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I will do my very best to at least tell you about my experience and I hope that somehow it can help, every night when it starts to get dark I can feel my anxiety level slightly creep up because I know that my family will start going to sleep in a couple of hours and I would love to be part of that and I’m not sure if I’m going to or not. Martin in his course explains that we should not attempt to control sleepyness or pretty much control anything to get us to go to sleep. And so what I am trying to do is stay busy and do things that I would enjoy with the family. Sometimes we play cards together sometimes watch TV together but there are times when everybody is doing their own thing and so I try and find something enjoyable to keep my mind off of things as best as I can. I’ve been dealing with this on and off for a year and so it is virtually impossible to not think about it but it is possible to put less of an effort to get a desired result, like when I would get up in the middle of the night and was wide awake I would go into a different room dim down the lights and try and watch a show that wasn’t very exciting so I could somehow get bored and somehow tired and sleepy and then would want to go to bed but making that effort seemed like it made it more difficult. Now on the days that I don’t feel sleepy I try to find things that will keep my mind off of my attempts to want to go to sleep and occupy my mind with anything but that and it is very difficult still. Just like in the middle of night when I wake up and I’m super anxious and my thoughts say “you’re not going back to sleep” I tell myself that they are just thoughts and thoughts are not reality and then I do my best to just relax and enjoy my time in the bed and sometimes I win and other times I don’t. As Martin says any new skill takes practice so I am doing my best to practice the skills at the same time trying to train my brain to not overly think about being super tired. Its absolute madness, I get it. The one thing that I don’t do that Martin recommends is to stop looking at my watch in the middle of the night but for me if I fall asleep and wake up an hour later it doesn’t stress me out it actually makes me super happy to know that I slept in so it motivates me and actually helps me to fall back asleep. Even on a day when I fell asleep around 3:30 in the morning and woke up at 4:30 in the morning when I saw the time I was happy that I slept an hour and I was actually able to fall right back asleep even though my time to wake up at six in the morning and I did fall back asleep. So a lot of rules or guidelines are there to help us but it also depends on how we respond to it so I am doing everything as best as I can except for the fact that I still look at my watch because without it I feel very anxious and lost and looking at the time as far as my experience has been for the last many months of doing this is that it’s never kept me up. Also even if I have a short dream and I’ve slept less than an hour it makes me so happy to know that I’ve been asleep and for some reason that encourages me and I tend to fall asleep again but that’s me.
Sorry for the lengthy rant I just wanted to give examples because they help me a lot. I doubt that other people stop thinking about it all together when they are tired from sleeping poorly for however many days. It’s a process, just be so thankful that we now have that understanding that this will not kill us and all that information was so damaging for me for so long until I came across this course. When I was sleeping 5-6 hours a night I was still so anxious because I thought if I didn’t get at least seven hours I would start having heart disease and maybe even get cancer and cancer is my biggest concern because my mother and everyone of my aunts and uncle’s including my grandparents have all died of cancer so that was definitely a trigger. I’m thankful that Martin has given us real honest information about this. I will be prayerful for you and just know that we will still have some rough days but they will decrease with time and following this course. Hope this helps 😊 God Bless 🙏Thank you for the lovely compliment Nina Situm 😊 We all feel alone in the middle of the night while everyone else is asleep, It is comforting to know we are not alone in this, I was able to sleep over 7hrs last night by implementing the teachings of Martin, what feels comforting is knowing how so many people have taken this course and are better-included my friend who last year at 42 had heart surgery. He implemented this course and in a few months sleeps better than ever, that gives me great confidence and hope, plus those nights when I sleep 7hrs doesn’t hurt either 😂. When I do wake up and have negative thoughts like “now that you woke up you feel anxious and won’t be able to go back to sleep” I tell myself “this is just a thought I am noticing and not fact” I reflect on the many times I would have a negative thought and nothing bad actually happened. This has helped me to relax and go back to sleep. Hope any of this helps, I pray for everyone in the group daily that we can all move passed this into better sleep. God Bless 🙏
Fortunately for me I was able to sleep Over 7hrs last night and feel incredible. I know this program is all about retraining and educating our brain. I felt sleepy at 9;30 and went to bed even though my sleep window starts at 11 because I did not want to miss out on that natural process and signs my body was giving me. I felt sleepy starting at 8pm but that was too early. Martin and his knowledge is priceless and it really works, my wife is even sleeping better than ever following my pattern. I pray daily that all of us in this group gets those great days under their belt and we asll keep moving towards better understanding and better sleep. My dog is doing great after a full night’s sleep too. God Bless GenieB 🙏
Nina Situm Bad nights certainly escalate the thoughts and anxiety because we feel worse the more this keeps going. What is so frustrating is when a few good days come along where there’s five hours or better of sleep and so I begin to feel joy and confidence and for whatever reason it just falls apart again and so there’s really no pattern to anything. This is the most unpleasant main game I’ve ever had to play, prior to this my wife would call me sleeping beauty because I could fall asleep in a matter of seconds when I lay down and I could sleep 8-9 hours no problem. I would also take naps from time to time and that would never impact my sleep at night. What set it off is my oldest daughter leaving to go serve a mission and just the thought of not seeing her for 18 months broke my heart. I spent months having medical tests done and taking the medical route including many sleep meds that never worked for more than a week. They even put me on anti-seizure meds that ended up giving me heart palpitations. Hired a sleep couch (soo expensive) and tons of sleep rituals. That all fell apart after a couple of months and back to square 1. This CBTI seems to have the best long term solution so I am counting on this and hopefully I do my part correctly.
I’m with you Sallyseo I slept two hours from 4-6 this morning before the alarm went off ⏰ and my vision seems a bit blurry, my friend used an ssri to help with his anxiety while doing CBTI and it helped him a lot and now his back to normal for the past few months. I am not a fan of meds I went on them for a few months and got some sleep but my family said I was like an emotionless zombie. After getting off them the sleep issues returned so for me to do that again seems like it will just prolong the problem. Toughest part to accept is that it’s our own brain that needs to be retrained. It’s a blessing because we now know what to do and a curse because as much as I’ve been trying I’m not there yet. This has been a tough year and all this super hopeful information has only recently become available to me so I’m just starting, dear God please give us strength to endure this trail well and with humility. I guess if I found a fellow insomniac in the neighborhood I could play cards or go for walks with so it wouldn’t be so lonely at times. Haven’t found anyone else walking their dog at 2am yet😂
Hi Sallyseo I wish we could get some of that deep sleep are spouses are teasing us with right now 😂 I feel your struggle, sitting on the couch with the dog snoring next to me 🐶 is giving me a bit of jealousy but I know I will get there one day. Apparently insomnia has so much to do with retraining the brain away from fear, Fear of wakefulness means we have to be comfortable being awake and that is the last thing we want right now. Thanks brain for keeping me alive is apparently the way we need to look at it.
Hi Chris F its always good to find people you can relate with but this is brutal. I would cherish any time asleep but a couple of hours doesn’t do enough to relieve the rough day we have before us. I hope your sleep drive gets you to sleep, roughest are the nights when I am not sleepy letting me know “here we go again” but this is part of the journey. I would rather we have met in a forum for best dreams and champion sleepers 😂😂 Come on sleepyness
Hi Sallyseo I was the one that posted about yo-yo insomnia. Funny but the night before I got 6 and a half hours and felt great, Now its 2:30 and just got back from walking the dog, not sure what will happen tonight but If I understand the course learning to accept a night without sleep helps to lower the anxiety but unfortunately it doesn’t help being tired the next day. Hang in there since this program seems to have much success it just takes time but eventually people are getting improved sleep. I prayerfully wait for when that time comes for me, I would love nothing more than to feel sleepy at night. sleeping even 1 hour if I have a dream it somehow helps me fall back asleep so I always get so excited regardless of how much time I have left I tend to find so much encouragement in a dream that it helps me to fall back asleep. Good luck this week 🙏
Still working on letting go of control, I believe that is the biggest struggle I face. Sianbreeze1 I hope you are able to work those night shifts and continue to build confidence in sleeping. Hope you don’t need to make changes in your field of employment to get the rest you are searching for
WOW rdw2 powerful posts, I feel you, I hope and pray this course leads us back to enjoying that time where the sleepy sensation happens at night followed by restful sleep- sounds glorious. This has been one of the toughest weeks I have had in a while and I am looking at it as a new skill I am learning and implementing to more fully enjoy my life. My beloved wife is sound asleep while I’m in the living room practicing AWAKE technique and hoping some rest comes at all tonight. I still do everything my calendar has scheduled for me but its a struggle when the sleep window rolls around and no sleepy feelings are to be looked forward to. May you continue to improve and be able to rest with your husband 🙏
You know the only thing I remember is that I went to bed when I was sleepy. I looked back at my app and there were nights I went to bed at 9:30 and other nights 10:30. I was inconsistent but the one thing I was consistently doing was going to bed when I was super tired. I’m going to try that tonight. Thank you Luke, maybe you just helped me figure this out or at least make it more pleasant.
Ive been trying to figure that out, three of those days were super lazy and only one was super hectic, I thought I was killing it and when we got home it all became super inconsistent. Can’t seem to pinpoint it at all, one of those days I took an hour nap, just passed out on one of the lounge chairs unintentionally
I’m glad to hear you are getting 5hrs a night thats excellent. I appreciate your message about letting go of hope, you are totally right I need to let go of trying to control everything. I was having my wife sleep in the guest room so I wouldn’t disturb her but we were on a cruise a few weeks ago and we slept in the same bed and I was able to sleep thru the night every single night. We got back home I started having issues so then she went back to the guest room. I will have her back in the room and say the heck with it, If i can’t sleep then I’ll get up and maybe just go for a walk at 2am then if I am sleepy get in bed. The last few nights the sleep window starts I am no so tired at all so I just keep watching TV or reading. All seems inconsistent without any patterns so I will do my part to try to ket go and come what may. Last man in the foxhole sounds like what I need to do. My deepest gratitude for your support. God bless 🙏 would love to see pics or videos, be safe and take care.
Pushed submit button early 😂, How are your night coming along? getting sleepy as the sleep window starts? Are you able to fall asleep and get enough hours to feel good yet? look forward to seeing pictures of Nova Scotia, did a search on google and the island looks like a fairy tale. Gorgeous views
