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Hi Emilynnp, if I hear you correctly, your brain seems like it won’t turn off so you can sleep. And the more you focus on it, the more active it gets.
I wish there was a way to turn off the brain at night, much like you turn off the lights in your bedroom. But it seems wired to keep going. I suppose it is good that the brain is active in case something happens, like a sudden fire hazard. But for the most part, it just seems to just get in the way of a good night’s sleep.
As you go through the emails and read various posts, you will see that lots of people go through this. Some people decide to just get up and read or do something else they enjoy–can’t sleep anyway, so why not? Others decide to just lay there and acknowledge there is a struggle going on, and decide to stop struggling. Who knows with our brains, it’s a computer and we all know computers can get wacky.
Personally, when my mind is swirling, I try to watch the thoughts zipping through my mind, and to label them as just thoughts. I have discovered that my defenses seem to be down at night, so it’s then I am most liable to get God knows what thoughts popping through there. Lots of times they repeat, for no discernible reason. Nothing to make note of on a to-do list for the next day, just old useless junk which I’d rather not hash over again, but here it comes again, and again.
I have abandoned the idea of ever controlling my mind not to think about whatever thought pops in there. Instead, I just let it drift through. For example, what about the time a work colleague chewed me out for not being more assertive on a court case we were working on. And it turns out she was right. I label the thought:
—I’m having the thought that I blew that case, that I should have been more assertive and done a better job. I’m having the thought that I was so worthless, I am worthless now, what a mess I have made with that, with my whole life……
Labeling the thought, as above, is vastly different than buying into the thought, e.g. that it must be true, I am worthless etc.
Maybe your thoughts are more worrying about what could happen in the future, as opposed to ruminating about the past. But I think the same analysis applies. We tend to take thoughts too seriously, like they are the gospel truth, when often they are just junk floating through our heads.
I hope you stick with the forum and can pick up ideas from lots of people. We might have different approaches, but we all know what insomnia is like, that is for sure. You are not alone.
Hi Maxine, it sounds like you are really going through it.
For me, one of the biggest struggles over insomnia was seeing it as a problem I could solve—the same way I can organize all my gear to go on a backpacking trip. Something you have to do, or you run the risk of being 20 miles from the car, out of water and no idea where the next creek is. You can remedy this problem ahead of time by studying maps, talking to rangers, and calculating distances and your rate of speed.
Unfortunately insomnia doesn’t work that way. The “solutions” sound like trite platitudes: just don’t worry, let go of expectations ……
It does come down to letting go, much the same as a little kid who just conks out and goes to sleep. He doesn’t have a strategy.
Great, but right now I can’t sleep, how am I supposed to get through the next day? For me, it came down to realizing I am not going to sleep great every night. I would prefer to, but I know that if I don’t, I can make it anyway.
I do try to give myself a break the day(s) after poor sleep. I acknowledge that I might be prone to getting irritable; that I could have more trouble concentrating; that maybe I don’t have to take on that huge project today.
Over time, I learned that anxiety about whether I will sleep tonight can pop into my head at any moment, I used to think this meant “I am not going to sleep well tonight. Who knows, maybe never….I can’t handle this…..I wish I was dead.” Okay, sometimes I still go down that path a little bit, but for the most part now it is more like: “Okay, I am having an anxious thought about not sleeping well tonight. And I am having the thought that this means I am doomed to poor sleep for who knows how long …….” But observing these thoughts just drifting through my head, without buying into them.
It can be tricky not buying into these thoughts when you are really tired. But knowing that, when I am in fact tired, I can usually not take thoughts so seriously. I know my thinking is distorted.
Well, there you go. I hope that helps, but either way, please keep reading other people’s posts, and check out Martin’s emails and podcasts. And his course goes into a lot more detail.
Take care, Maxine. There are lots of us dealing with insomnia. You are not alone in this by a long shot.
I have found that pharmacists know the most about side effects. Plus they are available for free consultation, especially when starting a new medication. If they mention insomnia, invariably they say I can just take the med in the morning instead of bedtime.
Incidentally, insomnia is listed as a possible side effect on probably hundreds of medications, including meds for insomnia! I believe at least here in the USA, the government requires sellers of prescription drugs to list all side effects reported by any lab study participants, even one person out of thousands.
As Jillrosen points out, sleep anxiety can take on a life of its own, even after you stop the med.
And it can seem unstoppable, like you are at the mercy of your thoughts. I finally got to the point of just letting the negative thoughts sail through my mind because trying to keep them out just seemed to energize them.I think sleep anxiety boils down to the fear that I will not get enough sleep, and this is going to keep going and ruin my life. I think another forum poster put it very well: “The real recovery isn’t sleeping well all the time. It is in not fearing poor sleep anymore.”
Hello again, you wrote that insomnia has been on-and-off. Same here, and probably for just about everybody.
It would be great if we could just pick up an insight, declare the insomnia problem solved, and sleep wonderfully every night. But here I am, having to remind myself about the thought stream and letting it flow by instead of jumping in. Why? I figured out that issue some time ago. That should be the end of it, right?
The bad news is that a powerful thought comes along and it starts banging on the door. My latest is that I should be getting more recognition for the music I create. All of us can fill in similar thoughts: I should be getting paid more; she shouldn’t have said that; they should have fixed the garage door better; people should be more considerate.
The good news is that even if the new thought disrupts sleep, it probably won’t morph into a long term problem. Because after a while, I remember this new powerful thought is just the latest branch floating down the river. Once I stop trying to wrestle with it, instead getting out of the river and letting it sail by, I can see it’s like the stuff I wrestled with earlier.
I find the more I practice labeling and watching thoughts instead of reacting to them, I don’t spend as much time in the river as I used to.
Hi vchiemeka, I admire your commitment to addressing insomnia.
I am guessing your approach no doubt works well in systems engineering issues, which I am guessing involves building things, or designing things for other people to build (bridges? electrical circuits?)
Unfortunately, insomnia does not lend itself to so much of a logical approach, at least in my experience. If you want to set up a program, I would suggest Martin’s course (not getting paid to say this!). That way, you can have a set schedule, e.g. one lesson per day or whatever.
The challenging part will be letting go of definite progress reports and linear success. It can be a roller coaster.
You are certainly motivated, but I hope you keep in mind this isn’t like a tangible building project.
Hi MN Mom, I hope you are checking out other posts, where you will see that many people are struggling with similar issues.
It might be good to check out whether you are situationally depressed solely because of insomnia, or whether depression preceded insomnia. Early morning awakening is a classic sign of depression, often treated with antidepressants.
And again if you check out other posts, you will see that sleep anxiety is a big driver of insomnia, as in “I can’t sleep, which makes me anxious about how am I supposed to function like this,” which leads to continued worrying and poor sleep, etc.
Hard to remember, and easier said than done, is letting go. Because effort doesn’t work. Sure, there is sleep hygiene, like don’t drink lots of coffee at night, but for the most part you can’t make yourself sleep.
For what it’s worth, I used to get super anxious when I woke up in the middle of the night: will I get back to sleep, how can I make it next day if I don’t?! After many nights like that, I had to acknowledge I had always made it through the next day, somehow. Call it a 100% success rate, though I certainly would have preferred rested days.
I get back to sleep more often lately, but not always. If I can avoid freaking out about it, it usually doesn’t go on for several consecutive nights like it used to.
Martin covers these points and a lot more in his podcasts and course.
Take care, you are no way alone in all of this.
Hi Candy, perhaps you have made more progress than you think.
You have realized that medications can sometimes work short term, but that’s about it. You also have realized that you are “totally obsessed with sleep or lack of.”
Maybe the next step is realizing that going to bed with game plans and tactics is fueling the obsession.
Like everyone else on the forum, I know how desperate you can get. And you want to tackle this problem and Fix It once and for all. Just letting sleep happen sounds like a simplistic fantasy.
How does this sound: check out Martin’s videos on the course. After each video, give yourself time with a cup of tea or a walk or whatever to let the message sink in. No expectations, no pressure that it means you must sleep well tonight or else.
Oh, and you’ve realized you are not alone in this. I remember I used to be convinced I was isolated with insomnia, but I was wrong.
“It seems my anxiety is finding something new to worry about every day.” Wow. I have never heard it said that way. I really think you have nailed it.
I know some people who sleep okay but focus intensely on every physical discomfort. For some, it is normal aging, but even though they are 70, you would think they must be 90. Of course, sometimes there can be something truly physically wrong, so it’s worth seeing a health professional on a regular basis. If that stomachache is more than just indigestion, you want to get it checked out, right?
I do think that for those of us who deal with chronic insomnia—as in pretty much everybody on this forum—that sleep anxiety is the main reason life can get really hard. Check that, how do I know……okay, for me, when I get into a rut of insomnia, I seem to have more and more depressing and catastrophic thoughts pop into my head. Like the state of the world, and the political polarization, which exists but which I can quickly transform into a hopeless situation if I buy into whatever thought pops into my head. Perhaps for you, thoughts center on worries about physical health, where the pain is real but perhaps greatly amplified by worry.
Sorry if I am rambling–turns out I didn’t sleep all that great last night, probably shows! My last piece of great wisdom is I think we can acknowledge that this or that thought might be powerful, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
I am going to try to remember your quote above.
I hope you stick with the forum and read a number of posts. You are not alone.
Hi Markymark98, it sounds like you are really going through it. I think all of our paths are different, but maybe something here will resonate for you. I dealt with chronic insomnia for many years and know more about it than I wish I did.
I have never heard of “sporadic fatal insomnia.” Frankly, it sounds like something one picks up off the Internet, where everyone is an expert about everything, it seems.
Is it possible you are kind of winging it on your own, rather than sticking with steady advice from a qualified physician you can trust?
My own insomnia journey includes sleep apnea as one of the causes. Lots of people have it, and lots of people don’t want to deal with CPAP machines. So they don’t, and apnea insomnia continues to disrupt their lives. There have been some technological advances, e.g. expensive implants, which let people bypass using machines, but most of us have to slog along with them. I would be quite a bit worse without mine.
A sleep study can tell you definitively whether you have sleep apnea. It measure how often you “wake up,” i.e. when your sleep cycle is disrupted even if you are not fully conscious of it. Hints that you might have apnea: your weight, and the fact that you sometimes wake up to the sound of your snoring.
Finally, not sleeping well for a lot of nights can really scramble your thinking, even to the point where you wing it and try this or that remedy on your own, and just go to ER rather than sticking with a doctor and a plan. And maybe thinking that you are a failure if you have to see a mental health professional, when actually it is a sign of courage.
Take care, you are not alone.
Hi DavinaC—- I can’t say I have a magic formula for early morning awakenings.
I rarely sleep through the night, instead expecting to wake up early. So I don’t wake up early in a panic like I used to.
I get up and stretch for a bit. The. I lie down and see if I go back to sleep. I guess I try to not have a whole lot riding on whether I go back to sleep, and usually just get up rather than get knotted about it. Because you can’t will yourself to sleep.
This might sound simplistic. I know that awful desperate feeling (I have to get back to sleep!). Please stick with the forum for other approaches, though I think you’ll find that letting go is key. To be sure, easier said than done, especially when you’re tired and can’t think straight.
Hi SpeedofLight, I can relate to the thought problem. For a long time, I figured I was at the mercy of whatever thought popped into my head. I did try, as you say, fighting, tackling, forcing them out. Unfortunately, it didn’t work very well–especially when waking up in the middle of the night, when I guess your psychological defenses are down.
Call in CBT or mindfulness or whatever, but finally I learned that while I couldn’t stop the negative thought, I didn’t have to buy into it. Instead, I could just note and observe it.
I now expect that I will wake up in the middle of the night, and more often than not I have a negative thought pop into my head, e.g. how I wish I had spoken up instead of getting bullied, even 40+ years ago! Instead of totally re-living it, I note that “I’m having the thought that I was a coward.” Not a pleasant thought, but different than extrapolating into “I am a failure in life, I never get it right, I am disgusted with myself, I wish I had just slapped her in the face, I hope she is miserable today, wherever she is” etc etc.
Maybe a nature analogy will work here? Say you are sitting beside a river, just watching the water flow by. Apparently a tree branch broke off and fell into the river, because here it comes floating by. It is a thought. You can’t stop the branch from coming into view, or from floating by. But you don’t have to jump in the river and try to stop it. (Even if you were able to, another branch would be coming along before long.) Instead, you can just watch it pass on.
Add to all of this the difficult time you had this past June, and it is understandable you might well be having a whole thicket of branches coming along. All the more reason not to jump in the river.
Of course it is easy to type something like this when I’m not going through it right now. But I have, as have millions of other people. I hope you will read other posts, even ones not directly responding to you. That and Martin’s emails/podcasts.
Take care, you are not alone in this.
I think sleep anxiety has to be one of the worst types of anxiety out there.
If I’m anxious about what to pack for a trip, or how to make a recipe, I can budget enough time to plan.
I have decided that beyond the basics (no caffeine/ alcohol right before bed), there’s not much I can do about sleep. Worrying about it got me nowhere.
Although it can be hard to hold onto this simple truth when you’re hammered by insomnia and can’t think straight. This has been my experience anyway.
Hi nibbler, I had what was later diagnosed as a general anxiety disorder for years before the insomnia started. None of us are on identical paths, but maybe you and I are on similar ones.
I think (hope) my worst insomnia is in the rear-view mirror. One thing which has helped is actually expecting to wake up in the middle of the night. I wake up almost every night, anyway, and it seems better to expect it than get panicky or depressed when it happens.
Interestingly, when I wake up at say 2:00 am, invariably I have thoughts running through my head about some way I have failed–getting a poor job performance review thirty years ago, getting bullied by a kid in sailing class sixty years ago, whatever. This happens so often I come to expect it. What I have changed over time is how I view it. I used to get immersed in the bummer thought and reaffirm to myself what a failure I was, and then I try to remedy things by imagining how I could have handled it differently, or how I ultimately wasn’t really a failure— you know, trying to solve it all to make myself feel better so maybe I can get back to sleep if I’m lucky.
I don’t do that anymore. Now, I just observe the bummer thought going through my head, recall that I seem to get these thoughts popping into my head, especially in the middle of the night when probably my subconscious defenses are down or whatever……and I just let the thoughts drift through like clouds passing by my window.
If you find your experience has been considerably different, that is probably to be expected. Like Martin says, there are probably as many different triggers as there are people in the world.
I would encourage you to read other people’s posts for different views, including Martin’s emails and podcasts.Take care, you are not alone.
Hi FuyukO—-
When I have a setback (insomnia returns), I acknowledge that while I would really like to sleep well tonight,
I can make it regardless because I’ve been down this road before.I understand and sympathize with all your efforts to solve the problem of insomnia. Unfortunately it isn’t solvable like figuring out an electrical circuit. Martin covers this point in detail as you continue on in the course.
As for getting through the next day after a rough night, I focus totally on just the next nanosecond. That and praying for strength. If you don’t believe in mindfulness or prayer, keep reading the posts for tips from others.
There are many paths to better overall sleep. You are not alone.I dealt with insomnia for many years, and like virtually everyone still don’t sleep wonderfully every night.
The only physical health impact I felt was that it seemed to take about twice as long to get over a cold. Unpleasant but not really damaging.
There is no guaranteed physical cure for insomnia anyway. You can’t control it. If only! sleep meds are good short term, if that.
Martin’s materials and checking out this site’s posts will point your friend in the right direction, but insomnia differs from a purely physical ailment like Type 2 diabetes, which is physically damaging and also something which you can mitigate with lifestyle choices, insulin etc
It can be hard to just let sleep happen when you want it so badly. And insomnia can lead to wild thoughts. But all I can say is it’s possible to get better.
