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You know back to the clock watching stuff, even though I don’t think it would make much of a difference, I wonder how my mind would be affected if I removed a clock from the room once and for all. As in, literally no more clock in my bedroom. Unfortunately though I have to be up early for work and could never take the chance of no alarm.
Well for me, no matter what the case, if its under 5.5 hours, forget about it, I’m toast.
So I have had two very poor nights. I personally feel that if I can just continue to float very consistently around the 5.75-6 hour range for the next few weeks I will be happy and then my ultimate goal will be to get to 7 hours one day.
Well Daf, even if I have sometimes been “sleeping more than I am aware of”, it still doesn’t change the fact that I’ve slept like crap for the better part of the last 2 years and have subsequently felt like crap after those nights. So its really a bit of a moot point IMO.
Here is an update on my SRT, now one week in. The last two nights I have fallen into a trap of breaking the get into bed/get out of bed time rules, but have still slept around 6/7 hours on both nights. This started after a very poor night where there was simply no way in hell I was going to make it to my regular bedtime. I will finally try and ‘reset’ tonight. Here….
Night 1: 11:45pm-6:15am (slept approx 6 hrs)
Night 2: 11:45pm-6:15am (slept approx 6 hrs)
Night 3: 11:45pm, took around 40 mins to crash, woke up in middle of the night, fell back sleep, woke up at 5:30ish (slept approx 4.5 hrs) *Had important event the next day/Just more proof that my Insomnia is anxiety/fear related*
Night 4: 11:45pm-6:15am (Slept approx 5.75 hrs)
Night 5: 11:25pm, woke up at 4am, never fell back asleep (Slept approx 4.25 hrs) *I did not have much anxiety on this night at all. I am not sure why I woke up at 4a. The only thing different was me going to sleep at a different time for the first time during this all*
Night 6: Went to bed at 10:15pm due to being extremely sleep deprived from the night earlier. Eyelids were falling to the point of near impossibility to stay up. Went to sleep very quickly, woke up at 5:30am. (Slept approx 7 hrs)
Night 7: Made it to 10:45pm, how woke up at 5am (Slept approx 6 hrs)
Tonight I plan on trying to make it to at least 11 and eventually getting back on track with the time. Even though I’ve fallen off a bit from that very bad night of sleep on Night 5, is it at least ok since I’ve slept well on the 2 “Broken rule” nights?
Can anyone give me some advice or let me know what they think? Also, you may notice that I note the times of mid night awakenings which means I do look at my clock sometimes, however you must trust that this no longer creates anxiety for me. I have gone through several phases of removing the clock and find that it doesn’t make much of it not any difference at all. I am still aware that I am up in the middle of the night and it still affects my anxiety, regardless of knowing what time it is or not. Thank you.
And how did this all begin for you again? Sorry, don’t mean to bring up bad memories and make you talk insomnia all day. Just curious
Well, it happened again. I guess I got cocky.
Been doing SRT now for 5 nights. 3 of those 5 nights I have slept well in the 6.5 hour time range that I set up of 11:45pm to 6:15am. One of the bad nights was due to anxiety over something important happening the next day. Woke up in the middle of the night and struggled a bit before nodding back off but was still shot the next day.
Last night’s issue was more dumb of me and more my fault. Instead of waiting until 11:45pm, I jumped into bed around 11:25. The main issue was probably not so much that I went to bed earlier than my new normal time, bc I do feel there can be leniency to these “rules” here and there, but more the fact that I wasn’t very sleepy. Tired yes, not sleepy. Took me a good 30-40 minutes to finally crash as opposed to the usual 20-30. I know that the #1 rule of thumb is do not go to bed unless you are legitimately SLEEPY, even if that means past your SRT start time sometimes. Why I broke this rule I don’t know.
Anyway, you guessed it. Had some trouble falling asleep, anxiety crept in a bit, and up at 4:00am I was. Never fell back asleep. Got up, went back, got up, went back. By the time 5:30am came, I surrendered. Complete and absolute zombie today. Another Saturday of my life completely shot and wasted. Really just want this disgusting nightmare to end once and for all. I want to believe I’m finally on the right track, but after 2 years, albeit on and off, I’m just completely and utterly sick of even ONE bad night. I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’m so done and sick of my Insomnia that if I wake up in the middle of the night I’m not necessarily anxious, but more just angry, and mad. Mad that this stupid problem is happening to me, still, while so many others I know sleep perfectly fine without issue. Struggling today mentally.
Tonight and for EVERY night at least the next two weeks, its either 11:45pm or whenever I’m LEGITIMATELY sleepy.
Deb that is great to hear and also not surprising. I’ve gone through phases of good sleep with SRT as well. It ALWAYS works. My problem was getting kind of c0cky and not STICKING with it. Don’t do what I did. I’m currently in a new SRT phase that I finally plan on sticking to once and for all until I am healed to the point where it is not even a thought anymore. The real challenge of this all however, IMO, is dealing with IF and when a bad night does occur/return. That’s the biggest challenge of all. More than staying up until midnight or forcing yourself out of bed at 6a or any of that. If you can brush off a bad night here and there, you are well on your way to beating the fear, which in turn beats the Insomnia. Good luck.
Thank you for all the additional info. Looks like things really worked amazing for you when you began in 2015. Just curious about one more thing if you were doing well for an entire year how did the relapse occur?
You’re being very vague. You say you tried it in 2015 and it worked right off the bat. So what happened? You didn’t stick to it I guess?
With regards to trying it again a few weeks ago with the 2a-8a window, what happened that time?
Sorry I saw that you have started. I guess my question should be why did it take you so long to try it?
17 years is wild.
So you have gone through this since 2000 and have never been able to kick it? Why not??
Ever try SRT?Fair enough Deb. Also, I know that 2 years sounds insane, and believe me it is, and that’s why I finally reached my breaking point recently, but you should know that there have been many good phases throughout these 2 years. I feel like those phases have made me spoiled in the sense that whenever I re-enter a bad phase I just feel like eventually it will get better. It’s just so very hard to think ok I should now do this that and the other thing, SRT, etc, when just two weeks ago I had slept perfectly fine for 3-4 nights. I felt completely cured and like a had a new lease on life. So its like, WHY can’t I just stick to that? 🙁
I know why though. My brain has been conditioned to remember insomnia and be terrified of it anytime a bad night happens.
In any event, now, seeing as how after 2 years of this hell it never goes away completely, I have had enough. I think I will begin trying SRT to an extent beginning tonight. Nice way to start a New Year, right? I am going to do 11:30pm – 6am. I also read Sasha Stephens’ entire book. My first book on the subject. Seems like forever ago now when I read it. Yes she cracked her insomnia after 15 years by basically saying that she was forced to go to bed exhausted after a long day and wake up early, thus killing her sleep anxiety/worry in the process. The interesting part is that she never goes into what she did AFTER she got home from that trip to completely eliminate her insomnia for good.
Deb I find it very interesting how you’ve only signed up ONE week ago, paid $500, yet seem to talking about the program as if you’ve already gone through it and are somehow 100% convinced this is the way to go. You say Martin will give the support you need to do Sleep Restriction, yet you admit you’ve only been through ONE night of it so far. You even explain that if I can’t pay the $500, to do the $70 each week. And then you post this same response in my other thread just incase I didn’t see it here first. Again… Interesting.
@boke How many years has this been going on for you total? What do you think caused your Insomnia?
