[Jacob]

What i really need is that life experience of waking up in 5:30 am, When i can manage to fall asleep easily later and waking up in this time naturally for like two weeks, then i start to going bed earlier and try to sleep more. But i feel even then i will put to much effort and control to my sleep and it will end up like this.

How to lose sleep effort like this and still do some sleep changes like going to bed later?

[Jacob]

So after week i give a little report.

Its so problematic for me to fall asleep later. I can never imagine it beig such a problem. Like i feel more later i want to go sleep, more effort i put into sleep and its harder for me getting sleepy, because anxiety and stress overcome sleepines and i dont feel sleepy at all and cannot drift off.

like first four days i fall asleep, but sleep only for two hours, because body wan to wake up in it natural time, which is 2 – 3 am. Yesterday i wake up cca in 4 am after 4 hours of sleep, but today i dont sleep at all.

Its super hard for me to relax in the evening like my eyes are not heavy at all. I dont have problem to fall asleep before, but now i have, which is paradoxal, i sleep so little and its so harder.

But that waking up in the 2 am confirm, that i really need to going bed later and allow my body to change its rytm for waking up later. But i really fail in stimulus control. I lay in bed even if i dont fall asleep for hours. But i must keep going and keep trying. There is no other way.

[Jacob]

Hi Jacob. You really read my mind. I absolutly considering going to bed later. And if i manage to consistently wake up later, like in 5:30 am about two week or more, then i start to shifting my bedtime to earlier times 🙂 Do you think is a good plan?

I dont feel like i have some sort of anixiety when i wake up in the middle of night. I just feel so wake up witch zero sleepines. Many people, if they wake up during a night, they feel like a zombie and have hard time to get to bathroom, but i am like “super ready” for starting new day, so i cannot go bakc to sleep, like you suggest.

Thanks Scotty, after month or more i will write a report how things ging 🙂

[Jacob]

Hi Scott.

Your right. Waking up during a nigth is absoluttly normal. And i dont have problem with that. The issue is, many people with early morning insomnia including me in the 90 % of my nights cannot fall back to sleep 🙂

For me like 6 hours of sleep is my maximum what i can get. Many time is like 5 and sometimes is only 4. And in long term that make kind of feel that you are still struggle to get normal sleep and its like mental evidence that you still have insomnia. Which can sometimes really backlashing you to full insomnia for some days, when you cannot fall asleep at all. Especialy in the really hard and stressfull times like when you preparing for competition, you train more ore you have more work in your job etc.

In that challenging times i am in some kind of state of hyper stress, I can fall asleep in this times, but wake up much more earlier, like after only two or three hours of sleep instead of four or six.

But for you question – whats going trough my head, when i wake up in the middle of night? Well nothing tragic. I dont panic or think that i will not fall asleep again or fall dead in my job that day 😀 Its just i wake up with zero sleepines, but with some exhaustion dependent on of how many hours i slept. Sometimes i just go off my bed and start my day. And in some cases i just tell myself, i rather be laying in bed and relaxing, which i do with zero increase of my heartbeat. I just lay in bed and relaxing, but dont fall asleep, because my body isnt tired or sleepy at all. Exhausted yes, but not tired.

But truth is, when i am sick etc. i sleep like ten hours without any problem, because body is tired like hell. So yes i belive, that more tired i am, more hours i will sleep (but not in stressful times). Which is totally corrrect 😀 its like ping pong. one night i sleep 6 hours and autmatically the next night i sleep only 4 and then again i sleep more like 5

Like 4 – 6 hours of sleep is OK and i can manage my life and go trough the day withou any problem, but i am stuck in this amout of sleep (for nearly half year??) because of my early morning wakeups, which i feel my body considering as a start of the day. And its a problem because with this amout of sleep, challenging times in life more easily evolve in full insomnia, which again is gone after the challenging times are gone, but after tah i am again stuck with early morning insomna, which is still better then full insomnia, but still a issue, which i want to resolve.

So thats why i ask what is better for resolving it. Trying to wake ups naturally later trought the process of going to bed later like 1 am (now i going to sleep in 10 pm and wake up in 2 – 4 am) or willingly waking up earlier like in 2 – 3 am and start a day and wait for sleepines to build up like during a one week and then try to willingly wake up later like 3-4 am and next week 4-5 am and next week 5-6 am.

I just cannot tell if this early morning insomnia is C-rythm issue or stress or mindset issue. But in the end i want to sleep 6 – 8 hours not 4 – 6 🙂

So what is your suggestions. Thanks for reply 🙂

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by Jacob.

[Jacob]

Hi. I was and particularry still am same case here. I too going sleep in +- 10pm and wake around 3-4 am. And still improving. But to the core of your question. Is is learned behavior or different C-rythm. From my point of wiew both.

When i have goo night, when i sleep like 6 or more hours then automaticly bad night come, when i wake up very early. And my solution for that was willingly set my alarm to like 2:30 or 3 am. Like literally. You wrote you want to sleep, thne the listenig of brodcast etc. is only your alternative for the inabillity to fall asleep hardly again. So make the shift. Make sleep your secondary goal that you dont want primarly and set your clock to early morning. Just wake up in the 3am and dont want to go sleep again like stay wake up

After some time of this wakefullnes mornings you notice that you wake up to your alarm totally crashed with heavy breathing and hard time to be fully awaken. And in that time if you go back to bed, you will definitevly sleep like to 6 or 7 am.

Like you retrain you brain to really dont make sleep yopur primary goal and then you atuomatically loose any sleep effort and then you will only face your changed C-rythm which will automatically start pushing wakeups to more later hours.

It worked for me

[Jacob]

Thanks 🙂

[Jacob]

Hi Chee, thanks for reply.

Yes. You have true, i only need to remeber 🙂 I know, that CBT-I isnt about controling your sleep, but sleepines. I strugle in life generaly, and thats the reason of my insomnia. My insomnia is only byproduct of my “bad” life. But in past 4 months i done huge progress. I am more financially stable, can take some vaccation, which is something i could not do for like 5 years.. And i experience much sleep improvement because of that.

For me, insomnia is only reflexion of my general anxiety from failing. I am very goal oriented, and everything what blocking me i have tendecy to dismiss, destroy, abandon etc. So, like you say its about surrender these things and accepting chaos of life 🙂

[Jacob]

Hi chee.

No i dont sleep during a day or sleep in two cycles in night. Its just my work, children and overall lifestyle dont support it and i dont even want to try it.

But i continue to going to bed later. Yesterday i went to bed in cca 0:30 – 1:00 am and wake up 5:30 which is nearly before my clock in 6 am. Which is good. 🙂 I will try metod two steps foward one back. everytime when i will go to bed earlier and wake up early, i will next night go to bed later to keep my waking up in 6 am. And i will do that as long as i will need 🙂

For me is signal that this is the best way to go for now 🙂

Nontheless thanks for suggestions and advices

[Jacob]

Hi Martin 🙂 thanks for reply 🙂

Yes. I think my body clock is just attuned for 4 AM, Like today i hit the bed in 1 am and wake ups in 4:45 am. Which for me means that body clock is set up, but on the other hand i wake up cca 45 min. later then usual 🙂

If i could i go to sleep in 21:30 pm i done that, but because of my child i simply cannot. So i was hitting the bed in 22:30 – 23:00 pm and constantly wake up during the nigh, manage to go back to sleep and then wake up in 4 am and cannot manage to back to sleep again. I was getting better results. Like the number of days, when i sleep 6 hours was increasing, but that early morning wake ups constantly cutting my amount of sleep. So now i want to resolve that.

Like yes. I have some little mind arousal in that early morning wakeing up, but its because no matter what i did i was not able to fall back to sleep. I try to lay in the bed, watch TV show, try to sleep somewhere else after that wake up. But because of lack of sleep drive (after 6 hours of sleep especially) a wasnt be able to fall asleep again.

So from my point of view, its simply about chnaging the body clock. Like i said i have litle to zero problem fall to sleep when i hit the bed, even during night wake up i can usully fall back to sleep. But that early morning wake up 😀 😀 is like unpenetrable wall…

[Jacob]

Hi. 🙂 I must inform you, that i try your attitude and it simply dont work. I dont care how much sleep i have. But i dont deny that more sleep is simply better. I dont have any exceptations about my sleep nor the worry. I just dont wake up later (many people experience early morning wakeups eve if they arent insomniac and dont think about their slepp at all). And i wake up in 4 am independently if i go sleep at 10 pm or midnight. Only thing is, when i go sleep earlier, i have more wake ups during a night. The first wake up is usully fine, and i can often manage to go back to sleep, but second wake up in 4 am i cannot fall back to sleep because i dont have enough sleep drive. If i stay in bed, i only have light unresting sleep with many vivid dreams, but that cannot be counted as normal good slee because i dont fell rested from that 🙂

I used you advice for more then one month and i simply dont get results 🙁

[Jacob]

same problem here. I can fall asleep easily. I have little no worry about my sleep, because every day i sleep 4 – 6 hours. It just i wake up to early… I tried to go bed earlier, but it end up only that i have more wake ups during night. I am in the grey zone to, that i constantly wake up in 4 am and cannot extend it to 6 am where i need to be.

I dunnno know what to do about it. Its not life tragedy. 4 hours are still better then nothing. But i fell i need 6 or 7 for optimal functioning in life.

The advaces like – dont worry. No guys, i dont worry i will wake up early, i just wake up early. Its just like that. Or advice – dont care about sleep rules anymore. No guys. When i dont care about rules i end up in going in bed in 10 pm because feel sleepy, but wake up in 2 am. No i am not obcese about my sleep a dont really think about my sleep during the day. I only dont have great sleep. Thats all.

Its natural wanting to solve that. Its like some broken item in your house, that you know you need to fix, but you are not obcese with that, because you know it snot that much important, but still important.

I totally feel Alex and i know why these kind of advice will not help, even if you mean it good. Its just we both have problem that we cannot extend our sleep.

[Jacob]

Hi Scott 🙂

I ask it as a general question. I myself found that technique fake it until you make it is very useful to get me bacj to sleep after wake up in the middle of night. From my view, its completly normal to wake up in middle of the night. But insomniacs have so much frustration about that wake up in the middle of nights, that when they wake up, they start think about how they are pissed of by that, that they are not able to fall back sleep again.

But we must reconseder that after some years of insomnia body etc. arent used to long night sleep. So i ask if there are some practical techniques (like stimulus contorl or sleep deprivation) how to have non interuptet sleep or how to fall back to the sleep after that wake up 🙂

[Jacob]

What helped me a lot was after bad night or nights i still done the day activities i want in the first place. Then i start to see, that i can live normally and get the shit done anyway, so the fear of not being able to work, excercise, having sex, traveling etc, was gone.

From my experience its like 50 % of that physicall exhaustion is because of bad mental thougs related to insomnia. If you constantly saying yourself how much you are tired, in bad mood, damaged, depressed etc, then you really are.

Its hard to break, but getting shit done during a day is a good way how to break that negative thinking 🙂

[Jacob]

Hi. Did you try going to bed later?

I have the same problem. I just wake up for bath. So i started to go sleep much later like 11:30 pm and then its dimiss. But in the sense i wake up later, but without need for bath, so i only stayted with closed eyes in the bed and fall asllep again. I dont toss around or stand up etc. Just stay still and continue in imaginating some things.

[Jacob]

Hi 🙂

Well you dont need to reply. Its ok 🙂 But i dont agree with you about that its just only mental problem. Its not. I strated to wake up dduring night going to urine not because some mental problem. But mental problem arise after that, sure. And for my its very wise to practicaly solve any interference like noises and sounds from road or need to go urine during a night. Because for non-insomniac thats normal things that wake people up and distrub their sleep 🙂 So for me trying to solve my mental problem attuned to ym sleep without solving that interferences is like wasting money to pain pills when your leg is bleeding. at first you stop the bleeding and then you solve the pain 🙂

Like i said my insomnia start because of the night interferences, so keeping them unsolved will get me nowhere. But i will still using sleep restriction and stimulus control for solving my mental issue with sleep 🙂 One need another to completly solve my sleep issue 🙂

And thanks to conversation with you i recognize that 🙂

[Author]

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