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Thanks Steve. By book are you talking about Guy Meadows? First book I ever bought on the subject 3 years ago. Threw it away when I thought I was cured at one point. Only book I have now is Sasha Stephens’ and I will never get rid of that one. Helpful book imo, but not flawless.
Ok thanks Steve for your input, but I just want you to understand going to bed at 9pm would almost guarantee me a bad night. Is that what you are saying I should deal with? To wake up and “face my fears” so to speak? To have a hellacious night but at least learn something in the process? (Serious question)
Just seems wild to legitimately sign myself up for a zombie day. Never done that before. Waking at 3AM or so and just “resting” for hours before work does not do it for me. It never has. Sure its good to relax and get more comfortable in the moment, but I need actual sleep to function.
So glad you were able to break your funk last night Deb, even if it wasn’t a perfect night.
I appreciate your suggestion about the earlier bedtime but if anything I feel like it should be the opposite, no? Bottom line is when I have my early awakening that is the one time when the anxiety still occurs for me the most. I want to try and avoid it any way I can and going to sleep earlier (9pm) would almost guarantee a 3 or 4am wake up. So, not my cup of tea imo
The reality is during ACT this last month and “letting it all go”, I have not felt a strong sleep drive once and I feel it may finally be becoming an issue. Though the first two weeks of ACT I slept great. Go figure. I’ve been going in bed around 10:15pm lately and no, I’m simply not that tired. I know that a bedtime shouldn’t matter much in ACT, but wasn’t a big part of SRT to teach us how long of a night we really need?
For me it’s always been around 7 hours. So maybe I should finally just cave and try to stick to an 11pm bedtime. It’s just such a hard thing to figure out Bc truth is before insomnia id go in my bed by 10:15-10;30 most nights and would often make it to my alarm. ACT should be all about believing you can easily get there again, shouldn’t it ?
Well it looks like I’m officially back to the old “every other week” routine with my sleep, this time during ACT. Had a decent night Saturday as I told you guys on Sunday, and ever since then it’s been bad. Sunday, Monday and now last night all poor to bad nights. Last week I was doing ok. What happens is I will then “reset” come the weekend when I have no alarm anxiety and that will carry over for a good week, then as weird as this sounds I’ll get too comfortable with sleeping well, will have a poor night, and then it will spiral a bit.
I’m somewhat calm right now, but just so so sick of this. I know what I have to do to get back to doing better, but man, being a zombie now for a 3 DAYS in a row now really just makes me feel like everything has been a wash. Like many others have said here, I go to bed at night with almost ZERO anxiety at all. Nothing. I’m comfortable and just relax. It’s all underlying and in my subconscience. Any words of wisdom? Anyone? Help a guy out : (
Steve just curious what has your last month or two been like? Haven’t really read every post here unfortunately.
Well the streak is over. Had a good four nights in a row of decent sleep. Last night it just didn’t happen. My sleep became very broken towards the end with light early awakenings and all that. Bad night. Zombie today, ugh. Surprised, too. Did a nice little amount of mindfulness before bed.
Always such a disappointment when you don’t just have a “so so” night but a flat out BAD night when coming off of a good spurt. Irks me. But I’ll accept it, or at least try to, for most of today. Off to the coffee machine I go, heavy bags under the eyes….
Deb and Steve, how’d you sleep last night ?
Sorry to hear about this minor setback, Deb. Though it sounds like you have great confidence that you’ll be able to pull through it just fine. Huge progress from where you were early this year.
Hi Steve, long time no talk. Glad you are doing ok and at least seem to have somewhat of a grip on your insomnia. I agree with what you said about thinking I’m going to have a good night. I forget what I said, maybe that if I had a bad night the previous night then I “assume” or “know” the following night will likely be good. Yeah not the right mindset with ACT. It’s about completely letting go of any thoughts whatsoever really. With regards to clock watching that I am standing by. Way too much experience of bad anxiety flare ups when I wake and see its 3 or 4am. Maybe one day I can get there, but as of right now it’s something I am comfortable not doing.
Daf – You brought up eye bags/dark circles which has always been one of my main concerns since this all began years ago. For me at least, the bags do subside after I start sleeping better, but it’s the dark circles that seem permanently embedded. Sure they aren’t as awful if I have a great night, but overall there is always the purple hue under my eyes from these years of bad sleeping that I am unsure if they will ever go away. I usually put a drop of concealer on them these days and I’d like to one day get to a point where I no longer need to.
Da – Just relax my friend. I feel your pain, especially since you’re so young. You have to understand that you can and (hopefully) WILL get past all of this to a point where you’ll absolutely be able to do whatever you want again and not worry about sleep. But right NOW at least, for the immediate future, you have to be disciplined and you have to respect your sleep window. If you want to calm your nervous system and attempt to get back on track, then no, you really don’t want to be having any 2am nights or late lie in’s. Will you ever forget about insomnia and what it’s done to your life? No. These memories will be with you forever just like they’ll be with me, in some capacity. But don’t think for a second doesn’t mean you can’t recover and be an even BETTER sleeper even if it means always keeping a small eye on your sleep in some way in the long term. Right now though, you have to step up your will power as much as you possibly can.
Hi Deb. Coming off of the relapse from the week prior this past week has been ok. I haven’t had flawless nights but I also haven’t had any bad nights. I need to continue to be smart and do my mindfulness leading up to bed. Slacking from that helped trigger that first relapse for sure, as did looking at the clock during my early awakenings. But even mediocre sleeping this week aside, there really is something super special and different about this phase of my recovery, in the sense that before it I would internally worry when going to bed anytime before 11pm, and I’ve had several nights in just this past week where I got away with it fine. That’s just so huge, and I have ACT to thank for it of course. So yes I’m still struggling a bit this past week, but i’m doing better.
Last night I slept almost 7 hours but it was very light sleep, I felt. The dark circles and bags were there in the morning but i was not completely shot during the day today. I’m feeling very strong that tonight will be a good night. My mentality at this stage is just so different than anything in the past 11 months, Deb. Hopefully by my one year anniversary on 1/1/20 I’ll be in a much better place.
As always, thanks for checking in and caring. How’ve you been doing? Always helps of course to hear how someone who’s recovered continues to sleep ok.
Thanks Deb. Tomorrow night will be a real test for me imo. I have a special event Friday night and want to be fresh for it. Regardless of if nights have been poor lately I’ve remained calm before bed. We will see how I do tomorrow. The thing is Deb, with work I know I can always push through the days and nobody important really sees me looking tired anyway. But for Friday night I have an event where I want to look and feel my best so it’s a different scenario. It’s tough.
That sounds like a fair sleep window to me, Da. But of course the key is sticking with it and making sure you can in fact stick with it. SRT is designed to make you build confidence and understand that you CAN sleep again, but in order for it to work you cannot really have any late lie in’s. You can go to sleep past your normal start time if you’re not that tired but you still have to wake at 7am. Your attitude is really unique and positive and I must say and I’m sure you will have a good outcome to all this when all is set and done, however long that will take. Yes it’s an unfortunate thing what happened to us having this chronic issue ingrained into our heads forever but with practice and discipline we absolutely can get it under control. Just look at me. I’ve been suffering for just over 3 years now and only in the beginning of this year did I finally start to cave and do real work to try and help myself. I can honestly say I am night and day mentally with regards to where I was at in January. I kind of hope that I’m finally on the home stretch now with regards to truly turning a corner, but time will tell. Good luck.
Well after my first ACT relapse last week I’m continuing to push through little by little. Trying to do more mindfulness before bed while practicing the few remaining sleep “hygiene” rules that I know are ok to stick with (i.e. No sugary foods before bed, no looking at the clock if I wake early). I haven’t had perfect nights this week, but I also haven’t had any downright bad nights like I did last week. I understand it can take months before serious healing can happen as was the case for people like Deb and Steve and I am prepared to go the distance. I know I will have drawbacks and bad nights and like last week even relapses/bad phases. It’s all about remaining calm and accepting what happens in a way that is different than anything I’ve done before. As I’ve said many times before, the reality is I still have a long way to go, and bad nights are still absolutely going to happen. I go to bed now with that mindset every night.
Thanks for joining, Da. Always “nice” to hear from other long, several year term sufferers like myself that are on this journey. Just curious what’s your story like? How did it begin? Did you ever recover even temporarily?
As far as getting back to normal one day, first you should know that the older we get the less sleep we need and the less sleep we can function on in general. When I was in my teens in High school and in my early 20’s, damn, I used to live in my bed and sleep for well longer than 8 hours many nights especially on weekends. I worked nights and never had an alarm. It was paradise. That being said, many years later and waking up at 6am everyday for the last 8 years and those days are gone. Even if I do crash super late on a weekend the latest my body is conditioned to sleeping is probably 8:30ish. I don’t think I’ve slept longer than 9 hours on any night since maybe 2008.
BUT… you can get back to sleeping normal, for sure. Absolutely. Problem right now is depending on your sleep anxiety level which I’m assuming is rather high, there is no way it’s happening anytime soon. You, like me, have traumatized nervous/arousal systems that we have conditioned ourselves over these years. While Deb may have only needed a few months to heal, we may need much longer. But you’ve come to the right place if you want to start and get your life back. One step at a time though. It’s not easy.
