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I of course have developed a tolerance but it’s still enough to always put my brain in the state it needs to be in to sleep. I don’t mind not having the super relaxed feeling, I just need to turn the dang thing off! .5mg has done that for the last several years.
I take alprozalam. I’ve been taking it for about 6-7 years now for sleep. I take .5 mg a night, sometimes less, sometimes more.
I’ve been seeing my psychologist for about 15 years and he’s known my sleep situation and that I don’t abuse my medication so he’s pretty understanding about it.
I need a benzodiazepine specifically because my insomnia isn’t depression related or anything like that. I simply become too obsessive about my work and personal projects. I always have my greatest clarity for deep problems when I start winding down for the evening. I don’t want to let ideas slip so begin typing them up.
My brain simply never wants to turn off and always wants to keep solving problems so I have to dumb it down. If I don’t, I could easily work throughout the night every day.
Hey everyone, thanks for the replies. It’s nice to discuss this with others because there really aren’t many people who understand what chronic insomnia is like.
If I get told to ‘read a book’, ‘take a bath’, or my favorite ‘do some meditation’ one more time…
To answer your questions:
Deb- I will check that out, I’m open to a lot right now. I do think I’m following CBT-I to the T however. I have woken up within the same 30 minute window every single day, no exceptions, for the last two months. I started off on not getting to bed until it was 4 hours before waking up. After doing that 4 days in a row, I moved that up to 4.5 hours, then 5. I was successful up until I tried to push for 6 hours of sleep.
I decided to refill my medication which is certainly helping. I have gotten 5.5-6 hours of sleep, with no issues falling asleep (most important thing imo), for the last 3-4 days now and feel great.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’m someone who just needs only 6-6.5 hours of sleep a night. It would explain why I have insomnia the night after getting 7. At least with 5.5-6 hours of sleep, I fall asleep consistently (with my medication).
Edgar, I feel our stories and experiences are very similar. I too detest sleep. I’m a rather obsessive person with work. I get hyper-focused on anything I’m working on and find it almost a chore/waste of time to sleep. I think I have taken 2, maybe 3, naps my entire life. Sleep is just a tool basically for focusing, like food is for energy. I treat sleep like I do eating: get it over with and get back to what you were working on.
You are correct in your statement regarding insomnia never really going away for those with chronic insomnia. There hasn’t been a night in the last 15 years for me where I didn’t take my sleep hygiene seriously as I know the potential consequences.
I wanted to cut back on my medication for a few reasons: 1.) The obvious one, everyone says you shouldn’t do them long-term. 2.) When my medication is available, and I can’t sleep on my normal dose, I naturally take another. This leads to me being 1-3 nights where I don’t have medication. That’s when a bad night can take you off of your rhythm and put you back on a 3-4 month long insomnia bender.
After my 4 month attempt at lowering the dose, I realized that I went about it incorrectly, or at least in my case.
I guess I didn’t really consider my situation when going forward with this. My brain is impossible to turn off, it’s not stress or anxiety, it’s that my brain just wants to constantly solve whatever I last worked on. If people have to take medication their entire lives to manage chronic anxiety, maybe it’s not farfetched to think I too am a good candidate for permanent sleep medication.
I was the one to bring it up with my psychologist surprisingly. I’ve been going to him for almost the entire time I’ve had insomnia so he knows my situation. He didn’t pressure me when I asked to go back to my old dose. I do think he doesn’t understand the severity of my insomnia though. I think when a chronic insomniac tells a normal person they don’t sleep well, the normal person translates that as maybe 2-3 nights a week of 6 hours of sleep. They don’t understand that you get 4-5 hours of sleep every single night for months on end. For me, this is always the source of frustration and hesitation for discussing/working with doctors on the subject.
For point #2, what I plan to do going forward is if I have a bad night on my normal dose, I need to stick it out. I need to never take more to ensure there are no hiccups.
As you all are all aware, it’s all about consistency with your sleep hygiene when dealing with this.
MB, I don’t think I have any of those issues. Or at least not to the degree that they are noticeable. My entire family is filled with high blood pressure individuals. I also get low blood sugar very fast with my fast metabolism. Food plays a big part in managing my insomnia; i.e. the time I eat, what I eat, how often, etc.
I lift weights 3-4 days a week. Even when I’m very tired I try to not let insomnia dictate what my normal schedule will be, and it sucks really bad. I still drink a cup of coffee, put on my sneakers, and hit the gym the best I can. There are many days that I just can’t though.
I try my best :/
What’s working for me right now:
I think going forward, staying on my normal medication dose and sticking to cbti will normalize things. I’ve changed how I approach CBT-I the past week. I used to stick to the old template of gradually scaling up time in bed depending on previous success attempts. I now do this:
Obviously wake up within the same 30 min window every single morning, no exceptions.
Instead of determining a set time to get into bed, like CBT-I instructs, I now just watch tv on my couch downstairs until I’m very very tired. That is the time I go to bed. I hide all clocks so I’m unaware of the time. It’s simple, if I’m not tired, then I don’t need to sleep at that time. If I’m tired then I’m ready for sleep.
I’ve found this has relieved a TON of the pressure on “ok, I did 4 nights successfully at 5, let’s go to 5.5”. I may only be getting 5 hours of sleep a night, I don’t even know! To be honest, I don’t care. I am falling asleep when I try to. If I’m only getting tired at 5.5 hours a night then that may be all I need. Maybe my sleep drive will build up to the point where I get 6. But I’m going to follow this for the foreseeable future, it’s working for me.
Thanks for all of the feedback, questions everyone. It’s nice to discuss this with others. I’ve never done this before.
