[Jeck1982]

Have just re- listened to the course module on wakefulness. I now see that the goal of getting up and the AWAKE exercise is to respond to wakefulness and not necessarily to generate sleep. I didn’t feel that the AWAKE exercise was helping me when I practised it but I will give it another try.
I suppose that I see wakefulness as an entirely unnatural state and being awake in the middle of the night when everyone else is sleeping is not a pleasant experience. Although I can still do the things that I want to do the next day, it is a struggle.

[Jeck1982]

Thanks for replying Martin. You ask how I respond to wakefulness. I get up a couple of times and try to find something useful to do. I have never really found this particularly helpful. I don’t worry about the next day anymore, since I know I can function in all the activities that I would normally do. I just make myself as comfortable as possible and rest. Sometimes sleep comes, sometimes not. Wakefulness, however is the very worse effect of insomnia and much worse, I have found than getting through the next day.
I do often worry about whether I am going to sleep some nights and then predictable I don’t have a good night. I also suffer from thinking that I have not slept at all when I am told by my wife that I actually have.

[Jeck1982]

Hello Martin,

I had been using restricted sleep for some time with mixed results, but the course has definitely improved my situation. It is difficult for me to answer your question “which part of the course was most helpful” because my progress, is I believe, due to the cumulative effects of everything I have learned and the techniques practised. I am sorry that I can’t be more precise.
Regards,
Tony.

[Jeck1982]

Thanks for replying Martin. What I mean is, that sometimes I get out of bed when not sleeping and when I go back to bed I do sleep. However, mostly I don’t sleep after getting up.

This course and communicating with you has brought me to start to better understand my problem. Here is a good analogy. If you have a bad tooth which is giving you pain, it occupies your mind the whole time, you try to avoid eating on the bad tooth. However once your Dentist has resolved the problem, you soon forget that you ever had a bad tooth.

With Insomnia, after practicing CBT, I start to have good nights sleep. Then after a few days of good sleep,I start to forget that I ever had a problem sleeping. I probably move away from the regime without thinking. I am sleeping well at the moment and I am not waking up until 7.00am whereas my sleep window is 12-6. In the past, Insomnia has always returned and for no apparent reason, this always shocks me since I think that I got over it. I then have to go back to strictly following the regime.

So , this is why I have been reporting mixed results. How do I make my recovery permanent, as some of your clients are seemingly doing?
You ask what I would do differently when sleeping well or otherwise. The answer is nothing, since I carry on doing the same things whether sleeping badly or otherwise. But after sleeping badly it is much harder to do. Playing a game of tennis for example is much more difficult with more making errors after little sleep, concentration and movement suffers.

So how to make sleep more permanent is my problem? Incidentally, don’t advise an alarm clock to set off at 6.00am, my wife who sleeps until 8.00am would probably kill me!

Many thanks for your interest, it is most helpful.
Tony.

[Jeck1982]

That is a very good question Martin and I really struggle to find the answer. Last week I slept well for 5 nights out of 7. The other two bad nights, I didn’t do anything different that I can recall, I just went to bed the same time as the other 5 but didn’t sleep. I do however find this difficult to understand and I start to puzzle what I may have done differently to cause this relapse. It seems that every time I think that I have left Insomnia behind, it comes back to remind me of what it is like.

I get up when I don’t sleep to just change the situation with hope that it may help when I go back to bed. It rarely does, but again sometimes it does work, if it did consistently, I would feel much more positive about the whole regime.
Do’t get me wrong, my sleep has improved considerably from what it was, I just seek some consistency so that I can forget about this period of my life and move on to what it was before Insomnia came into my life.
I had a bad sports injury and couldn’t sleep due to pain and discomfort for some considerable time. However the injury healed, but the insomnia persisted. A classic case I think.

Tony.

[Jeck1982]

Ok Martin, my name is Tony incidentally. I have read Colin Epsie’s book and probably seen all your videos on U Tube. I spend an hour before going to bed quietly reading, or some other relaxing activity. Go to bed at 12.00, sometimes sleep within 30 minutes, sometimes not actually aware of the sleep. Might wake up a couple of times, always wake up around 6.00am.
Need 15 minutes to come round usually before getting out of bed. Once or twice I have fallen back to sleep for another 45 minutes. That is a good night and am very happy with that.
On a bad night I follow exactly the same procedure but don’t fall asleep, I get up, do some reading or colouring and go back to bed. Invariably this doesn’t work. I give up getting out of bed but generally fall asleep anyway between 2-30 and 4-00.
Don’t feel particularly good but carry on my day which includes tennis twice a week.
Have to admit going to bed earlier and getting up later when I am having a good spell of sleep, but only 30 minutes each way.

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