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I agree with Kevin that how you approach your day is key. I find that if I sleep poorly for a night or two, but still get on with life as best I can, I am more likely to sleep better sooner than if I start ruminating about how I haven’t slept well, when is this going to end, I can’t deal with this, etc.
Hi Packer Fan, I can’t really add to what Martin is saying. I will just relate what I did when I felt anxious about sleep.
I used to try to eliminate thoughts that made me feel stressed or sad or angry or whatever. I also tried to tell myself positive things, like your telling yourself you are a good person. (I’m willing to bet you are a good person, but that’s not my point here.)
What I found was that when I tried to eliminate a thought, it just gave it more energy, so it just kept at me. And when I tried to think only pleasant things or about how I did something good, I would get responses along the lines of “Yeah, but what about…..?” and then thoughts about evil in the world or how I have done some not so good things would come popping into my head.
I finally got to the point where I figured anything and everything might pop into my head regardless how hard I tried to keep the stuff out. In fact, I would get more of the stuff the harder I tried to get rid of it.
Sounds simplistic, but how about giving yourself a break and not trying so hard? I venture you were able to give yourself a break now and then as police chief, knowing you couldn’t make everything wonderful for everybody all the time. How about here and now, and even if you don’t sleep great every night?
Hi SCTwo, I think you are onto something here. I don’t know that you have to go all the way to “I don’t care,” but your main point is spot on: not granting insomnia power.
I remember I would have rated it a 10 pretty much all the time. I saw insomnia as an all-powerful monster, which might ignore me for a night or two when I could sneak in some good sleep. But that it was all-dominant, that I could no more control it than I could the weather.
It took me quite a while to see how distorted my thinking was, and I am glad you’ve figured it out.
I agree with Kevin that essentially it’s best to just roll with it, when the sleep anxiety hits. Tim, it sounds like you have discovered that even after some progress, there can be setbacks. It happens. And nobody sleeps great every night, even people who have not experienced significant insomnia.
You are quite right that when the panicky feelings hit, you “can keep them going by obsessing.” Of course you can know intellectually to stop doing that, but easier said than done, right?
You are definitely not alone.
Not sure I can add anything here, but oh well….
I dealt with insomnia for many years (severe childhood trauma, etc., doesn’t mean you will at all). Anyway, that is pretty much in the rearview mirror, but I still have bad sleep nights. Sometimes who knows why, and I suppose when I have a string of bad nights, I can call it a setback. I just think setbacks are part of the process: it’s not a continually ascending path to great sleep every night. Nobody sleeps great every night.
I like the observation that when we have a difficult day, that we aren’t quite as likely to extrapolate and figure well, I guess, all the days from here on out are going to be difficult. I realize there are exceptions, e.g. financial problems which can’t be fixed in a day, so yes, things can be tough for a while. But it seems we’re more likely to translate a difficult night into oh, oh, every night from now on is going to be like this, what if I am doomed to a lifetime of poor sleep. Maybe because our defenses are down, and we feel more vulnerable.
Maybe I shouldn’t be writing “we”—-how do I know what you’re going through? Instead it is “I” but I do have a hunch that a lot of people are on the same road I travelled.
Hi sahoosibu, I can relate to the early morning panic.
I am not a mental health professional, but I do know that early morning awakening is a classic sign of depression. Depression can stem from adverse life experiences which can be talked through, or from chemical imbalances which can be aided with antidepressants. If you want to explore this, best to find someone competent rather than winging it with whatever you happen across online. I had to deal with depression so this is a familiar path.
It is also true that the early morning panic can just take on a life of its own. You wake up, freak out, wonder will this ever end, get more panicky, and it just feeds on itself. I have travelled here, too.
I wish there were an instant solution. All I can offer is how I dealt with it, which was pretty much to stare right at it. I tried to push the freak-out thoughts away with other more pleasant thoughts, but it seemed like the panic just got stronger. So instead it came down to acknowledging them, like Martin describes. And I found that if I focused on the present nanosecond–not the whole day or even the next two minutes–that I somehow got through the day. Not as easy and fun-filled as i would have liked, but I made it, and maybe felt a little proud that I made it.
I’m pretty much over it at this point, but it can still pop up, and I don’t always put my own advice into practice. So sometimes it’s just a so-so or even kind of crappy day. But I don’t need to extrapolate and figure the rest of my life is going to be guaranteed miserable at all.
Hang in there, there are millions of people like us. We are not doomed by a long shot.
Hi BorgC, it sounds like you are learning the nuts and bolts of the course–but that when it is time to sleep, it perhaps to turns into ‘fine, that’s all well and good, but what am I supposed to do when the mental voice shows up?”
Or to put another way…..knowing the theory about acknowledging thoughts and feelings, agreeing that the NOW and AWAKE exercises make sense, but what to do when the thoughts and feelings are just overwhelming, like getting overpowered by an ocean wave?
Instead of trying to “lose that feeling of fear once and for all,” how about looking at the fear and saying…I am really afraid and overwhelmed right now And then just letting the fear drift by. And I get that the fear can hang around for a while, or leave and then come back, which means doing this some more.
When I feel fear, I have found that I can’t just make it go away. And pretending it’s not there hasn’t worked, either. I have had more success at just letting it be, and letting go of the idea that I can live a life totally without fear (or sadness or anxiety or any of the things we’d rather not have to deal with).
Hi Sriram, I think if you follow Martin’s course, you will see improvement. Probably not an instant cure, but worth your while.
The good news is that you have been able to identify the problem: sleep anxiety. It isn’t necessarily next day’s event or get-together, or whether you need to share the room with someone. Those might be difficult issues at times, but the long term problem is indeed sleep anxiety.
The course very much addresses what to do with our thoughts—not so much to be “overcome,” but rather to be acknowledged. Trying to banish them doesn’t work, anyway. Instead, it just gives them more energy.
This doesn’t mean you are at the mercy of any thought that just pops into your head. Instead, you are just watching it drift by like a cloud.
This will come clearer as you move on in the course…..try to be easy on yourself, give yourself time to let this happen.
Hello Hyhan, actually I have been sleeping better for a while now. (This is where I stop and knock on wood.) As for “overcoming” insomnia as in a sort of combat, I think instead of having generally gotten to the point where I can not freak out when i have a bout of insomnia, or when I wake up repeatedly during the night, or when thoughts pop into my head like, “what if it comes back with a vengeance, I’m getting older, I can’t deal with it if it does,” etc. etc.
Note I used the word “generally.” I still have episodes when insomnia can get into my head, and I’m irritable the next day(s) after lousy sleep, and rumination can still kick in. But I guess I remember before too long that this isn’t my first rodeo with this thing.
Hello Hyhan, oh man, thoughts you’d rather not deal with that keep popping up….
Insomnia does not cause physical health problems. How we react to insomnia might lead to physical health problems. But it can be hard to retain this truth when we are hammered from lack of sleep, right?
I think that really going down the rabbit hole of rumination—omg. I can’t sleep, I can’t deal with this anymore, I wish I were dead—can lead to all sorts of physical health problems. High blood pressure, ulcers, all sorts of self-harm like substance abuse, even suicide. Again, how we react to insomnia.
As for insomnia itself, it is definitely unpleasant. Who wants to be tired all the time? But by itself, that’s the beginning and the end: “I’m tired right now.” It’s only when we extrapolate that we make more of it than what it really is.
I know the above is right, but I find it hard to hold onto if I haven’t slept well the night before, or maybe several nights. In those times, i try to just remind myself that when I start going down the rabbit hole, that it’s just the insomnia talking. And I just observe the disaster-type thoughts pop up without buying into them.
Hello Hyhan, all I can say that over many years of insomnia I figured I must be sustaining some sort of long term physical damage. However, I have never found any credible evidence to support this idea (eg, Web MD, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic).
I did find that a cold which would probably last 3-4 days, if I could sleep, would instead last a week or more with insomnia. And a hellish week at that. And yes, sometimes lead to a headache. But for the most part, I found insomnia to be more psychologically damaging —and this only if I reacted to it as if I were damaged.
In short, there is no doubt that insomnia can be tough to deal with, but I don’t believe it is causing physical damage, like you would have with smoking or drinking too much.
I hope things get better for you.
For me, the golden rule has been to get out of bed when I can’t sleep. And I think I will generally stay with that, because of a long history of tossing and turning and ruminating.
But I can see Martin’s point, which I think is that it’s not so much where you are (in or out of bed), but whether you are trying to dictate exactly when you will sleep and for how long you will sleep.
Expressing the same sentiments here, Sonja Leslie. I can relate to struggling to sleep. I think as you go through Martin’s materials, you will see that part of the road to better sleep is to stop struggling. We all know this is easier said than done. And it can be hard to believe there is a way out. But I believe you will find that there is, when you can slow down and accept and listen.
I would find suggestions like these patronizing and simplistic, then I would realize that was just the insomnia talking, you know, you’ll never get over this, life is hopeless, etc etc.
You are not alone in this.
Hi Packer Fan, I found that allowing max. 20 minutes, midday, if I felt sleepy as opposed to tired, sometimes resulted in actually sleeping during that time and feeling refreshed. But that if I did not fall asleep within the first five minutes, just realizing it’s not happening, and getting up. As opposed to continuing to lay there, hoping it would happen.
As for laying down multiple times during the day, tired but not sleepy, just thinking that if only I could get to sleep how wonderful that would be, getting frantic or depressed when I didn’t fall asleep, I found all this just made things worse. Instead, it was more like I would definitely prefer to be feeling more rested, but that’s not happening right now, so I think I will just do something—something I like doing, like riding my bike; or something I have to do, like going to work, and feeling a sense of accomplishment.
Hang in there, it does get better, even when it feels like it never will. So much for relying on feelings.
Hi tinatina86, I guess this reply comes a bit late: by now, you either went on the trip, or didn’t. Maybe you can draw on the experience and decide whether you feel glad about the decision you made. And if you sort of regret the decision, can you accept it is in the past, without berating yourself. After all, you made the decision as best you could on the information you had.
For me, I used to find that once in a while, I would be so blitzed I would just bow out. On the other hand, sometimes I just went and did whatever it was, figuring I’ll just do the best I can. I would catch myself visualizing insomnia as this powerful monster and deciding no, I don’t want to get into that mode. And then it would seem that over time, the “powerful monster” sort of faded away in the mist, even if I still hadn’t slept well.
