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That makes sense. It’s just so much harder to accept the possibility of a bad night after a string of consistency. But I know what you’re saying and you’re right.
I’m in Colorado. There has been snow on the ground for days. We barely even had a Fall.
I thought one of the tenants of treatment was an increase of confidence, but maybe I misinterpreted that in terms of ACT. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I am not disappointed after not sleeping, even if I do practice the tools. Maybe I need more time to work on that. I appreciate the insight.
I am on day four of SRT and didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, after sleeping for 4-5 hours the past week. I was super tired and I have been able to talk myself into “staying awake to rest” until I go under, but last night I decided to go to bed with optimism and I got slammed by my arrivals. I had to continuously use the ACT tools just to keep myself somewhat calm. Sometimes I get to sleep when I do this, but that’s not always the case (and I realize it’s not the purpose). We had winter weather come through yesterday, and now I’m stuck in my apartment teleworking, which does not help me get my mind of things. Ugh. I realize SRT is like this at first, but I’m not entirely convinced it will do much for me if I’m that hyper-aroused after an exhausting week. I’ll be sticking with it for at least a few weeks longer, but ugh.
Burn, I think of sleep effort as actively trying to put yourself to sleep (meditating, counting sheep, listening to hypnotic podcasts, etc). I think of sleep monitoring as maybe more what you’re describing, which involves noticing your state of consciousness. I still do this. If your mind starts to wander, I’d say let it go. If not, I’d say focus on breathing and sensations with the understanding that it may make you more aware of your consciousness, but it may have the benefit of keeping you more relaxed. I keep mentioning this, but when I do let my eyes close and tell myself “I’m just closing my eyes to rest,” I sometimes drop off to sleep quickly, but I don’t know how long my own brain will buy into that distraction.
Hi Lady J,
I feel safe walking around my neighborhood at night, so at 10pm I walk about a mile. Then I come back, watch Netflix, do something with my hands (ie crafts), have a late snack, and the hour before I go to bed I put away my screens and do some light yoga/stretching, then read, brush my teeth and go to bed. I think it’s good to get some type of movement in, even if it’s light. It helps with anxiety.
Hope this helps.
I have high anxiety about sleep; I don’t think SRT itself is necessarily the culprit. I just think it will give me a quicker boost in the right direction than if I was doing ACT alone. My sleep therapist said he would want me on some level of SRT anyway if I started to regress. I get your point about how restricting time in bed might not fall in line with ACT perfectly but since a lot of ACT is about daytime as well as nighttime skills I don’t think they’re totally incompatible. And when I am awake in bed, I don’t get up.
Planning on finding a gym maybe this or next week. I need to start getting my mind off this.
Jamie or JT, either is fine. I played rugby in college and now I do martial arts!
I’ve had three nights of strict SRT so far. My onset times are improving, but now I am having issues with waking up too early. I’ve been getting about 4-5 hours a night for the past week and am a little worried that I’m stuck in a holding pattern where my body gets core sleep and then decides it’s done. Someone tell me I’m overreacting and that I just need to give it more time.
Thanks for the update on Featherly.
I think it depends on what your long term goals are. If you’re okay with sleeping on the couch long term, then what you’re doing is probably fine. I wouldn’t make it a habit though if that’s not what you want. I was having a similar experience where I would occasionally fall asleep on the couch and then beat myself up about it, and eventually abandoned SC and went full ACT. So far, ACT seems to be helping more. It helped me get off sleep meds quickly, and has given me more faith in my sleep drive after bad nights. I need to keep working on it, though.
I just started full-blown SRT last night. There are only a couple of video blogs of people doing this, so I started my own. Feel free to comment.
Thanks, Martin! I can’t say I spend more than about five to ten minutes on this after I get into bed, but it does seem to prime me for acceptance of rest, if not sleep. At this point I am relying on a little bit of paradoxical intention, a little bit of sleep restriction and ACT methodology. It’s a lot of trial and error, but I do struggle with performance anxiety and paradoxical intention does seem to have a small impact.
Thanks Mac, that helps. Calculating my percentages gives me massive performance anxiety so I’m trying to analyze numbers as little as possible and just try to feel it out for a while to see how it goes. I am going to be strict with myself about timing, though.
Mac, what protocol do you use when you implement SRT? How do you calculate your prescribed TIB? When do you know it’s time to add time to your sleep window and how much do you add? I just started restricting my time in bed from 8 to 7 hours. If I was doing full blown SRT it would probably be like more like 6 or 6.5, but I don’t necessarily want to rely solely on extreme tiredness to put me out. I want to keep using ACT tools with SRT just to give me a little boost.
Deb, glad to hear things are starting to turn back around! I hope you don’t still discount your previous success as a “honeymoon” period. It sounds like you’ve been doing all the right things and that you have actually been on a good track this whole time.
My sleep is starting to regress from what it was last week when I had five good days in a row. I don’t know if it was because I was getting anxious about sabotage or if it was because my confidence was increasing and then I let myself get super mad when I didn’t sleep three nights ago. What seems to work best for me is getting into bed with the mindset that I will just be calmly resting, striving to get to that “silver medal” podium (calm rest) and not jumping between bronze (anxious rest) and gold (sleep). I’m grateful when I do sleep and that I do have good recovery sleeps at least every few days, but then I am not practicing utilizing the tools as much.
In any case, I am thinking of implementing a 7-hour window today to help tighten things up. Hopefully I am not so solution-oriented that I am continuously putting my sleep on a pedestal, but it is hard to get my mind off it.
What does Sasha Stevens say about insomnia that isn’t covered in CBTi or ACTi? I’m curious but don’t really want to buy another book at this point.
Steve, I’ll bet you’ll feel better after your neurologist appointment!
Mac and Suren, good to hear you bouncing things off each other. It gives me confidence that I can get over anxiety, and that maybe a tighter sleep window will help.
Oh yeah and I hate filling out my sleep journal because it just makes me feel like I am constantly analyzing my sleep, which feels counterintuitive when I am am trying to relax about insomnia.
TwinDad, sounds like a play-by-play of my night. I am still relieved that I know I can sleep pill-less and am not really interested in going down that road again. I’d rather face worse sleep in the interim than deal with medication anxiety.
Daf, appreciate the pep talk. I’m mostly stressed by the roller-coastering and not knowing when I’ll sleep well and when I won’t. But I guess the acceptance practices are there to help me manage my own expectations.
Welp. I just had my first all-nighter after three weeks of generally sleeping pretty well. With my anxiety over sleep meds out of the way I just hear my inner voice yelling “sabotage!” Trying not go get wound up in doubt and grief but it’s hard. Hope you all slept okay last night.
Jazzcat I appreciate what you said about your biggest success story being getting over the panic about not sleeping. I had no idea how I was supposed to break that thought cycle until I found ACT. Now I am slowly learning to balance those feelings of cautious optimism and acceptance. It takes tremendous discipline to move towards confidence, and I know everyone here is capable.
