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Hi Deb I’m doing well, how are you doing? How’d you sleep last night? Bit of an interesting turn of events for me in the last few days. So Tuesday night was to be the first night I got back into another round of SRT. As I sat there on my couch at 10:30 or so with another hour to go before I could crash, I began thinking a lot about what we’ve been talking about in the last week. I began thinking about what this has all come to. Here I am about to go through this all again, and maybe it would help long term, maybe it wouldn’t. That day specifically I was using ACT techniques throughout the day in my head maybe more than ever before. I felt good about them and I don’t know what it was but I had some sort of lightbulb click in my head on my couch this past Tuesday night.
I said F it, went into my bed at 10:30pm, and began going over some ACT techniques in my head. That night, while I didn’t sleep perfect, I slept ok. I woke up and went to work and felt ok. As the day went on I had some sort of epiphany, that this was how it was going to go about things now, and that SRT was not going to be my plan. So Tuesday night came and went. Wednesday night came and went, Thursday night, Friday night, and guess what? All decent nights. That’s FOUR nights in a row of pretty good sleep. In my world, that is something special and most certainly means I’m onto something. I may not have slept like a baby, but I didn’t feel awful at work on any of these days and yesterday (Saturday), I felt great as I didn’t even have an alarm to worry me at all. Something was happening and I felt as though I was having a breakthrough of sorts with ACT. Last night was the first night things were a little “off”, though I didn’t sleep terribly.
What I’ve been doing is setting aside a good 20 minutes or so before bed (while still watching tv), to do some mindfulness. To keep reminding myself of all the obvious things we’ve spoke about. How it’s OK if I don’t sleep too great, and how no matter what, it’s going to be ok, how I’ve slept well before, and I’ll do it again, and how the worst days of my Insomnia have been behind me for a long time now. So I guess, thanks Deb, for kinda pushing ACT on me these last few weeks. Hopefully whatever is going on with me will keep up.
Thanks Deb. I appreciate that. Also to you, Steve, Daf,etc, don’t think for one second that I don’t believe ACT is helpful. I know it’s huge and I know it’s almost a MUST for most chronic sufferers in order to get better. I have been and still am practicing more and more positive thoughts these days than ever before and will continue to do so through SRT. I’m optimistic .
Deb, in reality I haven’t been doing SRT for months. At all. The truth is the longest I’ve gone in my SRT phases is probably 1 month until I began wean off it. For someone who’s struggled as long as me that’s taking a cheap way out hoping everything was going to be fine. Not going to happen I’ve realized. I need serious time with SRT. So I didn’t fail at SRT imo, I simply never implemented in correctly practice wise. That’s why this time I’m going be more serious than ever.
My first night after what I’m hoping and praying is my final round of SRT. As I mentioned in the past few days, this time I’m going to finally stick to SRT as in this won’t be a 3-4 week thing. It might be a 3-4 month thing. Whatever it takes to increase my sleep confidence so much that any sleep anxiety is buried way way beneath the surface.
So as my start time of 11:30p was approaching, i began nodding. I could have crashed even at 11:05pm. It was bad around 11:15 too. But I was determined. Then wouldn’t you know it, after continuing to force myself to stay awake, by the time 1130 came I actually felt a little wired. Went into bed and instead of passing right out it took me a solid half an hour to fall asleep. I wonder if I should have just gone to bed at 11:15 when I had to chance to pass right out. What’s 15 minutes, really?
Anyway I woke up at 4:45am. Not good, but this is always what happens in the beginning of SRT. Nerves are a little all over the place. I then went back into light sleep a little while later before waking at my 6am alarm. I anticipate the usual of getting consistent 11:30p-6a/6.5 nights of sleep probably even by the time the weekend gets here.
Deb to get back to you again from yesterday with regards to the whole ACT vs SRT kind of topic, I truly believe that while ACT can absolutely be a strong tool and can help many, for long term sufferers like myself, people who have been having problems for years, SRT really is a must. We need more strict and dare I call it harsh type of “treatment”. Because at the end of the day ACT really is just “Words”, whereas SRT is a legitimate action. For example going to a person who’s had Insomnia for let’s say 10 years and telling them to just “let go” and practice a few of these acceptance techniques in their head, well, I can probably bet you a good amount of money they aren’t going to come close to being cured just from that. Give SRT to the chronic insomniac and forcing their sleep drive/pressure to build, thus getting them to sleep no matter what and build confidence, well that’s just more likely to help them IMO
I’ve been trying deb, I’ve been trying. Little by little I’ve implemented more ACT. But since SRT was always very helpful to me I will be going that route again now too. Hopefully this is the last major relapse you ever hear from me
Pretty sure that a huge reason a couple of my relapses began after ‘special event’ nights was because on those nights in particular it’s VERY hard to accept the fact that “ok tomorrow is going to be a bad day, its ok”. It’s one thing if it’s an ordinary day, but if you have an interview or a hot date or a big event, going into it exhausted and awful looking (bags under eyes) is kind of a problem. It just is, at least in my opinion. Not to mention you won’t really be able to enjoy it to the fullest. Can you get through it? Sure. But it won’t be nearly as good as if you were well rested. Sasha Stephens said herself in her book that special event insomnia was the last thing that stuck around for her that she had to conquer.
Basically if you have an early awakening, instead of panicking, just accept that it’s part of your sleep in a way, and relax there in bed. Kind of a hard thing to do but that’s what you’re trying to imply right ?
Well said, Deb. If nothing else, I felt the same good relaxed feeling you talk about with regards to recovering after relapses. Only with me I’m more into SRT as you know. It’s an interesting feeling, as if more confidence builds after each time you quickly recover as opposed to when we all started this and were kind of lost. While I’m a bit of a mess right now, I can tell you that I’m better than I was in January, and even May. Didn’t seem like you explained many details of your ACT techniques though. Only that you would tell yourself that your nights weren’t that bad, etc etc. Below I’m going to list some ACT exercises I’ve done and you tell me what you think, please:
-Constantly reminding myself that I’ve recovered before. Thinking about the good feelings I had during those good phases
-knowing that no matter how rough it will be, I’ve gotten through a million sleepy days at work and I’ll do it again
-focusing on my breath and/or the touch of my pillow when having an early awakening
-going to sleep and almost expecting that I may have an awakening instead of trying to “hope” in my head that I don’t
-naming any bad thoughts that come into my head at night funny names. Laughing in my head at how ridiculous this problem is and how I’ll be fine, etc.Not to sound offensive at all Daf but to me when I hear about someone who literally gets NO sleep nights it’s just surreal to me. To think that a person is that anxious to where they can’t nod off at all, wow. Is “Nil” sleep to you meaning you actually did not sleep ONE minute that night? When was your last night like this?
Anyway last night I already messed up. I had my plan as you guys may know to begin SRT again with the 1130p-6a window and I just had a bit of a breakdown around 10:30 where I felt tired but not exhausted, and just couldn’t bring myself to stay up for a whole other hour watching tv/laying on my couch. I just couldn’t. I went in my bed and just lied there for a bit, using some ACT techniques as I had throughout the day. Of course I had a bad night and I kinda deserved it.
But this is the new problem I’m facing as I got into yesterday. Being absolutely sick of this endless cycle and having to revert back to SRT and all these “games” of forcing myself to stay up until complete exhaustion around 11:30p. Just wish I could do like I used to. Walk into my bedroom when kinda tired and sleep alright. Harsh reality is those days are not here anymore and I still have to focus and work to get them back. It’s just so bad, Daf. I feel as if I’ve reached a point now where I’m just finally mentally drained from all of this. I’ve seen success this year in my efforts. No doubt I have. Had some short phases where I felt like this was actually behind me. I know a lot of people can’t say that on here. But to be continuing to struggle with this to this degree, having it affect my life like it did this past weekend (put off gym plans, plans with a friend), it’s just too much sometimes.
Will SRT work for me after even just a few days IMO? Absolutely. I know this. It’s nice to know. But what would be nicer to know is if I can just get past this once and for all finally. Here’s to a more serious attempt #2 tonight of resetting myself with another round of SRT. ((sighs))
Thanks Daf. I never mention anything about 8 hours and what not though. Realized quite a long time ago now that not only do most adults not need 8 hours, but even when i thought i used to, i rarely ever got a full 8. For me my average time was always around 7.
It sounds to me like you’re on a semi-permanent basis with SRT if you are sticking to a 6 hours per night no matter what window, is that right? I’m just assuming there is no set times for your 6 hours. I just don’t know anymore Daf. I really don’t. Part of me thinks I continue to make progress little by little and then another part of me just wants to have a nervous breakdown at this point having had a complete wash of a weekend here now some 10 months after I came to these forums and began implementing some of these techniques. Sure I haven’t done them perfectly or stuck with them a lot but I guess just by default I figured I’d at least be past the falling back to bad weekend sleep point.
SRT round 4? begins tonight.
That was a great post, GSD. It’s just so hard not to be p-ssed off about going through this. As Jamie put it, I too just can’t imagine a day where I wouldn’t be even just a little bit upset about sleeping like crap the night before. Complete acceptance and not caring is very difficult.
Would you mind sharing a summary of your journey/what happened and what tools from ACT you feel helped you along your way?
Agreed Deb. Agreed completely. I’ve experienced the whole “let go” feeling many times throughout this and it’s a great feeling. Only thing is, it’s hard to keep it up without real practice of ACT. I feel as if I have tried all sorts of shortcuts. Short term SRT, sleeping on my couch back earlier this year, cutting out certain rules to ease anxiety, etc. Bottom line is that these have all only been temporary solutions. Band aids on the real problem of a completely traumatized nervous system after having dealt with this for so long. 3 years to be exact.
I know we may have spoken about this before but maybe not in detail so much. Since you’ve had such a significant amount of success with ACT can you please share in detail your use of it? I know you spoke of the daytime positive thoughts and the ‘Naming/playing around’ of your bad thoughts when they arrive at night, but what else do you got?
Thank you.
Well that’s that for me.. After two bad nights on the WEEKEND I think it’s safe to say I’m back to square one and another round of SRT is officially upon me beginning tonight. Insane how this all works. Really is. You try something and it works. You feel the sleep anxiety almost vanish after just a day or two. You feel optimistic almost as if you never had a sleep problem. Then somehow it comes back and you hit absolute rockbottom. Never fails.
For those who weren’t aware recently I tried after a VERY long time, to go into my bed early again before I became sleepy. To cut out the super strict “bed is ONLY for sleep” rule that has been in place for what feels like an eternity. I thought it would somehow take the ease off of things and it did. I slept well for a good few days. But it was only a band aid. The underlying anxiety came back and my nervous system proved to still be traumatized.
The only thing I can say I’m guilty of is never sticking to SRT for longer than a month or two. After having dealt with this insomnia thing for 3 years on and off, I think it’s safe to say that short term SRT is not for me. I need to retrain my brain to a point where it means extreme measures. If that means 6 months straight of a 6.5 hour window then so be it. It’s just so hard when I’ve done several rounds of SRT already, saw improvement, and that didn’t fix things long term. Makes me sick to have to back yet AGAIN to the super late 11:30pm bedtimes and 6am MUST wakeups, even on weekends. But this is my last resort now. It really is. Going to try to do this as long as I possibly can until I feel for certain that I am healed to a degree that is more than just “ok”.
Jamie – 5 days is nothing. You have a traumatized nervous system. It will take time. If after 5 weeks of serious SRT you have no real improvement then we can talk.
Deb – Thanks, I know full well about how there is underlying anxiety that needs to be dealt with. I promise you I have been implementing more and more ACT lately. Positive thoughts during the day, welcoming the negative thoughts when they may arrive in the evening, focusing on my breath in early awakenings, etc.
Steve – Glad you are doing a lot better these days even if you are still not close to fully cured. Stay the course and keep it going though. Something tells me you will be fine in due time. We all will be.
