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I agree totally on the 8 hours. I used to be a big “8 hour” guy for many years before Insomnia actually taught me otherwise. I realized that I never really getting 8 hours anyway. If I crashed early at 10:30 or so it started occurring to me that those were the nights I’d wake early, a little before my alarm. Meanwhile if it were a later night, 11 or later, then I’d make it to my alarm. In other words, all along I’d say I was more of a 7 hour sleeper.
Still can’t get behind your couch situation as I just don’t consider that a completely healed person. I was listening to your podcast thinking that you were, but I myself would never revert to sleeping on my couch full time. But hey, if you’re happy and you feel good everyday then I too really am happy for you.
Daf thanks for your response but I got to say I was shocked by #7. You do not sleep in your own bed? That to me is really a sign that you are not fully healed at all as the bed is where you should really be. Perhaps you are subconsiously trying to avoid facing your fear of the bed long term? I hope you understand.
In addition to this you say how you make sure you do not sleep more than 6 hours to make sure you are sleepy the following night. This is all good and I too know the feeling of always being able to sleep when you’re exhausted, but this shouldn’t be a long term thing in my opinion, should it? It sounds like you have a crutch. Are you just going to go on forever with the 6 hour window? Do you honestly feel well rested after 6 hours every single night? I bet that before your insomnia started you were sleeping more.
Hi Daf I ended up finding the podcast and gave it a good listen for the most part. Seems like you’ve been/were suffering for just as long as me, around 3 years.
Just a quick questions Daf… I know you spoke about how CBT-I helped you a great deal but I’m curious what would you say was the real turning point for you? As you may have read in my post above I’ve been big with SRT and it’s helped me, but I can’t seem to get past a certain point of being free of this for good. I always have to revert back to SRT.
Hi Deb, looks like I’m no longer getting email notifications for this thread so I signed in and I saw you were asking about me. Thanks, I appreciate that.
I’m still “settling” back into this latest phase of SRT at this point, now around 2 weeks into it, and I’d say it’s starting to work just fine as it always has for me. My sleep pressure is building and by the time it’s bedtime I’m out like a light the last couple of nights. It’s a beautiful thing. What’s not so beautiful of course is my problem which as you know is relapsing. When I wean off SRT and start trying to sleep like a normal person again, I’ll eventually have that bad night that will turn into two or three before it spirals and I’m back to SRT again. Special events the next day have been major triggers for me in relapses as discussed in my previous posts.
I’m thinking of starting my own thread to talk about relapsing and what others have done to try and help. In the meantime aside from watching a lot of Martin’s videos (he’s great) I’m really prepared this time more than ever to implement ACT once I begin weaning off this phase of SRT. I’ve come a long way since we started speaking at the end of December last year, but I’m still a good ways from where I want to be. I hope to finally change that very soon once and for all.
Thank you for that Steve. I appreciate it. Going to try the absolute best I can more than ever before to accept my awakenings going forward. To almost expect them. To know that they are almost a part of my sleep routine. To welcome them and the bad thoughts that come over me when they occur. Had a bad night last night as I experimented with breaking my sleep window and just not caring about what time I went to bed. Hit the hay around 10:30pm not super sleepy. I paid for it with a very early awakening. Remained pretty calm, but it didn’t really matter. Will report back in another week or so.
Deb, I read your responses from yesterday. Quite the interesting topic over the whole “Do nothing” scenario. From what you explained, it seems like “Do nothing” was more about being in the moment while in bed when the person (from the case study) wasn’t able to fall asleep. Instead of thinking about pills, getting out of bed, looking at the clock or whatever else, you just lay there and that’s that.
I myself got to this point quite a while ago now, over the hump of a certain point of anxiety, so to speak. My issues now aren’t usually at all about falling asleep, they’re about staying asleep. So I guess my question to you would be, when I, or anyone for that matter starts having a couple of bad nights in a row, and the negative thoughts of worry start creeping up more and more, what exactly would you do to “combat” them?
Deb, did you catch my second post from earlier? What do you think about all that? Perhaps there is some real substance in the whole “do nothing” thing. Meaning that, when we have a bad night or two after a good couple of weeks, doing anything at all, even as simple as going to bed later than normal to try and “reset” things in a SRT kind of way is a mistake?
Continued…
I feel like my relapse problem is pretty simple for me to figure out. There’s no irony imo that my anxiety subtly starts creeping back in after a few weeks of being off SRT. What happens imo is just that. I’m off of SRT and now I start thinking again, uh oh, maybe going to be at this time is a tad early? Maybe I shouldn’t have lied in bed until 8am on the weekend the other day?
I wonder Deb, in all this time have you ever read about or think I should possibly consider the idea/experiment of simply letting go COMPLETELY of any thoughts of rules/regiments? For example, just stop caring. Stop caring about bedtimes, wake up times, or anything else. Ok maybe not lie in for 2 hours every single weekend, but instead, just stop even thinking about my post SRT lie in’s in general whether they are an hour or even 2. Go to bed at 9pm on some nights and act as if its no big deal.
The bright side about me is that a majority of the general bedroom anxiety is gone. The only sleep anxiety I get these days is that of fear of relapse.
Good post deb, and a good reminder to those of us like myself who suffer from relapses. It’s very true that there will be relapses as I and many others know all too well, and it’s a must to know how to handle them. I just don’t understand the testimonial fully. She says she went back to just “doing nothing”, but if she was legit relapsing I’m assuming she reverted back to some form of SRT?
Thanks Deb but honestly I’ve read Guy Meadows’ stuff before. I get all the ACT exercises but I think my problem is that I just don’t know how to correctly implement them. Maybe I will give his material another look. I know I might sound miserable on here sometimes but I’m still very happy that I’ve made what I feel is significant progress these last 9 months. I feel like there is just one final (maybe big) thing I need to tweak to tone down my sleep anxiety for good so I can enjoy a long term recovery. I am night and day compared to where I was one year ago mentally, and even physically as well seeing as how back then I never had extensive good stretches like I’ve enjoyed this year.
After a rough week last week of semi spiraling, I quickly began (surprise, surprise) reverting back to SRT Saturday night. I did well Saturday, sleeping through my entire 11:30p-6a window, but then Sunday and Monday nights were bad nights with awakenings. Used some ACT things like focusing on my breath and the touch of my pillow, remained calm overall, but still never fell back into that deep sleep. It’s as if once SRT kicks in and I begin sleeping through the 11:30p-6a window nicely, there’s just no weening off. I’ve had relapse after relapse. The underlying anxiety is just always there and I’ve never seemed to kick it. It always finds a way to creep back up once I start to get comfortable, for whatever the reason. Absolutely shot today. Will this ever end? Ever?
