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Hi NikC14, it sounds like you are really going through it big time.
For starters, I hope you are not shy about calling the Crisis Line. I volunteered there a few years ago, and we often got repeat callers who needed a boost to get through rough spots. I have heard there is now a national number –988– in the USA, anyway. But if you google Crisis Line, you will get through. You may also live where dialing 211 will put you in touch with community resources.
I totally relate to the constant ruminating thoughts. They are an understandable result from not sleeping: your brain can really go haywire. And the thoughts then contribute to future insomnia, a nasty circle. So what to do?
For me, mindfulness and prayer have been the key, the first to slow down and watch the thoughts rather than living them and buying into them; the second for the strength to get through the worst nanoseconds which do not last but seem like they will at the time.
I disagree with people who don’t believe in prayer, though I can understand why they don’t. As for mindfulness, it is sort of a fad right now but has been around for centuries. A couple of free sites: palousemindfulness.com and mindfulnessnorthwest.com
I know when you are really hammered from insomnia it is hard to see the difference between:
1. I’m having the thought that that this is going to last forever, that I should just give up; and
2. This is going to last forever. I am going to give up. —– The difference is huge.
I hope you stay with this site and check out Martin’s materials. The way we think about insomnia can really give it a life of its own, or we can step back and view it more dispassionately, to the point it can lose its grip on us. Not that we can all sleep great every night, but it becomes more of a casual, sometime nuisance rather than a monster.
Hi Chasingsleep, I think you have an insight in the name you have chosen. Chasing sleep indeed. I totally relate to wanting to track it down, grab it and hold onto it, and not wanting it to get away. And then after you have been up all day, wanting it to be there on call, exactly when you want.
But it seems to have a mind of its own.
I read that the inventor Thomas Edison would sleep when he was sleepy, regardless what time day or night. Then stay up while he was alert, again regardless of the time. I think that guitarist Keith Richards does the same, or at least did when he was younger. But both were self-employed and did not have to adhere to a set schedule. I am presuming that like most people, you have to be at work at a certain time.
Still, perhaps you still have some flexibility. Do you have a chance to nap during the day, if only just to close your eyes in a quiet spot for five minutes, regardless whether you fall asleep?
How do you feel about letting yourself sleep when you feel sleepy at 8/9pm? If this means you wake up at say 3am instead of your customary 6am, is that a bad thing if you feel rested?You might want to check out Martin’s materials about sleep restriction as well.
Sleep is weird. I do know that trying to control it doesn’t work all that well. And do I know how badly we want to sometimes!
Hi Carli, I am 71. I would not put too much into aging and sleep needs. Perhaps there are neurological theories, and I am not a medical professional. I do know that counting hours has never worked all that well for me. Instead, when I wake up, I stretch and do my best to just focus on the moment, instead of checking the clock and calculating.
And after stretching, sometimes I decide that yeah, I think I’ll stay up. Other times, I think that going back to sleep would be nice. And if I go back to bed and fall asleep, great, If I don’t fall asleep, I just get up and figure I’ll sleep later–a nap, etc.
Even when retired, though, there are some days where there isn’t going to be time for a nap. Or I might try to take a nap and can’t fall asleep. And then it is easy to start fretting about whether the chronic insomnia is coming back, and how for how long, and I can’t deal with this anymore, etc. etc. You know, the panic train starts rolling: where is it going, will it ever stop….
And when I can step back and watch the train just roll away, things slow down and sleep returns in its natural course. Sometimes easier said than done, I know; that train can really roar and get scary.
So again, I would not assume that since I am 70, my sleep is pretty much shot from here on out. It isn’t.
HI azeke, I am a man so I cannot speak directly to postpartum issues. I think we would have a reduced population if men had to share birthing duties with women, but that’s another story.
I would think that the stress of a new baby would be a classic case of situational insomnia, and there might be physical causes I am not aware of.
As for insomnia generally, it sounds like you are realizing that “forcing myself to try to sleep” is not going to work. And there is no sleep med which guarantees good sleep over the long term. If there were, there would be lines around the block. So what to do?
It comes down to thoughts—not trying to control or stop them–we can’t— but rather just being aware of them. Why? Because the alternative is to let thoughts just toss you around in the sea, lurching this way and that.
Mindfulness is a fad right now. The fad will fade away, but the value of mindfulness will remain. Suggest palousemindfulness.com and mindfulnessnorthwest.com as two examples of free sites to check out. This or that sub-topic or presenter can resonate with different people, so try not to blow it off if the first thing you see seems too “out there.” Again, the alternative is just to flounder in the stream of whatever pops into your head.
All I can tell you is that mindfulness and prayer were the best tools I had over many years of insomnia (not that yours will be necessarily long-term; I had massive childhood trauma to work through).
It is perfectly okay to just acknowledge the truth, whatever it is, perhaps that “I am having the thought that I am really wiped out and feeling like I can’t deal with this baby.” That is light years different than “I am really wiped out, and I can’t deal with this baby.” If you are really hammered from insomnia right now, the difference might elude you. But it is there.
Take care. While not all of us can directly relate to birthing and postpartum issues, all of us have something going on, and know that insomnia is tough. But it is not all-powerful, though sometimes it seems that way because you’re so tired you can’t think straight.
Finally, if you go off your meds, be sure to consult with a professional. I did various sleep meds for years, and found that pharmacists were the most knowledgeable and available experts.
Hi Roberta, and Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays…
I can’t speak to weaving sleep restrictions in while taking meds. I suggest you consult with Martin on that, and with a pharmacist regarding the half-life of whatever meds you are taking, ie. the proper way to taper off the meds, if you decide to go off them. As you have already discovered, they are not a cure-all.
As for watching your thoughts, it does take practice. Reading about it; watching videos and listening to podcasts about it; talking about it with knowledgeable, caring people–all good. But you still do have to practice. And it is something you can do while taking or tapering off meds; or doing sleep restrictions or whatever. The thoughts never stop. They are zipping through our heads. We can choose to practice observing them, rather than just getting buffeted about like a dinghy slamming into a dock in a storm.
Finally, I have noticed that even if the thoughts popping into my head are not particularly pleasant, better to step back and view them somewhat dispassionately rather than just getting swept away in hopelessness.
Take care, it gets better.
Hi Roberta, it sounds like you are making some progress. I realize that might sound incongruous: you’re having trouble sleeping, so how is that progress?
But you have recognized the difference between general life stresses, family hassles, etc. (aka situational insomnia) and sleep anxiety (worrying about sleeping, regardless of external life events). And you have learned that no sleep med provides a permanent solution. And that situational insomnia can eventually resolve to some point, maybe just acceptance that this or that family member is difficult to deal with.
But what are you supposed to do about worrying about sleep itself?
It comes down to thoughts, whether you can observe them without necessarily diving in and getting swamped by them. And Martin’s program could be the way to go for you.
Part of the thought mess for me was (and still is, sometimes) about goals. It’s one thing to have a goal like completing a course of study, or building a house, or doing research to make a sensible purchase. Take building a house. You need to know about soil, concrete, how to use tools, electrical components, and when to hire professionals for specific tasks.
None of that works with sleep. Barring sleep apnea which is detectable via sleep study, sleep just happens. You can’t map out a plan. You can’t make sleep a goal. This can be hard to remember when your mind is scrambled from lack of sleep.
No one sleeps great every night. When I have a rough night, maybe a few in a row, I try to get to a place where I can say:
—–I’m having the thought that I am anxious about sleeping, that I am getting frantic and despairing about it. I’m having the thought over and over that my life is a disaster;
as opposed to:
—–I am frantic about not being able to sleep. I am despairing about it. My life is a disaster.
Believe me, I know it can be hard to see the difference when you are really blitzed from not sleeping. And if you feel like giving up, try to be easy on yourself. You are not alone in this.
Hi w.thorne, I can briefly relate my story about generalized anxiety disorder, and maybe part of it fits into what you are going through.
I got a formal diagnosis of GAD and did psychotherapy for many years. (The trend now is more toward cognitive behavioral therapy, like Martin offers–shorter term, more specific–I had repressed memories and early childhood trauma, so a different path)
My insomnia sometimes was easily connected to present stressful situations, the type anybody goes through now and then, e.g. big job interview tomorrow morning. But mostly it was due to severe depression, a classic reason for early morning awakening. You refer to additionally now having trouble falling asleep. Not sure, but this could be anxiety about whether you will fall asleep, a classic circular mess because nobody can fall asleep when anxious, even if you’re tired.
I hope you will stay with this site and check out Martin’s emails/podcasts, and maybe his course will be right for you as well. There are a lot of us out here who can relate to what you are going through.
Hi Kate17, while none of our paths are identical, ours seem to overlap. I was hospitalized for severe depression and was on a whole slew of medications. I definitely needed meds to get stabilized. I had to learn how my past had led to where I was (a long road, not necessarily the case for you—early childhood trauma, etc etc.). Then I had to learn how to face present situations (and it sounds like you’ve gotten slammed with a lot of these).
But I found that no med could guarantee good sleep. You build up a tolerance to sleep meds—they might still have value as this or that antidepressant, but no sleep guarantee.
As you have discovered, sleep sort of comes on its own, unplanned, like when you fall asleep on the couch. Believe me, I know it’s easier said than done, but to the extent that you can stop trying, sleep will happen.
I still have lousy sleep nights sometimes. When it happens, I get up rather than toss around, then I try to ….how to put it,…watch my mind, i.e. try to observe what thoughts are swirling around in there. I try to step back and observe, rather than swirl with them. It might be that there is some present day situation which is bugging me, and it sounds like you have had a lot of those lately with mom and work conflicts, and death/near death. And sometimes it might be some old stuff, like getting bullied at work 30+ years ago, who knows why it popped up in my head last night. But if I can observe it relatively dispassionately, rather than re-live the misery, I find it can pass, like clouds drifting by. The same goes for thoughts popping into my head during the day.
I wish I could give you a concise answer, but all I can say in conclusion is try to be gentle with yourself. And check out Martin’s material on this site, including emails and podcasts. I went through traditional Freudian psychotherapy for many years, and because of early trauma, I think I had to make that long exploration. But most people don’t, and I think the cognitive behavioral therapy which Martin describes can help in a lot less time.
Take care, you are not alone in this.
P.S.–Suggest check with pharmacists for sound, no-cost advice on meds. Best not to tweak the dosages on your own, if you have been doing this a bit.
Hi Paulk, I’m sorry you are going through such a tough time.
But even though you are tired, you have really hit the nail on the head: “my biggest issue is sleep worry”
I am guessing that your mind is racing a lot, so it is really hard to focus. But maybe you can find a comfortable chair and just sit for a while. And maybe just “watch your mind”–by that I mean just noticing that wow, my mind is zipping around like crazy, and that I’m having this thought that I am really worried about sleep. Not trying to stop the thoughts or solve anything.
I know this can sound simplistic, maybe even downright stupid. But if you can sit and watch your thoughts drift (or race) on by instead of jumping in the raging river with them, it could help. Actually, I know it will help because I went through a similar mess for quite a while.
Hard to be patient or even sit still, when everything is so instant these days. But the sleep will come on its own. Easier said than done, but still true.
Hi dbaldino, I wish I had an easy solution. All I can do is relay my own experiences with sleep meds. Take away anything you find useful.
Over the years I probably went through 20 different sleep meds. Some worked for a while–a few months, but most of the time it was a matter of weeks or even days. And also times when nothing worked. Pharmacists know more about the effect of meds than the prescribing docs, and they have told me that it is natural to build up a tolerance, sometimes fairly soon, unfortunately. There simply is no pill which you can count on to sleep well on a consistent basis.
Re the specifics of clonazepam’s half-life and a safe tapering schedule, I would consult a pharmacist.
I understand desperation for sleep, believe me. But check out Martin’s emails and comments on this forum. He wrote recently about confronting anxiety, that it is part of our makeup, and trying to get rid of it is like getting rid of your heartbeat. I won’t try to elaborate further because I don’t want to mischaracterize his comments, but do check it out.
Example: actually, I did not sleep well myself last night. And just now a thought went through my head about my to-do list today, how am I going to do it all, what if I don’t sleep well tonight? And I am trying to approach all this as follows:
Instead of …..”what if I don’t sleep well tonight, or the next night, I can’t handle this anymore” and instead of trying to force these thoughts out of my head, I am going with ….”I’m having the thought that maybe I won’t sleep well tonight, or the next night, and that I can’t handle this anymore.” That is, prefacing whatever thought barreling through my head with “I’m having the thought that….” And I know very well this sounds simplistic and it is easy to slip into cynicism and darkness, especially when you are hammered from insomnia. But I hope you can slow down and give it a try.
Take care, you are not alone.
HI judi, regarding mindfulness, it can sound simplistic or trendy. You may have to check a number of sources to see what resonates for you. Suggest don’t write it off if the first few you check out sound flaky or weird.
A couple of free sites are palousemindfulness.com and mindfulnessnorthwest.com The first is free, period. The latter does offer seminars for fees, but also lots of free material, and there is no pressure to buy. Neither site is cluttered with ads or any interruptions.
Basically mindfulness pertains to really dialing in to the present moment, even if it seems mundane. It can feel somewhat awkward or slow at first, if you are used to lots of stimulation, which I think is sort of the status quo in our culture right now.
I would not approach it as a surefire cure for insomnia. There isn’t one. Sleep is rather simply something which naturally occurs, if only we can get out of the way and let it happen. Mindfulness can help because it involves stepping back and observing rather than being constantly caught up in the stimulus swirl.
Finally, you can spend lots of time talking about mindfulness, or reading or watching videos about it, when actually what really works is doing it. And don’t be concerned when your mind wanders –palousemindfulness.com addresses this issue particularly well.
Hey, nothing to lose, right?
And even if you are tired and things aren’t as good as you would like at the moment, I hope you can have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Hi judi, yes, it is tough summoning the energy to work when you are super tired. I don’t have a magic answer. I will describe what I did and maybe you will find something here to help.
Getting through law school in my late 20s, then law practice in offices through my 30s and early 40s, it amounted to caffeine, will power and the intense nature of the work I was doing. It helped when I mostly gave up the idea I had to sleep well. And there were a variety of sleep meds which would work temporarily. In my 40s and 50s I was working for myself in a scaled-down practice, not much money in it but a flexible schedule which sometimes meant taking naps. In my late 50s as my energy level naturally started to subside, I got less able to deal with the emotional aspects and left law practice altogether to work all sorts of jobs, e.g. delivering mail and working as a courier for the blood bank. And I was lucky that my wife had a good-paying job, though I will would have made it if I had stayed single.
Over the years I finally discovered mindfulness. I don’t mean the fad that is going around, but rather the whole concept of cognitive behavioral therapy, which incidentally is what Martin’s course is all about. Over time, I learned to stop trying to think my way out of insomnia or any other problems, instead watching my thoughts drift through my mind (or race through my mind, though that is harder until you remember to let things slow down).
Prayer was also part of the solution. I am not talking about some miracle fantasy, but rather prayer for the strength to get through this moment, this nanosecond. The next moment might be tough, too, but it’s in the future, deal with it when it’s here. And it turns out not every moment is awful.
In short, I had to scale back to do the best I could, and try not to let insomnia become this all-powerful ogre. Tough to do when you are really hammered, but try to be gentle with yourself. And know you are not alone in this. Take care.
——————————(Please don’t think this means you will struggle with insomnia for years. I had lots of childhood trauma to work through, so it took longer. And I went through lots of doctors who didn’t want to explore insomnia all that much, just write a prescription for different meds.)
Hi Jenna, and I am glad you found Martin’s site.
There are millions of people walking around who did not sleep that well the night before. And sometimes the reasons are due to what’s happening right now–pain from a sore knee, anxious about sleeping through an early alarm clock, noisy neighbors, overdue bills, etc. I imagine there could be nights of poor sleep due to pregnancy, etc. In other words, what’s called situational insomnia. It happens.
The bigger problem is when insomnia starts taking on a life of its own. The initial reason for the poor sleep has passed, but you spent a lot of days tired with your brain getting scrambled with thoughts along the lines of “I can’t handle this,” “I’m probably not going to sleep well tonight, who knows when, how much longer am I supposed to live like this,” etc.
When I find myself falling back into this rut–and setbacks happen–I try to remind myself not to take my thoughts too seriously, that I’m pretty hammered from insomnia right now and not thinking straight, that the thoughts are just popping into my head unannounced and sometimes even bizarre, but I can just let them drift through my mind like cloud shapes passing through the sky.
And that nobody sleeps great every night….I wish I had slept better last night, but hey, I’ve been here before. In other words, not freaking out about sleep when it is something which will just come on its own when I stop trying.
Take care, you are indeed not alone in this.
Hi SleepyKel, I think you are off to a good start—not that it’s an automatic progression to improved sleep every night—but not gauging your progress by a clock makes sense. Ditto the podcast. And you are already onto not trying to force sleep.
I am a man, so I cannot speak to post-menopause. I can say that my wife is at that stage in life, and she sleeps well, i.e. post-menopause is not an automatic impediment to sleep.
This is not to minimize what you’re going through, and even when you sleep well fairly regularly, no doubt there will be nights when it’s not so good. I can say that no matter the reason, it does not have to mean you are sliding back into the abyss or whatever. I think if we can accept that okay, I didn’t sleep too well last night or even the last few nights, I’m pretty hammered right now, it can lead to better sleep if we can avoid freaking out and just let sleep happen.
Easier said than done, and hard to think straight when tired, I know. Anyway, I think you are on the right track.
Hi reforger, your request for advice “that works” is straightforward and sounds quite reasonable. The tricky part is that insomnia is not the type of problem you can solve logically, like say, wiring a house. There are certain rules about how electricity works, e.g. how many volts a device can transmit. If you follow the rules, you can build an electrical system and get the lights to turn on and off. (Or if you’re like me, get someone who knows what they’re doing rather than electrocute yourself or burn down the house—so maybe not the best analogy!)
My point is that insomnia does not make sense. The way it is supposed to work, when you are tired, you simply fall asleep, like babies do. What happens is we get something on our minds, don’t fall asleep right away, then start worrying about not sleeping. Once this happens, the thing we worried about initially can disappear, doesn’t matter, because now we can’t sleep because we are worried about not sleeping. And then we try not to think about that, which means you just think about it all the more. And on and on. And then you are exhausted from not sleeping, you can’t think straight, and who knows what kind of thoughts pop into your head, e.g. I wish I would just die, if only I could sleep, no one understands what I’m going through, etc etc.
What I found most helpful was any type of mindful awareness, which is a fad right now but has been around for centuries. There are free sites, e.g. palousemindfulness.com which you can explore to find something which resonates for you. The key is simply being aware of your thoughts, not being dominated by them. And I realize this sounds simplistic, but I travelled the insomnia road for a long time (doesn’t mean you will–lots of childhood trauma to work through) and while there is no guarantee of perfect sleep all the time, it is a solid way forward.
The other big benefit I discovered was praying for the strength to get through this nanosecond. Not prayer for a permanent cure, just for this nanosecond. Five minutes from now is the future; you don’t need help to get through that because it is not here. I live in a secular part of the U.S. where many people don’t believe in prayer or God, or at least in a God who loves us, but I offer this for your consideration.
And finally, I suggest sticking with this site. Even if you cannot afford the formal course, Martin offers a lot of free resources like emails and podcasts. It can be helpful to get reminders to stay on track, and also to know you are not alone.
Take care.
