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I know, it is cruel and wouldn’t want to wish this on anybody. I hope things improve for you soon!
Thank you
Hi Steve,
Yes I have cycles but they are more like a few good days and then a wave of bad days. I am on the 5th bad day in a row with 1:20 to 5:00hrs of sleep.
I am sorry to hear about what you went through. It can be hard emotionally and physically. The emotional state, despair and helplessness is real and an awful feeling. Meditation, exercise, counseling are all good and you should continue with that. Anxiety and insomnia go hand and hand. One leads to the other and vise versa. I am the same way. I don’t feel anxious generally but after a bout of poor sleep, it’s there.
CBT-I would be the best thing to try out. It isn’t easy though and takes time to see results.
Hi Steve,
Mine is from 12:00am to 7:00am. When I am out with friends I may go to bed later like 1:00am. When things are going well I may go to bed 11:45PM here and there. It has been working for me generally as I would get streaks of 6.5 hours of sleep which is 85%+ SE. When I have trouble sleeping I still try to maintain the same sleep window for awhile. I may push it to 1:00am here and there.
Here are two videos talking about clock watching.
Hi Deb. Yep looks like a bad week for most of us. Low anxiety is good thing though. How do you feel during the day? If your day function is almost normal then it is a good indicator that when you do sleep, it is deep and restorative.
It is frustrating because we all want predictable consistency. It’s nice to be able to fall asleep in 10-20 minutes and wake up when we need/want to wake up with little frustration. It sucks but I know as you know that better nights will occur. It’s just in the heat of the moment it feels awful and out of our control.
I use the CBT-I coach app for Android. It’s free and I find it quick for me to enter it all in through that. Other sleep diaries will have slight variations with what data to log. If clock watching doesn’t bother you then go ahead. I know that if I focus too much on the time it makes things more difficult.
On days you feel pretty good you should take the motorcycle around the block. Sometimes fatigue gets in the way but the act of going out on the motorcycle will help and also brighten your day which can also help process the day and help you sleep better. Days that are fun I tend to sleep better than days where I dwelled on what I wanted to do but felt held back due to sleep. Obviously listen to your body and don’t ride if there are tremors.
I will chime in based on my experience. I now avoid clock watching. I look at the time roughly when I go to bed so I get an idea of my time to bed. “Oh it’s just after midnight”. Then if I wake up and need to go to the bathroom or whatever I don’t look at the time. If it’s 1AM or 6AM it is irrelevant as I am in my sleep window. When I wake up naturally or by alarm clock that’s when I need to know the time. If I clock watch (even before insomnia) it would trigger thoughts about how much time I have left.
“I am still so sleepy and I really feel like another few hours but it’s 6:30am”
“I am so awake and it’s only 2AM what will I do”
With regards to diary, you really only need to log the number of awakenings and how long they lasted roughly. For the get out of bed rule, just judge it based on if you think you’ve been in bed too long and sleep does not seem to be imminent. If you are wide awake then it’s best to get out of bed.
Remember with sleep diary it’s about the overall trend and not the data accuracy for the one night.
Steve, I find that when I do get up I am too exhausted to read as well or just not in the mood. I think one of the only thing I can do would be mindless colouring. I do the same when it comes to assessment. Often times I feel sleepy and just lay there and fall back to sleep within a few minutes. After what feels like 20-30 minutes or so if I feel awake and know sleep won’t come soon then Ill get out. If it’s on the fence iffy I will relax and give it more time.
What I hate about SC is that I am up all day long and looking forward to sleep. I’ve worked, read, played, cooked, cleaned during the dayetc. The last thing I want to do is more of any of that during my precious sleep window. Thankfully *knocks wood* that most nights I do sleep through most of it and don’t need to get out of bed. When I do, it sucks and I have a few days of that.
Hi Karen,
Thank you for your post and your encouragement and tips. I’ve had just a good stretch the last 6+ weeks and just the last few nights derailed. Last night slept for a little over an hour and just couldn’t really drop back to sleep. I’ve been doing sleep restriction the whole time but slacking on stimulus control. Last night however, I was up a bunch of times because I knew sleep was not possible. The good news is that when I got up I wasn’t frustrated and rather just the drill. I didn’t prepare a book or anything and just sat and petted the dog for 20 minutes or so and tried to go back to sleep.
The frustrating part is my body knows how to sleep but once in awhile it just doesn’t seem to want to and the other thing is these relapses just seem to come for no reason.
Hello hello.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted and wanted to give an update. The past 6+ weeks I’ve been sleeping roughly between 5.5-7 hours of actual sleep. My sleep window has been roughly 12:00 to 7:00am. Some nights I’ve gone to bed at 11:45 or slightly earlier and some mornings I’ve slept another 15-30 minutes on some occasions. (days I don’t need an alarm clock and let my body wake up naturally). Sleep efficiency has been 85%+ and most nights 88% to 93%.
We all know that every night can’t be good and it is likely that bouts of poor sleep will return. The last 2 nights were a bit rough. Waking up early and unable to fall back asleep. Hoping that it will pass soon but until then have to keep doing what I’ve been doing which is a moderate sleep restriction of 7 hours and not dwell on it too much. Not worry about caffeine intake in the morning or a glass of wine for dinner. Try to enjoy my day, have fun, live and laugh. Try to do what I did before all this. Try to be occupied with something enjoyable before bed to not worry about the time or how I will sleep. Be relatively consistent with the routine though.
This last streak of decent and consistent nights were a good welcome and hope these humps become even more rare and less severe which they also seem to be. I haven’t had a chance to read this thread entirely but hope you all are doing well, better and on the right track!
The best suggestion is to not worry. As we age sleep tends to be shorter and lighter. Much like our shoe sizes and our height, we can’t really change how much we can sleep and is mostly predetermined. What is important is that the sleep quality is generally good as in you fall asleep within a reasonable time, stay asleep mostly and not tired during the day.
Hi Mac,
Glad to hear that you are better than you have ever been at least for awhile. I am in the same boat. I have decent stretches and then a stretch of poor nights. Some of the poor nights aren’t as bad as they could be. All I try to do is accept it and know I’ve handled this before and not panic. No one is a perfect sleeper but when I see it comes easier and more natural to others like I used to be, it’s tough. What I hate is that on poor nights, my thoughts and worry ramp up. I am more tired and anxious and obviously makes the day harder to muddle through. On better sleep nights, I feel more normal and think about other matters that are non sleep related.
Happy belated Easter
It 100% is a mental health issue. Lack of sleep plays a huge part in how we feel and function. There is a bidirectional relationship with insomnia and depression. The good news is some practitioners and therapists are starting to see that if you address one, it can help with the other. If you can address sleep, anxiety and depression subside and vise versa.
Quite a bit of the frustration is that nothing seems to work consistently. That’s why the sleep book seem appealing because every pill, potion or routine kind of worked for a few days and then didn’t and then some days I would do nothing and sleep well. We have to trust in our ability to sleep. I just don’t know why there are “flare ups” other than just brain chemistry or moon phase? All I can seem to do is muddle through those and say to myself that there will be better nights. And there are much better nights.
When you mean sleep doctor I assume the sleep school? I agree that 3 weeks is long when we really need to get started sooner than later. It is also crazy that she meets only on Thursdays. You would think if the money was good and there was demand, she would be working mon-fri. I am sure you will get back on track. You’ve had some good sleep streaks in the past and know it will come again.
Speaking about lack of therapists, I am actually contemplating writing a book on this to help others. I don’t have a PhD but I do have experience. Thankfully *knock on wood* it’s not extreme as some I’ve heard.
Hi Deb,
I am hoping I don’t jinx myself and start spiraling down again but each night is what it is. Good news is the past week or week and a half I’ve been averaging 6.5 hours and hoping it stays and I am generally quite happy about it.
I haven’t been doing anything too different. What I can say is that I am doing CBT-i but not “intensively” and religiously. I do stick with a rough bed and a rise time that’s consistent and only implement SC if I know sleep won’t happen and too alert. I’ve been keeping somewhat busy in the evenings to take my mind off things but still make time to relax, watch a bit of TV and meditate. When I do have higher daytime anxiety I find it tends to translate into my sleep. What I’ve been doing is trying to address things during the day rather than in the bedroom. For example, if I have a worry thought even if it’s not a big deal but affects how I feel and gives me a little “worry shock”. A worry shock to me is a thought that pops into my head that makes me go “oh.. yeah that” and then I am alert and more tense for a brief moment. I pretend I am a board floating in the ocean and just ride with it rather than get too concerned about it. In other words try not to fight but rather just let it pass or even welcome it (like Guy Meadows says). But when it comes to passing and welcoming, not trying too hard. More like observe and know the feeling is just there and being aware of it or even try making that uneasy feeling last longer. “Oh here it is again, welcome back”. Having a good productive day with fun, stress reduction and laughter helps. Like all of us even good sleepers, we will have poor nights and I hate when it’s in a row (like a wave). I hate it and makes me worry even more the next day. I am hoping meditation and addressing things during the day will translate into my brain being more calm at night. Also, I listen to my body. If I am genuinely tired during the day and able to lie down for a bit, I will for 20-30 minutes. I often don’t know if I’ve fallen asleep but I get up and feel a bit better and less sleepy and I think sometimes that helps relieve some pressure.
Hope that all makes sense.
