Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
That is what happens Steve. To so many. The bad events become things of the past, but the insomnia stays bc you simply have learned how to sleep poorly. You’ve developed a habit and your brain has fed on the bad nights and the anxiety grew. I had a stressful event at work. It was soon a thing of the past. But the insomnia stayed, and boy did it stay. Have had phases of better sleep, but in general my nervous system was traumatized and I never bothered to REALLY do the work to repair it, didn’t know too much about insomnia, and it all just spiraled out of control until I began to truly work on it this year.
Seems like you may have quite a ways to go Steve as I sense your anxiety is sky high right now. It is what it is though and a lot of us, myself included, have been there. Just reading your struggles make me a bit anxious lol. That all being said, all I can say right now is to stay the course and stick to your window. If you can’t get back to sleep, listen to Martin and get OUT of that bed. You need to retrain your brain to understand that the bed is for sleep, good sleep, and nothing else. It will take time, maybe a lot of it, but you will get better.
Steve, first, just to verify… are you saying you only got 45 minutes of sleep last night? Woke up around 12:30am and could never fall back asleep? Allow me to ask you to summarize how this all began and what you think caused this for you.
-Mac
Yes here’s a tip, stop obsessing! Seems like you’re going a bit overboard imo with all your thinking and sleepy time tea. Take it from someone who’s been through it all with insomnia. You need to clear your mind as much as possible.
Very bad mindset to think like that. If you are not optimistic, your brain will remain negative and you may see worse results. Right now you have a traumatized nervous system and you need all the calm and positive thoughts/behaviors you can give yourself.
It WILL work for you if you stick to it. It pretty much has to as SRT, in a way, eventually forces you to sleep in these smaller windows. That’s not the big hurdle to get to though imo. The big hurdle is the long term success and knowing when it’s ok to really back off and get a little comfortable so to speak.
Ok sounds good. I’ll keep the specific SRT updates in your thread going forward. Definitely can’t guarantee they will be every day or even every couple of days though. Quick question with regards to your migraines – do you drink enough water? I would get KILLER migraines not too long ago and eventually realized I just wasn’t hydrated enough.
To answer your question, as ridiculous as this sounds, its almost hard for me now to remember what good nights used to be like for me. Again, I’m not one of these 4-6 month people. This has been a huge part of my life at this point. 2.5 years now. But, what I can tell you is that when I’d have my good nights not too long ago here in 2019, I felt totally rested like I could take on the world every day. Some days a little worse than others, sure, but who isn’t a little groggy in general at work these days? I personally wake up at 6am and start work at 7:30am which I know for certain is all definitely on the early side, even for New Yorkers.
I remember I was on Jury Duty in March of 2018 for an entire MONTH during what was a bad phase of Insomnia for me (when wasn’t, really?) Anyway, point is we did not have to report until 10am every day! I didn’t even set my alarm most days. Just woke up naturally around 8:30am! I kid you not Steve while it didn’t instantly fix my problems and still had some weird nights for sure, for probably around a solid half of that month I felt like a new person. I remember telling my friend wow, this is what human beings are SUPPOSED to feel like every day. Yep, that was just another piece of the puzzle in realizing this is all 100% anxiety related.
Not going to document my day to day SRT return, but just felt like posting today. Last night was night 3. Went in my bed at 11:30p. Still didn’t crash for a half hour or so. Slept til my alarm at 6a but (Deb as you know all too well), 6 hours is a very iffy number for me. Definitely tired today but at least I don’t feel like death.
While it feels nice in a way to start being back in the “routine” that got me doing better all those months ago, (going to sleep only when exhausted and cutting off the phone/laptop an hour beforehand), there’s still a strong sickening feeling in my stomach this time around knowing that I’ve officially relapsed and am back at square one for the most part. I just have these bad visions this time around as well, that I spoke about yesterday. Where I feel like I’ve just been involved in this for so long that it might be a near impossible hole to get out of. At least some others on here are only dealing with months of this. Try 2.5 years, albeit a little on and off, but still, 2.5 years.
I don’t want to scare anyone off because I do feel its possible to recover, but sometimes I feel like there are those exceptions. I’ve watched all of Martin’s videos, a lot of Daniel Erichsen’s as well. I know all the routines, all the right things to do. And YES I got a lot better at certain points in the last 4 months, even to a point where I thought I was never coming back to these forums (except for a success story) or sleep videos or anything insomnia related. I probably had a good 2-3 week run at the end of March into April where I was at my best. But I was never truly fully healed imo, ever. I still thought about sleep. And maybe that was the problem like I said yesterday. Maybe I started feeling like I was “due” for a couple of bad nights. Then wouldn’t you know it, eventually they came again.
Yes I gave up my strict window within a month of making progress and yes I started to get more ‘comfortable’ with my sleep routine, but when does it end? I felt I was getting better after all. Point of this all is, I sit here now, tired, wondering, will this all just end up being another part of the cycle in my life?
So deb what EXACTLY happened or went wrong last time when you went through SRT and the 12a-630a window? Do you think you just kind of got off of it too easily/got too comfortable, etc?
Oh ok. Well the key to easily beat that IMO is to have an appropriate window. If you’re usually going to sleep at 10:30p and are just “tired”, push it to 11:30p to when your eyes are droopy and you feel legitimately SLEEPY/exhausted. Big difference between tired and sleepy IMO. Point is, if you’re tossing and turning and taking an hour or so to pass out, its almost guaranteed that you’re going to bed too early. The great thing about SR is that it gets you on a nice consistent basis and fixes your sleep pressure. For example if your window is 11:30p-6a and you find yourself still not falling asleep within 30, then change to 12a-6a and so on. My window right now is 11:30p-6a which is what it was in the month of January when I was on SRT
Yes I had success and it was nice. But it’s just awful to end up back in this spot. Proves that beating chronic insomnia is not an easy task at all. What’s the 30/30 rule ?
Steve in a nutshell, what have you tried over these last 6 months or so up until this point right now? And what do you seem to struggle with most
Thanks for chiming in back in our new old thread, Deb, and thanks for the thoughts. It helps. Though I must say, it didn’t take a long time/many months for my Insomnia to begin. Realistically I’d say it took 2 months before it was full blown. That being said, and I think Martin would agree, if it was AROUND for so long, in my case for over 2 years, then it will take quite a long time to get rid of. I feel for you Deb. I’ve seen you really try to beat this thing. At least you’re on another one of your good tracks now so to speak. But again, who knows when the day will come where we can finally forget about this. Just curious about one thing deb, like me, do you find it easier to sleep in other beds?
Moving on… I just wanted to add… If there’s ONE somewhat big positive I’ve gotten through these 4 months its knowing in the back of my head that I have gotten much better at one point. That I know what it feels like to go to bed at night and not worry at all. To sleep through the night even. Those are powerful thoughts that I will try and keep with me. Even today, as I suffer yet again as a zombie while everyone else around me is upbeat and well rested, living life the way it should be lived, I can think to myself, well, tonight may very well be a good night, as I’ve at least made progress in the sense that I used to literally have on average of 5-6 BAD nights a week during certain phases going right up through the end of last year, but even now since relapsing a month ago, I only manage about 2-3 bad nights a week. 4 at worst. Point is, my mentality has changed for the better at least somewhat, and that’s a plus for me if nothing else I suppose. But I really can’t go through having even a semi-sleep disorder much longer.
