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Thank you Martin, for your reply and suggestions. Last night I decided to start going to bed 15 minutes earlier and I slept well, getting 5 hours and 35 minutes of sleep! Yes!!!! And from your suggestions, I believe it makes sense to keep doing this. I am so appreciative of your and other’s help on here, to encourage, educate and bring perspective to our experience with sleep and wakefulness.
Thanks Chee!!! I need to remember all of that. I really appreciate your encouragement. Hope you are doing well too!
Yes I am working on refocusing to remind myself that I can’t control my sleep, only my actions and attitudes.its a tough shift in thinking but it feels right and helps a lot when I do it. Glad to hear you are doing better with your sleep.
Hi Chee, thanks for the encouragement! I usually get up, do something relaxing and then I go back to bed and can fall asleep. Sometimes it only takes 5 minutes, other times its longer. Yes I have also had some success just using the bathroom which works some nights as well. I struggle with this idea of befriending wakefulness, though. I want to say I feel it is my mortal enemy and its hard to learn acceptance of how insomnia is affecting my life. But all the information I read is saying that this is key to letting go and stopping trying to control my sleep. I am using the cbt to work on restructuring my thinking and it does help. I am a work in progress!
I am hoping to make that kind of progress too. I am in my fourth week of another cbt-i program and am also receiving Martin’s emails and I will say His input is so valuable and very helpful to me already. I am choosing to be on a sleep restriction through my other program (its an app and an online program called Insomnia Coach that I found on the website for the department of veteran’s affairs). My restriction is set for 5.5 hours but of course I don’t sleep that entire time always and am only getting between 4.5 and 5.5 hours of sleep at night. Its supposed to help reset my sleep drive and has helped as my sleep efficiency has gone way up. However, I am sleep deprived right now so it’s very hard. I am tired and sleepy unless I’m doing something active like being up and around or writing on my phone like this. I am hoping that this will be my last week of this much restriction to my sleep. I would love 6 hours!!!! I am learning so much about my attitudes towards sleep though and no matter whether I go back to getting more sleep or not, at least I have that and its helping. It’s better than having really poor sleep/wakefulness on a nightly basis. I am trying to accept that my sleep may never go back to the 8 to 10 hours I used to get when I was in my 30s and 40s. Hopefully I can accept whatever my body is willing to give me and not try to control it so much. Like I said, Martin’s wisdom and teaching has been really eye opening and I’m learning so much. I am just so tired of being tired. Thanks for your post and reading mine as well.
Sounds like you have done a lot of work on yourself mentally and you can give yourself credit where credit is due! 👍
Thanks Martin. I am appreciating your emails with so much good information,education and guidance for restructuring my thinking around sleep and insomnia.
Hi Sees1970, thanks for your reply! Yes, we are in the same boat. Thank you for the perspective on what might be a “win” …yes I’m starting to learn that my brain needs time to reorganize but it’s hard letting go of this goal to “get normal sleep”. I appreciate your encouragement and I’d like to send that right back to you as well, keep up with the positive mindset even on hard nights. I’ve started learning that life is not over and I can still have a great day even after a poor night’s sleep!
Teresa, my heart goes out to you. I want to assure you that God loves you and I will be praying for you! It’s hard to understand why He allows suffering like what you are going through. I am sure He has a plan for you! Jeremiah 29:11 says: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
When I have struggled with feeling like God doesn’t see my pain and struggle, I have found it helpful to remind myself of the times I have witnessed the ways He has been faithful in my life and in other’s lives. It reminds me that even when I can’t see the big picture, He can and that he provides in many ways to help me, some of which are hard to see in the midst of my pain and isolation. Jesus even told us that in this world, we will have troubles but to be encouraged because He has overcome it all. We all want relief from our trials. Pain is not easy to bear. Especially chronic pain such as yours. I want to encourage you that despite your sense of isolation, that He, indeed, does see you and is helping you through. That He is near and providing you with as much comfort as you need each day and each night. I’ve learned that just because I can’t feel it, does not mean that God has abandoned me. It means I am human and so are you. We can’t see the bigger picture and we need to trust that He does and is helping us day by day and night by night. That’s what faith is. Believing in what we can’t see because we have seen evidence of what we hope for. It’s not blind faith, its faith built upon what we have witnessed He has done and knowing that He provides according to His purpose in us. You are a living, breathing gift to the world, created by Him for a purpose. It could be that your story, your pain, your achievment of living each day (despite the profound hardships and suffering you experience) might be a testimony that has and/or will encourage others with whom you share it. Maybe someone you have or will come into contact with will be reassured that YOU are evidence of what they hope for. Consider that God is using you for a greater purpose, His perfect plan for someone else’s life. After all, living for Christ was never meant to be for ourselves. You have a purpose given by Him and no amount of pain or hardship can get in the way of that. Perhaps, your testimony will help save someone’s life from eternal pain. God might reach others through you and many souls may be saved through your example of Christ in you. If you believe in Jesus and that He suffered and died for you to give you eternal life, have turned from your sin and chosen to follow Jesus, you also will have eternal life. God heals, sometimes in this life but ALWAYS in the eternal life and you have that promise if you believe and follow Him. This life on earth is not all there is. There is so much more. Be encouraged! God truly loves you, cares for you and will provide all you need ( whether you sense it or not).I’d like to know this as well. I have the most trouble initially falling asleep but do wake during the night as well. I am just heading into my second week of sleep prescription and hoping I will not always feel this tired.
Wow. Great encouragement and perspective here! Thank you and I will use it to reframe my thinking around sleep difficulties.
Wow, what an informative post! You have given me a lot to think about. Especially “Befriending wakefulness”. What? I definitely do not want to be friends with my wakefulness but what a concept! Also: “sleep is never the goal”??? Maybe I have been thinking about this in a less helpful way and need to remember all the progress I’ve made so far with learning better sleep hygiene, following the sleep window prescription and looking at sleep efficiency rather than how I feel after a rough night. Thank you for everyone’s comments too. Im so grateful for the knowledge that I am not alone in this.
Hi I am new to this forum and so glad to have found it! I was on Prozac for 20 years and have since been off of it for about 8 mos. I am also postmenopausal for a year and a half. Since going off the Prozac, my insomnia has greatly worsened. I was getting more hours sleep some nights, others up until as late as 3 am. I go to bed and then cant fall asleep. I had a lot of anxiety around falling asleep and this program has really started helping that. I have been putting all the stuff I’m learning to use and I am now a lot calmer when going to bed. I’ve done a week of the sleep window and it is brutal! Im getting less than 5 hours of sleep most nights and wondering if I should continue. It says my sleep efficiency is getting slightly better since starting the program but I just feel so exhausted and frustrated over being so tired all the time. I honestly feel more tired since starting the sleep prescription windows, except for one night when I got 6.5 hours of amazing good sleep! I’m hoping this program is right for me. I am glad to read everyone’s comments of what they have been through. It gives me hope just seeing I am not alone in this!
