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Hi z8080, I am not a medical professional so I cannot speak to your various diagnoses and treatments all that well, other than to say that “just psychosomatic” is similar to what I have heard, from what I refer to as “medical engineers.” Traditional medical school training provides a solid scientific background but fails to include the role of the mind.
It is easy to resent phrases like “it’s all in your head” when coming from a clueless medical engineer. Some physicians do get it—that emotions and physical manifestations are connected. You might want to check out unlearnyourpain.com with Howard Schubiner, M.D.
And most definitely CBT. Dr. Schubiner gets into it, and on this website Martin offers a full course. Plus videos and e-mails explaining it. I get the impression that you might be analyzing yourself into a corner, much like this retired lawyer has done about insomnia and lots of other stuff. “It’s all in your head” may prove to be accurate, though not in the ignorant, patronizing tone you may have heard in the past.
Take care.
Hi Lisa33, oh man, is it tough or what…….maybe especially for people who try hard at something and generally succeed. I could be way off here, but for some reason I think you fit in this category?
Anyway, trying to sleep is one of those things where trying harder doesn’t work. As for sleep aids, you already know that pills are not the long term solution. (You might want to check with a pharmacist, but I am fairly certain Xanax is for short term use for panic attacks.)
I am guessing you have heard the advice about observing your thoughts instead of living in them. And it is absolutely easier said than done. So how to do it? I think it comes down to a practice routine, and here I am talking about mindfulness, which is a current fad–and also a way to approach our thoughts that has been around for about 3,000 years. You can read about it, watch videos about it, talk about it…..but it comes down to doing it. And no, it is not a cure-all, and sometimes you think you will never get anywhere. (For me, it is analogous to learning guitar, but pick whatever analogy applies for you…. another might be actually physically exercising instead of just talking about it….) Suggest palousemindfulness.com or mindfulness northwest.com as examples of free websites. Lots of avenues, some will resonate, others not so much.
I think Martin’s cognitive behavior therapy course is a good regimen if you find that a set schedule of exercises might be the way to stay motivated.
I don’t understand how all this stuff works, but there are reputable studies which show physiological changes to the brain which can lead, among other things, to better sleep. I thought it sounded kind of out there, but eventually I started wishing I had heard about all this years ago, after struggling and trying so hard to sleep.
I hope you stay with this website to keep reminding yourself that you indeed are not alone. Nothing like chronic insomnia to get so scrambled you can’t think straight. This is especially the time not to take your thoughts too seriously, they can really get whacky.
Take care, you are not condemned to a lifetime of insomnia.
John: it sounds like you are really going through the mill on this….I can’t claim to pronounce any miracle cure. I can say that I have also have been dealing with insomnia for many years, starting with severe childhood trauma—since resolved via therapy, but the insomnia had already moved in and didn’t feel like moving out.
I hear you about sleep studies and sleep docs. They are primarily centered on sleep apnea (which I have and treat with CPAP, but I’ve had non-apnea insomnia, too). Many physicians are medical engineers–good on the technical, not so much on empathy. And no one who hasn’t been through this really understands.
You refer to a disability and chronic medical issues. These I cannot address. I can only hope you can find a medical professional who is willing to listen. I have had better luck with women doctors, currently with one who is an ARNP, not M.D.—i.e. with the know-how, but not with the ego which some M.D.s live by.
Re sleep meds, it sounds like you have discovered there is no permanent fix. I found this true with supplements as well–melatonin, etc.
Getting down to it, I am wondering if your main stumbling block is the one I have struggled with as well—-attitude about sleep. You refer to “garbage sleep,” and your moniker tells me you are kind of wearing a badge of sleep anxiety. This is not a criticism, I hear you big time on this….I used to think of insomnia as an all-powerful monster, against whom I had no chance.
I wish I had learned about how to deal with thoughts and how to employ mindfulness. I did not realize for way too many years that I was supporting my anxiety by trying to think my way out of it, until finally the negative thoughts (the monster, etc.) came to predominate.
Fortunately, you have discovered you are not alone in this. Suggest get on Martin’s email list for starters. He had one earlier this month on how thoughts can lead to and perpetuate sleep anxiety.
Hang in there, I know it is a tough road. But I think you have made a good turn here in finding this website.
Hi NL.gal,
I have been dealing with insomnia for many years. (Not saying you will, a lot of it was from childhood trauma.) I have learned a few things about it.
–Alcohol will help you get to sleep, but it often results in waking up too early.
–The jerking of limbs / restless legs syndrome might warrant consulting a sleep medicine physician.
–Pharmaceuticals can help sleep for a while, but is not a long term solution. You build up a resistance and then you have to shop for another temporary drug.
In the long run, I have found mindfulness to be the best remedy. Not picture perfect, but just being aware of thoughts and not taking them so seriously can really help. Sometimes I have thought if I could just withdraw from the world, all would be well. But I think thoughts would pester me whatever I did or wherever I did it. And I don’t want to hide away.
The above can sound pretty fanciful, even ridiculous, when you are hammered from poor sleep for nights on end. This is when I try to take thoughts even less seriously because I know it’s the insomnia talking.
Take care, you are not alone in this.
Hi jesssrouji, sounds like you are in a tough spot right now.
I think it comes down to being aware of thoughts. There is no stopping them: they just pop into your head. Especially when the big event is coming up—getting ready to sleep, here come the thoughts about sleep. To the extent you can, just watch your thoughts drifting or whizzing through your mind. Like clouds moving through the sky.
And try not to take thoughts too seriously. They can be weird and quite inaccurate. Especially if you haven’t slept well, all sorts of thoughts can pop into your head out of nowhere.
Take care, you are not alone.
Hi Cas80, I am not sure if you are anxious about sleeping less hours some nights, or if you are not as rested some mornings.
If it is just about less hours, it’s just that we don’t need as much rest some nights. If it is about not being as rested, I don’t think we can expect to feel super-rested every morning, at least not after age 30 or so? And if it starts to happen fairly often, it could be that worrying about it is the problem.
Yeah, but how do you just not worry? And here is where CBT comes into play, when we acknowledge thoughts as just thoughts, not necessarily something we have to buy into. Noting that “I am having the thought that I will not get over this” is much different from “I will not get over this.”
I hope you feel rested more often.
Hi Jacob, I can relate to your sleep anxiety.
Martin put out a really good email a few days ago, entitled “fear of insomnia,” which covers what you are going through.
As for the mechanics of when to sleep, how long to stay in bed, etc., check out this website for Martin’s tips. (I don’t work for him, by the way!)
Your central question—how to get where you “don’t care”…..when you also want “more certainty” about sleep. I dealt with this for many years before I learned about stepping back and noting my anxious thoughts, instead of getting completely absorbed in them. Not that it works all the time: it is natural to want to wake up rested, and it is disappointing when that doesn’t happen. But for the most part, when I wake up early, I note that I am anxious about waking up early, and note that I am worried I won’t get back to sleep.
There is a huge difference between:
1. “Insomnia is ruining my life”; and
2. “I’m having the thought that insomnia is ruining my life.”
I do not try to get into the mode of not caring whether I get back to sleep. Because to be honest with myself, I do care. Instead, I acknowledge that I am having thoughts about sleep, that I would prefer to get back to sleep. But that if I don’t, I can make it through the next moment. Not fun, but I have done it before. And I cannot force myself to sleep: trying harder works for most stuff in life, but not here.
All of this is about mindfulness, which I know is sort of a fad these days. But it has been around for 3,000 years or so. You might want to check it out, eg. palousemindfulness.com
Hang in there, Jacob. You are not alone in this.
Hi MommyE18,
I am not a mommy, but if I may, perhaps what you are describing is any situation in which you really want to do well, and you want the energy to do well, and that means sleeping now. And so it becomes imperative to sleep now.
Unfortunately this is one area where trying harder does not help. Maybe it comes down to just doing the best you can. That okay, you’re tired, but you love your baby and so you’ll just do what you are able to do right now.
I find that when I have a rough bout of insomnia, underneath it all is a feeling of having requirements. A good night’s sleep becomes not just something I would like, but something I have to have or everything will fall apart, that if I am tired I will be a lousy mother, and I have to be a perfect mother.
I also find that when I am tired, I am more likely to get into this mindset. It helps when I can remember it is the insomnia talking, I am a little scattered, thoughts racing all over…..and eventually I recall that wait, I am tired right now, I don’t have to lay such huge expectations on my shoulders, I’ll just do the best I can.
No magic formula…..it could help to check out Martin’s videos, emails, etc. which are available on this site even if you don’t sign up for CBT course, though maybe that is something you would like to explore also?
You are not alone in this. Take care..
Hi Cas80, I can relate to what you are saying, and I’ll bet a lot of people can.
When the type of fear you describe—I slept great last night, but what about tonight…and the night after that?!—when I find that sort of washing over me, sometimes I freak out a bit, but more and more I just realize that, ‘You know what? I might not sleep well tonight, I hope I do, but if I don’t, I can deal with it.’
I also try to step back and watch my mind, usually via slowing down, listening to background sounds, what I am touching, etc. in other words, whatever it takes to be right here in the present moment. Then I can see the thoughts drifting through. There is a big difference between:
1. “I might not sleep well tonight, the insomnia could come back, I can’t handle this;”
and
2. “I’m having the thought that I might not sleep well tonight, I’m having the thought that the insomnia could back, I’m having the thought that I can’t handle this.”That might sound silly or simplistic if you skim over it, but if you can slow down, I think you will find it is not.
I dealt with insomnia off and on for many years. I am not saying you will; I had huge emotional trauma in childhood. The reason I bring it up is that I sort of chugged through the many days when I was tired. I would acknowledge it, okay, I’m tired, and just do the best I could. Just trying to ease up on myself a bit on those days. Knowing that actually I cannot totally control ovewhether I sleep well tonight.
Take care, you are not alone in this.
Hi tennislover, it really does come down to attitude toward insomnia. Suggest check out Martin’s podcast.
True, it is hard to believe this when we are hammered from not sleeping well night after night. To the extent you can, try not to take thoughts too seriously. I know when I have had a rough patch, I can get thoughts popping into my head like “I’ll never get over this,” my life is ruined”etc. And then I can tend to let those thoughts take over.
Eventually I remember the huge difference between:
1. “My life is ruined”; and
2. “I’m having the thought that my life is ruined”Hi Mitch 17, this is my second attempt to reply. If you should get a reply which ends mid-sentence, I must have hit the wrong key or something.
Anyway, it sounds like you are working hard toward sleeping better. The techniques sound good, as long as you can remember that we can’t accomplish sleep the way we can a lot of things by working harder.
Re what to do when you wake up early, it sounds like you are doing Martin’s course, so I would consult with him directly. I can say that when I wake up early, I just get up. Otherwise my bed turns into a battleground.
Re your doing mindfulness, that has been the most successful for me, too. No guarantee every night, of course…..I view it the same way I do in practicing guitar: it comes down to doing it, even when it seems like no progress. Doing it instead of just reading about it or talking about it or watching videos about it.
Seems like you are on the right track, even though I know it can be a weird road with lots of twists.
Hi Tanguera44, I think you are right on the money when you say that anxiety about sleep is a big part of it. It took me quite a while to figure that out.
And even after figuring it out, it hasn’t meant I sleep great every night.
I will look up “havening” as you suggest.
I will think I will also consciously consider whether worrying about sleep helps me sleep better. Of course I know the answer is no. But maybe it helps to look at the anxiety eye-to-eye and ask, “So how exactly are you going to help me sleep?” Anxiety has to admit that well, I won’t, I will just keep you spinning.
Hi Jim Rainy, in response to your question about “what if you can’t sleep after that day again..”
Actually, my response is not changed. When I go several nights without adequate sleep, I find it is usually because I am starting to obsess about it. When I can let go and just say, ‘I would rather get a good night’s sleep tonight, but if I don’t, I can deal with it, done it before’ I generally do get a good sleep.
I used to think of insomnia as a problem to solve. No doubt it can be problematic, being tired a lot. But I have found that trying to solve it does not work in the long run.
You sound like a hard worker, and that attitude usually leads to success in a job or career. I think insomnia is different: if we try to solve it, it sort of hangs around. Maybe this is especially hard for Americans like me (us?) to accept: we have a “can do” attitude which works well in a lot of ways; here, not so much.
Hi ak, I can relate to the anxiety about sleeping. Seems like it can pop up anytime, even after sleeping well for a while.
It popped up for me last night, actually. By 3:15 a.m., that was it, no more sleep, so I just got up. And okay, I will be tired today. Done it before.
The trick for me is to not assume that because I sleep poorly for a night, or several nights, that this means I’m sort of sliding into a lifetime of exhaustion. And I know it is easy to slide into that line of thinking when tired. I try to remember they are just thoughts, and I don’t automatically buy into whatever pops into my head. Especially when I am tired and inclined to view a setback as a lifetime catastrophe.
I totally get that it is easier said than done. But there is a huge difference in “I’m having the thought that I will not sleep well tonight,” and “I will not sleep well tonight.”
Take care, you are not alone in this.
Hi Flying Fish, I am wondering if you have not had responses because the “headline” of your post says you are not tired, i.e. so what’s the problem.
Anyway, I am sort of guessing that when you say “I’m not tired” you mean “I’m not sleepy.” And that you want to sleep but you are too hyped up, i.e. not tired.
I have never dealt with the challenge of a new baby. So I can only guess that especially with a first baby, that a new mother would worry, and get hyper-vigilant to try to combat anything which might happen, real or perceived.
I can say I know about hyper-vigilance from other causes, and I lived for many years very tired but not sleepy, and yes, it does affect how well you manage (not that you will for many years, I had to deal with severe childhood trauma buried deep, etc etc.).
But it got better for me, so I think it can for you, too. The biggest shift for me was finally learning that my thoughts are what go through my mind whenever they feel like it, and that I do not have to buy into them. I used to think that ‘I am my thoughts.’
Besides therapy because of my situation, I found mindfulness to be a big help. I know it is a fad at present, but it goes back centuries (suggest palousemindfulness.com to see if it speaks to you). And Martin stresses this a lot: cognitive behavior therapy really explores how thoughts and how much we buy into them can affect how we live.
Hang in there, and I am glad you reached out on this site.
