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Are you waking for water because you are thirsty or because of bad dreams? What is the reason you wake?
Now that I read the ACT book, the dreams caused the problem but is not the problem now. The problem is the sleeplessness decided to stick around. I think ACT would help you.
I finally completed the “The Sleep Book”. I stopped all sleep aids and just gave it a try. I got some light sleep and felt ok in the morning. I would call the 1st day a success since before I was 5 days with zero sleep. Hopefully it will only get better as I practice acceptance and therefore taking away the worry and the vicious cycle. “I have insomnia, no need to look at the clock”
AnnMarie I am going to give you something that I think will help you. I think it will help you because you have to change how to think to fix your issue IMHO. I will tell you what it is but you need to do the research and learn it and practice it. There is Tao·ism
/ˈtouˌizəm,ˈdouˌizəm/ a Chinese philosophy based on the writings of Lao-tzu ( fl. 6th century BC), advocating humility and religious piety. You need to not resist. Ask yourself, what would water do? Flowing like water is a metaphor for not minding what happens in the course of your day. Not minding when things don’t go right. Not minding when people are rude. Just being OK with what comes your way. When you study this enough and truly understand and can practice being like water, I think you will have won.There is a switch, everyone has one. It just takes some longer to find that switch when you are stumbling around in the dark.
If it were me, I would make an appointment with a good psychiatrist (the kind that can prescribe meds) and pick one of the many therapies to try. You also need to figure out the root of the of your insomnia if you want to beat it quicker. Can you give more details on the day it started? Before you noticed the sleeplessness start were you thinking or doing something out of the ordinary?
Ah.. so you got over your nightmares. I am going to give you an idea and you can choose to try it or not. It has helped me in the past. Get MDR Therapy from a practitioner for your childhood nightmares and see if there is any spark of fear still there. I know it sounds complicated but when you explain it to the MDR person they will understand. My guess is this will help you overcome or at least help your current insomnia.
I have a feeling this may help you. Try Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy for your old fears.
Welcome to the forums Phil. Do you still have the nightmares? If you do maybe you should be treating those first as they seem to be the root cause of your issue. There are ways to beat nightmares.
Mona, I also have GAD and insomnia sometimes. My fix is tell myself over and over that when I lay down my head that I am just resting. this way there is no anxiety about am I going to sleep because that is not what I am after. Most times after a Few, “I am just resting leave me alone”, I fall asleep. It does take some practice.
“I get out of bed within 30 minutes of not being able to fall back asleep, but never feel sleepy enough to return to bed.”
If this were my body, not being sleepy, I would interpret this as, I am done with sleep. Let us go be active.” For me my body will wake me up to get a drink of water, but I am still sleepy, so I go back to bed. It was not always like this. I trained myself back to this. When I woke up at 4 am, I got back into bed and even if not tired I just used the Mantra, I am just resting and made myself believe it. I did not seek sleep just to rest in peace and quiet. Eventually, after many I am just resting mantras, I would fall asleep. Did it last night and it worked well.
Fear is always the enemy here. It creates a fear of fear vicious circle. We have to develop the art of not giving a fuck and just sleep. we all over think way to much. with practice, you can tell your mind to shut up and be still. we have to get back to the art of truly doing and thinking of nothing.
I too have gotten a copy of that book and started to read it. It will be interesting and helpful, I hope.
