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Hi Jazzcat,
Yes I think you are right.
And I’ve read elsewhere that people’s circadian rhythms get a bit weaker as they get older, a factor in why people need less sleep as they age, until over 75 when v Old people seem to start sleeping longer again.To help counter this I always try to be outside in open air for at least a half hour, ideally doing exercise at the same time.
Well done everyone. In particular I thought the Nick Wignalll article on accepting anxiety was great. Like sleep, or lack of it, anxiety feelings should be accepted because you actually have no control over this. So best welcome and accept it, hence forcing the fear and anxiety to lose its power.
There are many people who post on here who have reported nil sleep nights. I experienced around 100 in the 2 and a half years I was suffering for. Luckily never on consecutive nights unlike some others I’ve read about on here.
A bad night for some is 5 hours, whilst others would sell their granny to get that much.Thanks Davy,
Yes that is tough – that you get the zero sleep nights on consecutive nights
I was like you too. If I got 2 or 3 hours that was just miles better than getting nil – and I would feel fine.How do you feel the next day after a nil sleep night?
I would always have this tightness in my upper chest and a feeling of mild nausea (though not actually sick), low mood. ‘orrble! Fortunately, for me, after two years I realised that I’d always sleep the following night, which lessened next day bad feelings a little. (I appreciate that’s not the case for you and some others on this site – and I really feel for you).Another great annoyance was that there was absolutely no apparent trigger for a series of insomnia nights to start. The only pattern I could ever discern was that it was that in summer, the nil sleep nights were less frequent than in the winter months.
Good post Deb,
Wondering if you had many nil sleep nights?
Being “in acceptance” when one has had ten of those in a single month is very hard work indeed.I think one aspect I always found hard was that the insomnia series of often nil sleep nights, (which could be as much as every second night for two or three months) could start from random, with no obvious cause after some very long runs of sleeping fine, night after night.
This is a particularly cruel aspect of this illness. (For this reason, I’ve often wondered if there is some chemical cause in our bodies that triggers is and which is not obvious to the patient, nor yet discovered by the medical profession).
When my insomnia raged I would either sleep fine or I would not sleep at all. There were very few occasions when I’d just get a few precious hours of sleep. It tended to be all or nothing.
Mac, My view is that if I have a night of no sleep again, I will still get through the next day and can look forward to great sleep the next night. I may feel not good, but I’ll get by.
But if I get 2 or more hours I actually feel OK next day and I’m cool with that. Again, I can look forward to a longer sleep next night.
My sleep average is about 5.5 hrs. I try to avoid going over 6.5hrs because I won’t feel sleepy the following night.
Think important to be realistic about what’s achievable as well as being accepting.
Awakenings during the night are common for all mammals. Some don’t notice it, some do. If you are tired enough because you set the sleep window low enough, you’ll get back to sleep again, most times I think.
Mac, mmm, I feel your pain!
I think that one needs to accept that folks like you and me need less sleep than other “normal people”. Nothing wrong with that – and we are actually NOT “not normal”, just a bit controlling – I’ll bet most people on here are a little bit “controlling” but also successful by what us westerners define as “success”.
I have learnt that as long as I avoid going over 6 hrs sleep, that the sleep drive next night will be strong enough to push me to sleep each and every night. However, if I go way over, like getting 7 hours, the chances of not being tired at all the next night and even getting a “nil sleep night” are then raised.
So, when my 58 year old bladder gets me up for the loo (bathroom for our American readers) and I see I’ve had 5 hours sleep, I will try my best to reset alarm on my phone for just one more hour.
So I think SRT works. But anytime I can’t sleep, I do try to practice mindful acceptance (ACT) – but mindful acceptance is fairly hard to do right and I suspect is especially hard for us controlling types to do – as it is the antithesis of control. Still, it has helped me
(See my podcast with Martin in Success stories if you’ve not already, in which I talk about CBTi , SRT and ACT and how all work for me – though I have no time for getting out of bed after 20 mins of no sleep).Keep well and keep encouraging us all. This is a great forum.
Daf (Just about over the rugby now!!)
PS Mac – Just because you have to have some SRT in your life, does not make you not normal. No need to be like other people. We are not all the same. I’d like to have won a grand slam at tennis or played footy for England, but I was just not goof enough. Accept that you will have to control sleep amounts to keep sleeping every night – and don’t believe the hogwash about 8 hours sleep being normal. It isn’t – I’ve written another new post on why it’s not.Yes, that is what you need to do. Push going to bed time back at least an hour.
My target is to sleep no more than 6.5 hours tho my average is just under 5.5 hrs.
I don’t have a particular going to bed and getting up time. I tend to prfere to listen to my body re bed times. You could say I do SRT lite, and if I am awake I prefer to just rest and accept it. I will only get out of bed if I’m getting frustrated. Otherwise I try to practice acceptance.
If I’m ever naughty and sleep for over 6.5hrs I run risk of a nil sleep night following night due to reduced sleep drive.
Listen to the podcast Martin did with me in the Success StoriesOh and to answer your point, yes if I’m not tired, I usually try to just stay up later. This is often what happens when I have had the joy of 6 or 7 hours sleep (which itself often follows a nil sleep night). … i.e,, what I’m saying is that after a night of 6 or 7 hours sleep I’m just not tired until say 2 or 3am. Going to bed too early would risk me not getting to sleep and possibly another nil sleeper… so one could end up like the rollercoaster some have talked about… Good night, bad night, good night, bad night etc….
Dazzio, back of the net!
You have hit the nail on the head in so many ways.
I agree completely with all of what you say – and thanks for the compliment on by podcast with Martin.
During my recovery I used Mirtazapine occasionally to deal with really bad patches. It’s an odd drug indeed. For me it would never work to “put me to sleep” in the middle of the night, but it worked well if taken an hour before you’d like to be asleep. The other odd thing is that there is much research online, (from users mainly and only a little from professional researchers), who say that smaller doses than the standard 15mg work best for insomnia. (It’s main reason to exist was as a treatment for depression, but they found also works for insomnia too).
I actually tapered down to an eighth of a 15mg tablet. Very, hard to cut it down as the pills here in the UK are tiny to start with. But they still seemed to work at even that small amount. Placebo? Maybe, like you say? My doc thought so, but who knows, as there are lots of people on many review website who say it works a treat at 3.75mg and at an eighth of a tab (1.875mg if my maths is right).
I got dose down from 7.5mg to 3.75mg in a month, then to 3.75mg every second night, then to 1.875mg, then every second night and eventually stopped. If my insomnia rages back I WILL use it again, along with all the SRT and ACT approaches.One final thing to say is after a nil sleep night, if you can learn to not think about insomnia / the next night (hard to do for us controlling types, I know), then the bad feelings that come the next day will be lessened and hence the fear of insomnia on later nights, when you cant get to sleep should be reduced. ..i.e. all you will have to face is lying / sitting awake at night, but not feeling awful the next day. (I used to get a very tense chest and nausea feeling from all the stress, but once I realised that a nil sleeper would be followed always by a good night, I relaxed a little and did not spend the whole of the next day fearing the next night).
Hope this helps. It’s a weird affliction indeed. But I think this discussion is providing pointers for many folks – not all the approaches will work for all, but a lot will.
Further from my previous comment, if you know how much sleep you need on average each night (SRT) but then for whatever reason go over it one night, by sleeping say an extra hour or two above your optimum sleep amount; then you may struggle the next night, because your sleep drive will be reduced, so you won’t go to sleep as easily, at least not at the usual time.
So, it is then, in such situations that you need to be in acceptance of the fact you are not sleeping (ACT). If you are good at this, you will chill out and sleep will come eventually, as it would for a “normal” person. If you are not good at this (and I think insomniacs tend not to be because many are by nature quite controlling), then the anxiety / frustration may rise and you may end up with another nil sleep night.
This is the nub of the rollercoaster, I feel. The only solutions would seem to be to stick close to your target sleep and get up, even if it feels tempting to “get another hour”… and / or get very good at ACT and acceptance/ mindfulness.
Yes, it sure is a rollercoaster. You make small steps, some progress, fall down again, but hopefully the nil-sleeper nights get less over time.
I think people who are prone to insomnia have to accept that SRT can be used to mechanistically keep sleep drive up – that’s the purpose of that approach.
And ACT is about letting go and accepting when you don’t sleep. If you get the SRT amounts right (for you), you should always be tired enough next night to sleep OK, at least most of the time. So, in theory you would not need ACT.
Of course a “normal person” would not worry about all this SRT – they just sleep and naturally accept it when they cant sleep right away.
For someone who has had insomnia in the past, one has to accept that it will lurk in the background, ready to bite back from time to time. For me and many on here these times of “bite back” are utterly unpredictable and often not linked to stress events at all.
One thing I noticed for me is that I tend to get more insomnia in the winter. Other than that, there is no pattern at all.
