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Hi Deb. This week has been ok. I didn’t have the greatest night on Christmas Eve but it wasn’t a bad night. I put myself together the best I could and felt pretty well for Christmas dinner at my family’s house. After that though things started to be smooth sailing. This weekend (Fri and Sat night) was amazing as I had two great nights of sleep that have left me feeling refreshed. Friday I went to sleep as late as 1:30am (rare for me) and it made me kind of nervous since I basically haven’t slept past 8am in what feels like a dogs age. Well I ended up sleeping until 9AM(!). Wow, I thought. However, come last night (Sat night) I thought my sleep drive was going to be weird since I slept so late. Wouldn’t you know it, I went in my bed at 10:30pm, was out by 11, woke today at 7am! So again, basically two great nights of long sleep, and more evidence that I can sleep just fine even given some interesting circumstances. However as good as this all sounds, it’s also more evidence that my infamous 6am alarm for work continues to be the culprit in preventing me from ever truly resetting and healing. This is my opinion at least. Give me a job that allows me to wake around 7am or so, and I can almost guarantee you I’d be fully healed within a month. It’s this extremely early 6am wake up call which as I’ve said many times before was a bit of a problem even BEFORE this all began, that continues to hold this all into place.
That all being said, I’ve had a bit of a goal in the last month to end this year on a really high note and go into my one year anniversary of beginning my recovery sleeping well. We’ll see how it goes, and i’ll report back. In the meantime though, how are YOU doing?
Jazzcat – Bravo to you for sharing your entire story. Me and plenty others on here can relate in many ways. Unless I missed it you didn’t go into what caused your insomnia. Just curious how/when is started. But in any event, getting to that special point of realizing you CAN sleep normally again and that your ability isn’t “broken” is a huge point in the process and I’m glad you got there. That being said, then say you think your melatonin levels are off. I highly doubt this is the case. Oh, and as far as the fear of dementia, I’ll one up you – Alzheimer’s runs in my family. How’s that for more anxiety in a world of already maxed out anxious feelings. On top of all that, not that this matters too much bc I know a person struggling is a person struggling, but I’m 30 YEARS younger than you. Just trying to make you feel better in a bizarre way!
Now onto your post. You say you don’t feel any hyperarousal in you and guess what, you may be absolutely right in that you don’t feel anything or believe you have any issues. I don’t either most of the time. I go sleep at night myself feeling just fine. Hardly a worry in the world compared to where I was even a year ago. But like clockwork, I still have my early awakenings most nights. So here’s the thing… In my opinion, when we were REALLY struggling for so long(though I’m not sure how long you’ve been struggling) we became so conditioned to sleeping poorly that it’s not so much about us “feeling” anxiety or anything in our arousal systems, but instead it’s just more of the fact that we’ve formed a bad mental habit, so to speak, if that makes sense. We’ve developed a pattern that is now the “new normal” of sleeping and only with proper ACT and other tools (for some, SRT) can we begin to relearn how to get to sleep and stay asleep, most of the time. That’s my two cents on what you’re feeling.
I think you’re on the right track, but as Deb said you need to really start to understand what ACT is all about. You also need to know, at least based on what I can gather from your post, is that it’s going to be anything but an overnight fix before you can get back to sleeping a lot more than 5 hours most nights. I highly suggest checking out some of Guy Meadows’ YouTube videos or picking up his book.
Deb – Hope you’re doing alright this weekend. Keep us posted on your relapse recovery. Curious how it’s going to go this week.
Last night I had what I’d call a very rare special night of near perfect sleep. Crashed around midnight after a LONG day and subsequent night out with friends, and woke at 8am. I felt as good as I think I could feel, all day today. One of those beautiful refreshing mornings that made me get that typical feeling as if everything is going to be ok, eventually. I slept so well I even had no bags under my eyes which helps the bad feelings, though the dark circles are still very much there and will continue to be. Ugh. 3+ years of bad sleep will do such a thing I suppose. They are hereditary from my Mother and now it’s just not pretty at all. I recently finally picked up some sort of Aveeno eye cream which I hope might help just a bit because boy are they bad in some lights.
Wow Deb, it’s both devastating and fascinating reading about your struggles here. I say fascinating because you were doing so well for so long and now are in this rather difficult funk. One thing I can tell from reading your post is that this is not going to be an overnight fix and you are going to have to probably work at this for a little bit to get out of it. Just hard to believe how you could go to bed around 10-11 and not be able to crash for 3, 4 5 hours. I guess coming from someone who hasn’t ever really struggled with sleep onset it’s hard to understand. What is it you think about when you go to bed? What exact thoughts come into your mind that keep you awake for so long?
Deb, how’s your relapse recovery going? Really a bit of an upsetting morning for me here. We had a big holiday breakfast thing in the office today with EVERYONE in my department and I really wanted to look and feel my best and not have the bags and “sick” look that comes from a bad night. Well, last night was a pretty bad night. I crashed around a normal time of 11 or so but struggled with an early awakening. I didn’t panic. I kept calm. Did good ACT. But it still doesn’t change the fact that it happened. Just another part of going through the motions of this long term recovery.
I was doing ok otherwise this week. Not great, but ok. Just really wanted to be alright today of all days. One of the big differences today compared to a bad night a year ago though is back then I’d sit at my desk devastated over seeing everyone else upbeat and refreshed while I secretly sat in exhaustion, hiding almost. Today, well, i’m still kind of upset over the situation, i’m not on here freaking out trying to figure out what to do and “Why me”, and all that stuff. My mentality has changed drastically compared to a year ago, if nothing else.
Curious question to Deb, Steve and others.. When it comes to ACT, do you guys follow the whole ‘put all electronics/screens away’ an hour or so before bedtime? I’ve taken my “letting go” mentality far enough to where for a few minutes before sleep while in my bed I’ll play around on my phone. Screen is on warm mode and lowest brightness, but still. Wonder if it’s a bad move.
Well Pam if you’ve really seen big improvement for the first time in 20 years then that’s a story that should inspire every single person on here. Just curious how did it all begin all those years ago?
Sorry to hear you are struggling Deb. If it makes you feel any better I was out by 11:15p last night, slept until my 6a alarm and somehow am exhausted today. Anxious/Light sleep I guess. Who knows. Accepting it. As far as you go you know what you have to do. Can’t worry or be frustrated when laying in bed at night no matter what. That will trigger your arousal system and that won’t be good. I don’t even think you should be getting up out of bed with ACT, though I guess you know yourself better than me. I just feel like with ACT, you should just lay there, relax, turn your brain off (which you should be able to do at this stage) and let sleep come to you. Getting out of bed is an SR tool, not ACT, am I right? Total acceptance with very light sleep hygiene tools and of course the basic ACT mindfulness. That is what ACT is all about from what I gather.
Hi Jamie thank you for your thoughts. SRT did work for me, yes, and it would again I’m sure. But my problem was always, constantly, relapsing not too long after I’d go off of it. I have no doubt that unlike yourself and so many others who only have a hard time for a couple of months and don’t have too many problems going back to normal, due to my YEARS of chronic insomnia I had (and still have, obviously) significant underlying anxiety in my arousal system. SRT helped no doubt give me some much needed confidence along the way, but the only way this could truly be dealt with and “fixed” was with facing my anxiety head on with ACT, in my opinion, so that’s what I’ve moved onto, though I can see where you’re coming from by trying to implement both. Right now though I honestly want nothing to do with a strict sleep window. I just want to try and see ACT through. It’s only been a month and I’m doing decent.
I’m right now going through a very unique phase where for the first time I’m going into my nights flat out accepting and basically expecting to have my usual early awakenings. Making believe that they are a part of my night so when they happen, I don’t freak out like I usually do. While my last few nights while practicing ACT in this regard haven’t been great, I still feel very good about the new mentality, and no longer as anxious when thinking about the potential for early awakenings. Will touch base back here with everyone this week.
Steve if you had to pinpoint one thing as a possible culprit for you not being fully “cured” yet what would it be ?
I think I kinda of like this strategy, Deb. Instead of having any worry, basically accept the fact that it’s likely going to happen, and focus how I can beat it/get past it when it does, with proper ACT tools. Obviously I’ve known this is what I’m supposed to be doing all along, but I guess I always focused with mindfulness more in the build up to sleep than the actual awakenings when they happen. Guy Meadows said, and I remember this from years ago now, when you wake up, you don’t panic, you just understand that ok, I’m probably going to be up for a little while. Then implement some ACT
Hi Deb. Before this all began all those years ago my average bedtime was 10:30 or so. Some nights a little before, on more rarer occasions a tad later. I’d crash within about 20 minutes most nights and would wake up at 6am, which has been my alarm time since 2011. More often than not, probably on nights when I went to bed a bit early, I’d actually wake at 5:45 or 5:50a, since my brain had been conditioned and programmed for 6am alarm for so long. Weekends I’d sleep in a bit.
Rarely would I ever go to bed before 10pm unless maybe I was sick. When sleeping good with ACT i’d be getting around 6.5 sometimes 7 hours of sleep. Plenty of nights those first two weeks where i’d jump into bed at 10:30, was out by 11 and made it to be 6am alarm. I need at least 6 hours sleep to feel decent or else i’m in trouble. 7 or more and I feel good.
Thanks for the long post there, Steve. Made me understand things a bit more. That’s rough that you’d have awakenings as early as one or two hours into your night. For me it’s always been towards the end of my night. So basically you’re just going through the motions of ACT and that can explain your recent struggles? Or were you slacking on mindfulness? (I remember just the other day you were complaining about some pretty rough nights questioning things)
Last night I spent a half an hour listening to a podcast of Guy Meadows on YouTube. Such a bright guy. Knows his stuff when it comes to ACT. As bad as this week has been for me (last night was my first halfway decent night since Saturday), it’s crazy just how night and day things are for me with ACT vs SRT which I was just recently on. I’d be on my couch at 10:30pm, knowing I still had to stay awake another hour, making sure I brushed my teeth and washed my face EARLY so it didn’t wake me up doing it just before bed, then the somewhat anxious WALK to my bed when 11:30pm finally came. Sure it worked a lot, but for some, including myself, I admit it can be a crutch. That being said it does work and I think its an important and often necessary part of healing an insomniac, but that being said, for those with underlying anxiety, ACT is usually the big picture imo and I’m glad I’m trying it.
One thing I’ve been guilty of that I can tell you is not doing mindfulness during the day like I was in the beginning of ACT. I’ve just focused on it at the very end an hour or so before bed. I think Deb Steve and others would agree this is nowhere near enough. I’ll tell you one thing and Guy Meadows said or at least implied it himself, it’s really not an easy thing to tackle, at all.
Deb just to let you know, I absolutely know there is underlying sleep anxiety in me. This causes the awakenings. But yes it is not there on the surface enough to bother me with sleep onset.
Deb – Thank you for all that input. I really appreciate it. Watching some Guy Meadows video’s on YouTube as we speak. So just to ask you flat out – you think I should go in my bed extra early tonight not that tired at all? (i.e. 9pm?)
Karen – I’d say it’s just frustration for the most part, at least on the times where I don’t have a better mindset. There have been a good amount of nights that I’ve had a slight awakening but was able to control it by doing the usual ACT routines, and then I drift back off to sleep. But some nights, for whatever the reasons, the frustration just takes over. Last night was a night like that and I know it was because this was my third poor night in a row, second flat out BAD night in a row. Now I’m at that point again where i’m “catching” myself in my frustrations. The goal is to eventually get so relaxed and “accept” it all so much that I break this cycle.
I remember the book well. I know about most of his techniques. I still come across some of his videos on YouTube. The thing is, I don’t have anxiety anymore when I lay in bed at night, or at least nothing at ALL that’s considered serious. I’m fine when I’m falling asleep. No anxious thoughts to sing to or give funny nicknames. It’s the early awakenings that get me. Gotta focus on them when they occur now. Thank you.
That’s kind of what I’m trying to bring out, Karen. Me going in my bed at 9pm is going to nothing but make me lay there for an unnecessary extended period of time and wake me at 3-4am anyway. I agree Steve that I must face the anxiety head on and all that, but I feel it should just be done naturally when the wakeups occur, and not have to almost force them with overly early bedtimes. There has to be other ways to help me tweak my mindfulness so that I start having better nights again. I was doing fine for quite a bit for a couple of weeks. I think the last couple of nights what happened was instead of remaining calm and welcoming what was happening (the early awakenings) I kind of let it get to me again…
