts, too. Just noticing those thoughts and allowing them to pass seems to help. I’m trying to remind myself I can still have a good day today no matter how little sleep I had last night. You are not alone, Rozey!
Focus on the progress you have made, Packer Fan! Reminding ourselves of progress is what we continue to need to do. Things will get better. Thank you for your encouraging post, Rubylight. Good to know that it may take a while for steady, consistent progress to be made.
Packer Fan, I’m right with you. I’ll have nights of quite good sleep and will start to feel hopeful and then bam will have a bad night and notice more anxiety again. 😔I seem to be on an every other night good sleep thing. I rarely have a completely sleepless night – more just a night of very light, uncomfortable sleep and a lot of awakenings. I have to admit I’m not the best at having a shorter sleep window. I go to bed around 11pm and on good nights sleep until 7am with short awakenings during the night. I believe I remember you said you had a longer sleep window, too. I’m wondering if having a shorter sleep window and forcing myself to get up after 6.5 hours every night would produce more consistent sleep?? It’s just SO hard to do that.
That is wonderful news, Packer Fan! Yay!! It sounds like you’ve found a version of the Awake exercise that works for you. I do that as well, and it seems to help. I also have been having some 8 hour nights. Inevitably they’re followed by some not-so-good nights, though, so I’m wondering if I should adjust my sleep window. It seems like 6 or 6.5 hours consistently might bring more success than the occasional 8 hours followed by not such good nights. Thank you for the update post.
I agree that learning from what others share is invaluable. Just something humorous – I’m on the trip right now and thought I was the only one on the trip with sleep issues. Two people confided to me today that they were having some trouble sleeping – and this was before I said a word to them about my own sleep issues. Turns out there’s a lot of us. 😉
Being grateful for the 4 hours I did get helps a bit. Also acknowledging that I’m going through a rough patch with sleep right now and encouraging myself not to catastrophe it also helps a little. What do others do with the middle
-of-the-night panic?It sounds like you’re really struggling, Packer Fan. I’m still in the thick of it, too. I find when I sleep really poorly, it’s hard to focus and concentrate on what I read. For me, it is helpful to constantly remind myself “one day at a time” or “I place the future in the hands of God” (if you’re a spiritual person.) My husband and I are going to Spain and Portugal in a week. It’s something we booked and paid for before this insomnia hit. I’m not sure what will happen when there, but I’m committed to having a good time and enjoying myself no matter how much or how little I sleep. The truth is we can still function pretty well even when not sleeping well. Hang in there. This will get better. I’ve gone through previous bouts of insomnia and always eventually recovered. You will recover, too.
My heart goes out to you, Packer Fan. Insomnia is rough. I’ve been having luck with just shortening the Awake exercise down to “welcome” as in welcoming any anxiety, any negative thoughts, any sensations like fast heartbeat, just welcoming all of it. I find that just welcoming everything that shows up is more helpful. Then my brain doesn’t get all tied up with trying to remember what I should be doing for each letter of the Awake exercise. I hear you, too, about the Now exercise. I’ve shortened that to just saying “thank you, fix-it brain.” I’ve had some luck with scheduling the worry when my fix-it brain is especially talkative during the day. I tell it “I know you’re worried and this is serious, and I’ll address it completely at 11pm tonight” It seems to calm my brain a bit so it’s not hounding me all day long.
An update: I’m doing better with the Awake exercise in that I find myself much calmer in the middle of the night when awake so that feels like some progress. Going through the whole Awake exercise, though, seems to wake me up a bit more because there’s so much to remember. I know the exercise isn’t meant to be sleep inducing, but is anyone else noticing that it seems to wake you up more?
I guess the sleep thoughts wouldn’t be coming up so often. Oh well . . . I’m giving the thoughts permission to be around for a while. I remind myself that “what you resist persists.”
I’m not sure, Martin. Currently I’m not doing so well at just accepting the thoughts. I try to acknowledge the thought; e.g. “thank you, brain, for trying to keep me safe” and then redirecting my mind to something positive or neutral. I’m doing that about 1,000 times a day so something clearly isn’t working so well. 😞
I struggle with sleep anxiety thoughts, too. They seem to pop up all day long. I’m learning to just accept the thoughts and even welcome them, but that is sometimes a bit difficult. I’m a spiritual person so I try redirecting my mind to a comforting spiritual mantra. That worked very well for me in the past when I had insomnia but isn’t working so well at present. I’d be curious to know how others have been able to just accept scary, sleep anxiety thoughts.
I’ve experienced this, too. On the one hand, the dream is a reassurance that I did get some sleep. I choose to believe the dream and sleeping time was longer than expected. Hang in there! We’re in this together.
I think because I was able to recover in the past through spiritual affirmations “putting things in the hands of God,” de emphasizing sleep, and “living my best life with sleep issues,” I’m currently trying TOO hard to solve this. I find myself wracking my brain trying to solve it this time and definitely making it worse. Can anyone else relate to trying too hard to fix it and definitely making things worse? If you were able to stop working so hard on solving the problem, how did you do that? I realize even as I’m typing this that I’m working on it. Ugggh!!! Help!!!
