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Sorry to hear Mac. I recall your whole history but I recall if you go to bed early you end up with lighter sleep and that’s pretty normal. That can be expected if your body is unable to take a longer sleep window. If 10:30-11 worked, I say stay with it because with ACT or anything close to it is about not trying to fix anything but just do nothing and sleep will come. Ill take light sleep vs no sleep/tossing and turning any day. At least light sleep passes the night quicker.
I’ve had a really long stretch of no complaint sleep. I stopped taking anything to help me sleep since Sept/Oct of 2019. It’s not perfect but if I just lay there and relax sure enough sleep will come and I stay asleep. If I wake up I can usually fall back asleep within a reasonable amount of time. No complaints.
And here I am with one bad night. I fell asleep within 20-30 minutes and woke up what may have been 20 minutes later. I couldn’t get back to sleep. My body was just tense and I just didn’t feel sleepy. After a few hours I wanted to see if I can salvage the night and took half a dose of sleep aid. I figured that it might help and the dosage shouldn’t interfere with the few hours I have left. I did fall asleep a few more times but each time was very short.
No clue what brought this on and hope it’s not another bout. All I can do is the same. Go to bed at an appropriate and reasonable time. Get up at a reasonable time that’s consistent. Realize I can sleep and have for months! Try not to dwell on the bad nights. I
Hope the rest are doing well!
Hello Deb, Mac, Daf and everyone else.
Been awhile since I’ve posted. The past few months have been pretty good. I would say almost normal. Most nights are good. Some a little less so but know my body can cope and if I need to take a 20 minute nap, I may just do that. I do hope this stretch continues but know life happens and there will always be some rough nights especially if a lot is going on in life.
Everyone is different but what’s worked for me:
– Limiting reading the forums. Reading posts with people suffering with 20+ years of insomnia, a massive list of meds they take each night scares me. I do commend Martin with pointing out success stories.
– Knowing that I can sleep without any assistance. Sleep drive is powerful, very powerful. If your sleep drive isn’t strong enough or arousal system is to active, sleep aids can help but know that they can only do so much. They can knock you out but if something is bothering you or just not sleepy enough, you will just wake up a few hours later disappointed.
– Trying to sleep. As Dr Jade Wu mentioned in her recent talk with Martin, sleep is like your pretty girlfriend. If you try too hard or annoy her or spend too much time with her, you will scare her. I believe Guy Meadows is also right with the pills and props. The more you think or try to sleep, the less likely sleep will happen.
– Breaking routine (take a vacation). Yes, I was CBT-I obsessed and followed it to the letter and that was bad. CBT-I was helpful somewhat, but all the sleep hygiene, sleep window, stimulus control was making my anxiety worse. What really helped was going away for 14 days with 7 hour jet lag with no sleep meds with me. The first night or two was rough but by the 3rd day I was adjusting and enjoying my vacation and build my sleep confidence. I realized that I can sleep away with different to bed and rise times. I would go to bed anywhere between 11-1:30 am and up between 7-10 am. I would say that anchoring your rise time is something I normally do and recommend though.
– Sleep hygiene/blue screen/Internet clickbait articles. Sleep hygiene isn’t as important as they make it out to be. Yes sleep with comfy sheets, limit light and noise, put the cat in another room etc but really I was obsessed with screen time, blue light, 8 hours of uninterupted sleep. All this wasn’t helpful and set me back. Just have a nice little wind down for 15 minutes or so.
– Mindfulness and meditation. Helpful to just calm your body but I find it much better earlier on and not before or in bed. Practicing mindfulness in bed to me is “trying”. Sleep should be effortless. What works for me is reading for a bit to clear my mind and then put the book away and relax. Sometimes Ill watch a bit of TV in bed and just close my eyes and when I feel I am sleepy, Ill shut the TV. Thinking about my day, friends, family helps my mind wander and drift.
– Sleep logs. If you are doing CBT-I, you normally note your to bed, time in bed, awakenings, rise time etc. I think it made it worse. I was paying attention to roughly how long it took me to fall asleep, guessing how long I was up in the middle of the night, what time I woke up and what time I stuggled out of bed. After so many ups and downs, I stopped logging and I believe its helped. It was self monitoring for me. Now I just try to go to bed roughly around the same time and get up around the same time. I leave an appropriate sleep window and just leave it as that. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I lay in bed and relax. I eventually drift back. If I am really tense and know sleep ain’t happening then Ill get out.
– Listen to your body. If you feel sleepy, take a short nap. If it’s late afternoon or evening then try to push it off until your bed time. If you are wide awake before bed, maybe stay up a little bit longer.
I think the overall path out is to slowly spiral in a thought pattern of who cares, whatever, keep busy with fun/life, everyone has sleep issues from time to time and mine may be bad at times but trying to fix it or control it doesn’t work. I didn’t want to live a life of supplements, sleep stories, hot bath or deciding if a banana is a good idea before bed.
Confused you shouldn’t be! You were sleeping. What you described is paradoxical insomnia (previously called sleep state misperception). It is the belief that you got little to no sleep when in fact you were asleep.
More information can be found here: https://www.medlink.com/article/paradoxical_insomnia
To many who are doing CBT-i, this is often the mystery question and often thinking about stimulus control perpetuates further sleep troubles. You may want to try something like this if you are dealing with sleep maintenance.
When you wake up, deal with anything you need to such as a sip of water or bathroom break. Head back to bed and rest. Often if you are sufficiently sleepy, you will fall back asleep. If it’s been what you think has been half an hour and sleep does not appear to be on the horizon, then it is better to get out of bed for a little while and do something relaxing like read.
The purpose of stimulus control is to break the association between wakefulness and the bed if that’s actually become a problem. SC is powerful to break the association however, to many, get scared that the association is severely broken especially if they have sleep anxiety. What is reassuring is that we’ve evolved through millions of years of evolution. You may have bouts of sleep maintenance troubles but staying in bed and resting if you are relaxed IS better than thinking about getting out of bed.
Get out of bed if you are anxious, alert, awake, been in bed for a bit and feel like sleep is not going to happen.
Sleep deprivation has an affect on our mood and how we feel for sure. A lack of sleep can really play havoc with many things. In terms of Alzheimer’s, I believe much more research is needed. There is a link but which came first, the chicken or the egg? Could a symptom of early onset of Alzheimer’s be lack of sleep? Causation does not imply correlation.
Anyone with mental health or general health issues or concerns about their health will be impacted with some sleep disturbance.
Hi Deb,
Update. Yes yesterday the site appeared hijacked. From last Friday to today (a week), i’ve been sleeping well. Lights out anywhere between 11:00 and 11:45ish and up at 7:00. Been doing pretty much nothing other than going to bed and closing my eyes. I know Ill have more poor night sleeps but I try not to dwell on them (unless it’s been bad or a string of them). For me, the best advice and comfort is that my body knows how to sleep and doing what I did before AND realizing I can sleep fine as before on most nights helps.
What really didn’t work for me is hardcore CBT-i with hardcore sleep rules and following them religiously. If I had a sleep window of < 6 hours and only using my bed for sleep was fueling my anxiety more. I would definitely recommend CBT-i to anyone who lays in bed for 10 hours and is sleeping 4-5 of broken frustrating sleep but if it’s more psychological, ACT or any form of not giving a s%it probably helps more.
Burn,
Exactly. It’s the arousal/hyperarousal that’s more “broken” and preventing sleep. On bad nights, I swear a pindrop a mile away sends a wake jolt. Also, self monitoring plays a part of that system. I would be open to hearing suggestions or successes on how to tune it so it still does its job but does not impact our sleep quality as much as it should. I think they are common sense but so far I have.
1. Build a stronger sleep deficit. This ALWAYS works but difficult and the thought of continually keeping a strong deficit doesn’t sound appealing. Your sleep drive will eventually overpower your arousal though.
2. ACT. Have no expectations. Be less rigid. Stop worrying or caring. Let thoughts come in, have no judgement and let it pass by. Removing performance or expectations. This works but needs commitment and not always 100%.
3. Also part of ACT and CBT-i is overall stress reduction. Mindfulness, relaxation, hot bath, tai chi, yoga, have fun, enjoy life.
4. Drugs, alcohol, meds. They can help numb/tune out and assist but they all have their disadvantages and wouldn’t recommend as a long term solution.
If anyone has any more to share, please do.
Thanks for the motivational bump Deb!. Yep, still having some troubles this week and today I am more zombie than usual. Also more nervousness and edgy which moves into the night and wakes me up. I should be incorporating more relaxation in the evening (meditation, stretching) just to feel more relaxed and enjoy that feeling. What happens is once I feel better I stop from my routine and act more like I do before all this and it works.. until it happens. Perhaps it’s inevitable and I just need to be able to use techniques to reduce the severity.
Speaking of light sleep, nothing wrong with that if that’s what your body is allowing. Plus it’s better than hearing the clock tick. I used to worry more about deep, light and REM and I find that some nights I feel like I get no REM but wondered how 5-6 hours just happened magically and so quickly. And on other nights I feel like it’s all light and then some nights feel like hours and hours of dreaming. It seems to balance itself out. Perhaps not optimally in one night but over the course of a few it seems to.
So for my lesson today is not to be optimistic or pessimistic on how I will sleep. Just lay down and let it be.
Sorry to hear about your poor night Steve. I am on day 5 or poor sleep. Some onset issues but mostly maintenance. It’s been rough when I sleep 2 hours and then not able to fall back. It’s hard not to get frustrated but I am used to it now but get thoughts about how many more poor nights before things start swinging upwards.
I agree with Daf about no pattern at all. There often is no precipitating factor and it just happens. I also find it more frequent in the winter. Sure I had it in the spring/summer but it was less frequent and easier to manage. I guess I was out and about more. In the winter I am indoors more frequently and less in nature. The long dreary colder days I find makes it more common.
Hi JTthemillenial,
Stick with CBT-i SR. What will happen is your sleep will bounce around but bounce less because the window only has so much room. What you are looking for is the bigger picture. I know one bad night feels awful and defeating and one good night feels like Christmas came early but what you are looking for is consistency over the weeks. Once you get 2-3 weeks of >85% sleep efficiency then you can add 15-30 minutes to your sleep window and continue on.
SR and SC are two powerful things that help most. If sleep anxiety/sleep performance is an issue then you may want to either A. Increase your window to make you feel like you have more opportunity to sleep or B. Implement a bit of ACT and give up the struggle and “act” how you did before all this started.
Hi Deb,
Glad you had a good night sleep. Happy Halloween everyone. Since June/Julyish I stopped logging my sleep, reduced and then stopped sleeping pills and started doing what I used to do before all this. Generally go to bed around 11-12, not really looking or caring about the time. Watching TV in bed occasionally for 20-30 minutes. Waking up at 7 and generally 7-8:30 on weekends. I’ve had a few setbacks that last a day or a few or a week+ but get on track. Once the decent sleep happens, I generally quickly go back to what I say is normal feeling.
So far I’ve had 4 nights in a row of poor sleep and this overcast dreary rainy day isn’t helping. I took 1/2 of a pill which eventually I guess worked but I didn’t stay asleep long and took another 1/2 hoping to at least help me through the night.
Over the past few months what I would describe my approach is ACT in terms of the rules. Go to bed at an appropriate time. Get up at the same time. If you need to nap, restrict it to 20 minutes. As for in bed, I would just shut the lights and lay down. For a minute or two I would get thoughts about “How will tonight be? Will I fall asleep as well as the night before?” but within a few minutes I’d be thinking and wandering about my day and sure enough I’d be fast asleep and when waking up to use the bathroom, I’d be back in bed sleeping within minutes.
How to describe how I feel the past few days is more alert, nervous and tense. The worry is feeding on it even though I’ve gone through this over and over and things improve. In bed, my mind is wandering but it feels like it’s really wandering and not wanting to slow down. I’ll recognize that my mind is wandering and then think “Oh boy, how long have I been wandering because I don’t feel sleepy”.
The thing I like about ACT is that I got to the point that I just didn’t care or think about it. It’s like a little wrench in the spoke derails it. Then I start thinking that it’s just a genetic thing I have to deal with and chemical and just have to work and live with it.
I just don’t want to go back to logging in/out and how many hours I slept in a log and going strict CBT-i because I think it made things worse because I would analyze the bedroom and my performance which feeds it more.
Sorry a bit of a rant 🙁
Hello all,
An update since it’s been a few weeks. I had 1-2 days of semi poor sleep about a month ago and since then things have been decent. In bed generally between 11PM-12AM and mostly up at 7AM and maybe 8-8:30 on weekends. A nap here and there for 20-30 minutes when I feel like I need to. Basically relatively normal. Even went on a get away with my wife for a few nights and really no issues worrying about sleep and having refreshing sleep.
Out of nowhere, the night of the 27th, 28th, 29th (last night), I am back to dealing with mostly sleep maintenance. Up around 3 and from 3 till 7, I mostly lay in bed and relax but my body feels tense like I need to stretch a lot and my mind is just wandering like crazy not feeling sleepy. Like Daf mentioned I usually stick it out for awhile but after awhile feels too long and don’t feel like sleep is coming soon then Ill leave the room and lay quietly in another room. Sometimes the next day Ill read or listen to Guy Meadows just to realize my problem isn’t as bad as others and yes the feeling sucks but the more you welcome and just let it in, the less power it has.
Sleep will return and I know I can sleep because I was able to for long stretches many times. I just worry that Ill start going back to logging sleep, thinking about it too much and resorting to meds for that help.
Like always, no idea what caused the relapse.
Hi Mac,
I believe what she meant by doing nothing is to not try to fix it at all. If she was just able to brush her teeth, read for 15 minutes, shut the lights out and drift off and then had a day or two or three, don’t change anything. Busting out the tea, hot bath, 2 hours of mindfulness, implementing a strict 5.5hr SRT and going thermonuclear on insomnia may just make the relapse longer. Accepting that tonight sucked and moving forward probably is better than assuming that there is something very wrong and will stay that way forever.
I still have bad nights and I can never predict nor find any trigger other than body/mental anxiety. Some days/nights do suck and the worry train goes up but I know I’ve been able to string many satisfactory nights and make my day much more comfortable. I can’t “fix” it, I can only really provide my body about 6-8 hoursish of sleep a night and hope that most of it is in some form of sleep.
I have had them and occasionally do. It tends to happen when anxiety is high and thus arousal is also there. It is what Martin calls self monitoring. You may be wanting to achieve sleep so badly that your mind is checking in “are you asleep?” and when you fall asleep, your awareness kicks in and then a surge of adrenaline rushes and wakes you up.
There isn’t a failsafe technique or trick or cure but what can help in my experience.
– Productive day. Have fun, work out, enjoy the day as best as you can. This will help you think and worry less about sleep and those jerks
– Wake up and go to bed roughly around the same time. Don’t be precise but about 30 minutes each way.
– Going to bed when you’re not sleepy or too sleepy may make it worse. If it’s 5PM you may feel tired and want to nap and you may or may not be able to. Probably best to defer it until 11PM or your bed time. Same with being too sleepy. If you are very exhausted, your body may really crave sleep but this may heighten anxiety which makes it worse.
– Try laying on your side and not your back when falling asleep. Trying to sleep on a plane, train or reclining couch usually will be difficult.
