Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Oh super, I’m glad you found it.
Please do listen to the whole thing, because all was relevant.
I guess the keys were…
1. SRT does work….. I kept sleep to under 5 hours for a long time, so I always was v sleepy the next night,. Crawl to the bathroom to a cold shower, whatever, it takes, get up. This makes sure you are sleepy next night. Now I always try to never sleep more than 6 hours – works for me.
2. Realising I always slept after a nil-sleep night. Impossible not to (for me). After 2 and a half years, I guess I accepted that. (I understand that some people can go 2 or more nights with nil sleep – I feel for them)
3. ACT attitude – see the Kabat Zinn 28 minute video combined with “being in the moment”. I’m not a fan of getting up after 15 mins of not sleeping, though I might after an hour, if I had got stressed about it, which I try to avoid.
4. Realising that I was a slightly obsessive/ controlling person. If you met me, you’d not think so, but I am. Controlling sleep was just one of a series of 4 other things at other points in my life I had become obsessed about.
5. Even if I had a night of nil sleep and felt awful and depressed as a result, I always got thought the day and got stuff done.
6. Being kind to myself. Accepting I could do less than 100% if I had a bad night the night before.
7. Sleep on the flipping couch. I sleep there nearly all the time now as I find that falling asleep in front of TV works for me. It’s not in bed, but so what! I can still do the other fun stuff in bed!!! at other times 🙂 . One day I will spend the night back in bed with my wife, but it ain’t killing us not to… This works for me, so it’s fine.Hope that helps.
Hi Mac, yes for me I used both CBTi / SRT and ACT/Mindfulness approaches. They worked well together.
Do have a listen to the whole of the podcast in the Success Stories I did with Martin. Worth listening right through, especially don’t miss off the last 10 to 15 mins when I talk about how I think insomnia is really an obsessive/ controlling behaviour.
Thanks Deb. And I must make some time to check out your musical accompishments…. One of the points I made in the podcast video was that people who were successful / driven and who like to be control are often sufferers from insomnia, it seems
I always find it weird the way a nil sleep night can come seemingly out of the blue, like last night, even when there’s no particular stressor going on for me. Guess one has to accept the randomness of this too.
I would add that sleep restriction is very key too.
When I had some nil sleep nights, I built up by keeping sleep at 4.5hrs to 5hrs initially. This ensured that the following night I was dog tired and ready for sleep. From there I built up v slowly to what I now enjoy – about 6 hours of sleep most nights.Cognitive behaviour therapy and act both helped plus self realisation about over controlling parts of my nature…… I bet you ten quid each of you folks who post on here are successful people but maybe a tad overdrive and hard on yourselves, wanting to control everything!
Google Jon Kabat Zinn 7 attitudes of mindfulness for the full 28 min video.
Best wishes to you all from London on a glorious sunny September day.
Deb.
I did a whole 8 week course on mindfulness too (which is really the basis for Acceptance Commitment Therapy), but the 28 minute Kabat Zinn video really nails what it is, without having to go on an 8 week course.Also, me realising that under my happy go lucky funny veneer I am a bit of an obsessive person and a tad controlling – and that this has manifested itself at a few other times in my life.
Once I realised that, I could see insomnia as 80% a part of that desire for control. And once I saw that too, I was also on the way to healing.
I’m sure others on here with really bad sleep problems (by which I mean they get “nil sleep nights”), but possibly also a few others who, IMHO sleep OK (5 hours or more but who obsessively fret about it a little too much), are the same and could benefit by that self-realisation.
13 weeks today since my last sleep night.
Glad to have helped Deb.
And remember folks the best thing I have heard about mindfulness / ACT is the Jon Kabat Zinn video online… Just google:
“Kabat Zinn + seven attitudes of mindfulness”.
It encapsulates everything about it…and may I suggest you listen to the Granddaddy of mindfulness, Jon Kabat Zinn’s video available if you google “seven attitudes of mindfulness”. I think it sums up what mindfulness and its close relation, Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) is, in a 28 minute video.
Good for when you are awake, plus sometimes if you cannot sleep to listen too.I am over 12 weeks since I had a nil sleep night.
I have now gone 12 weeks’ since I had a night of nil sleep. (I used to get up to 9 a month, which went on for 2 and a half years).
A big part of my cure (there were 6 other things, which when I’m less busy I will write about in full here), was realising that, though I give impression to people of being quite laid back and funny, I am actually a slightly over controlling person and at 5 other times in my life I had become over-obsessed with certain things….which then constantly preyed on my mind for long periods.
I suddenly realised this was how I was in a blinding flash after the end of my usual 3 mile run one day. My father and brother are both over controlling characters too, so maybe I inherited this trait. Father is a big insomnia sufferer too.
Once I realised that, it was a big help in just realising how the over-focus on sleep was just like the girl I once fretted about, just like the obsession I had at university that I had taken the wrong course etc etc…. for six other times in my life.
Just realising this was a big wake up call.
I bet most of the people on here are probably successful people, like me, and very driven… and if they are honest a tad, over-controlling and given to obsessing about things – in this case sleep.
If you ease off, accept it and realise you will get through it… I always did and sleep always came the night after a nil sleep night… and yes, I could still get a lot done, despite feeling awful after a nil sleep night……. then you will have a good chance of getting better.
I bet most of you like to be in control of things…. but then something comes along that you cannot control – sleep… and not surprisingly, you hate it.
But if you let go, ease off, you will be on the road to recovery.
The other things that helped me I will write about when I have time.
…. After all, you’re still here and surviving… That’s a big plus.
Go from there and try to not catastrophes. I know it’s hard when you feel bad, but you can do it.
