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At this point I don’t know what to do. Maybe Martin can chime in just this once. It seems no matter what I do, no matter when I go to sleep, I simply cannot sleep more than 6-6.5 hours. Another 11p-5am last night. Sat in bed for an hour again before my 6am alarm went off. 10:30p-4:30a a few nights earlier. Sometimes I’ll get the 6.5, most times not. Tired today. I just don’t get it anymore. And I promise you all, my sleep anxiety has literally been reduced to what I’d say is 5% over the last few weeks. I follow great sleep hygiene. Have a nice wind down phase. Don’t enter my bedroom unless legitimately TIRED, etc. I don’t get nervous when I go to bed anymore. I don’t even have trouble falling asleep. I just can’t sleep past a certain number of hours. Please help!
Haha easier said than done
and while your point/question is very fair to ask, I can comfortably say after many years that I definitely need 7 hours to feel good. 6.5 I can get by. 6 is very iffy. Anything under 6 i’m pretty much shot. Just the way it is.
Absolutely everyone is different. My “good” number is 7. Meanwhile I know people that have been fine to get by on 5. I do speak for the statistics though when I say that the majority adults NEED at least around 7 hours of sleep.
Guy Meadows was the very first sleep doctor I found in late 2016 when this all began. Nice guy, good/easy sounding methods. I even bought his book. But they only worked for short term for me. Others can be different of course, but I was only able to “welcome” the bad thoughts so much until it just stopped working. Ultimately IMO, you still need to follow the #1 rule which is not going to bed until completely exhausted as well as waking up at the same time EVERY day, even on weekends. Slowly but surely, you will improve, like I am. And I’m writing this on a zombie day as I had a bad night last night. But I know my anxiety is nothing like it was months ago, and I truly hope I’m on the right path to longer nights. I might not be super optimistic, but I just know that I’m much less anxious.
Yeah its pretty much close to common sense that the earlier your bedtime the earlier you’ll rise. This is the case even for a lot of regular sleepers I’m sure. My problem is just finding a way to finally get to 7-7.5 hours which just seems impossible to get at this point after all this time. Tonight I will push back to 10:30pm, crash around 11 and I just know I will be up at 5, 5:30 the latest. With my sleep anxiety lower than ever before I just don’t understand it.
How’s everyone doing? So I’ve realized another interesting note after close to 2 months of my light SRT now. Curious if anyone else feels the same or has the same thing going on. I have the ability to make myself tired and didn’t even realize it until recently. So usually it’s around 9:30pm or so when the beginning of my “wind down time” takes place. All electronics go away, the television picture gets turned down to a darker setting, and all the lights go out. I’m usually unable to keep my eyes open by the time 10:15-10:30pcomes around. Then I’m in bed a few minutes later and would be out by 11 or so. If any of you have been keeping track, this would usually lead to a wake up time of either 5am or 5:30am, both well before my 6am alarm. Over the last week however, I’ve been pushing up my wind down time, for no real reason actually, to 9pm. This has ended up making me feel sleepy even EARLIER, and has led me to heading to the bed around 9:45pm a couple of nights. The earliest I’ve ever gone to bed these last 2 months. I bet you can only imagine what ended up happening. After crashing at 10:15-10:30, I’m up at 4:30am or so. While still 6 hours of sleep, I feel that much more shot and exhausted for whatever the reason. Just waking up at the time after 6 hours of sleep, not sure why, is that much worse than waking up at 5:30am after 6 hours. Point of this all is from here on out I will not be entering my wind down phase until 9:30pm.
Thanks. Just waiting for that day when you or someone can congratulate me on 4 good WEEKS. Still a lot of frustration for not being where I want to be after 7.5 weeks now, even if it means better than where I was.
Slept well the last few nights. Four to be exact. Of course two of those are weekend nights where the underlying anxiety has always been less. For example Friday night I went to bed around 11:30and Saturday morning I woke up too early around 5am. If that were a work day I’d be all anxious knowing that I have to get up at 6am and what not. Instead I relaxed and fell back asleep within 15-20 minutes or so. Woke at 6:30am well rested. My usual wake up time is 6am even on weekends but lately I’ve implemented an extra half hour on weekends. Hasn’t really been an issue. However last night something strange happened where I began feeling SHOT around 9:30pm. Exhausted and that overall feeling of being unable to stay awake. The anxiety was totally overridden by this exhaustion. I went to bed at 9:30pm, insanely early for me. Had this special feeling that I was going to get a great night of sleep. Maybe a rare 7-7.5 hour night. Ended up crashing out around 10ish. Woke at 4:30 ☹ ((sighs))
One day I’ll get to 7+ hours. One day. Somehow. Someway.
Deb it just comes down to 2.5 years of endless knowledge and research. If I were to put something at the top of my list that I know for a fact affects sleep it wouldn’t be electronics or sugar or fatty foods before bed. It would be alcohol.
“Just stop caring!” So simple, right? Lol. Just an fyi, just by reading your line of “I’ve found weekends to be harder to stay consistent. I am more tempted to stay in bed a little longer, try for a catnap” shows that you have anything but the correct mindset for this. If you want to heal yourself of this traumatized nervous system and bad habit you’ve created for yourself you need 100% discipline. No thoughts of naps or lie in’s or anything. Consistency is key. Time to “wake up” so to speak. No offense at all being given here, just tough loving. Seems like you are not very strict about getting out of this. Also, while a banana before bed might seem like a healthy snack, the reality is ANY sugar consumed within hours before bedtime is a bad idea IMHO. If anything, a cup of tea or some crackers is ok. I wish you nothing but the best.
Mac
I too have experienced better sleep in a different bed / on vacation. But a few days of this means nothing and will not cure you by any means
the underlying anxiety is still three associated mostly with your bedroom. You must deal with that in the correct ways to fix your traumatized nervous system
I agree Deb. It goes way beyond just trying something. That was my mistake for two years until I finally had enough. I just wish I hadn’t started slacking the last week and fallen back into a poor sleep phase. I had finally began reaching the promise land and decided to test the waters too early with regards to being flexible with some of the rules. Now I know…
Glad to hear you’re doing well Deb. Even though you’re not fully there yet even after your 8 weeks with Martin, I know you’ve actually come a bit of a ways. And that’s way better than nothing, which is where I was for over two years. I hope you can (and me too of course) get out of this completely eventually. I’m sure you will.
I have been implementing techniques since New Years 2019. What I meant by “trying for a week” was attempting for the first time to kind of ween off the seriousness of the strategies (i.e. Going to bed earlier than usual some nights, not going to bed completely exhausted others) and it failed. I woke up in the middle of the night for the first time in a long time and fell back asleep only to wake too early before my alarm anyway. So no, I haven’t just been trying sleep hygiene techniques for a week to clarify. I do appreciate your optimism for me. It’s try that my insomnia took time to develop and has stayed with me for over 2 years. I’m sure it may take significantly longer than 1.5 months to get rid of it completely.
-Mac
Thanks for the post Martin. I never personally felt or thought that we need to rely on these techniques forever to stay a good sleeper, but I guess my point was more along the lines of, well, just what will it take for me to get back to that normal/flexible approach when it comes to sleep? I tried it this past week and I failed pretty miserably. I miss those days of being able to just crash on a Friday or Saturday and just sleep in til whenever and have it NOT affect me in a negative way.
