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Such a beautiful thing to be sleeping rather well again. I go to bed at night with no worries at all lately. Working from home has turned into a joy. I wake around 7, and literally start working in my bed the first half hour or so lol. No alarm, no shower, no hair, no shaving, no nothing. I know this type of sleep won’t carry over completely to when I return to work and my 6am alarm is staring me in the face every night again, but I just hope that somehow someway I’ve restored enough sleep confidence to where it won’t be a brutal transition. Hope all is well with everyone.
Hi Deb, long time no speak. Sorry for the long delay in getting back. I had a death in the family over a week ago and it was a rather difficult time. (non Covid related)
That also brought some bad nights to me for a good few days, but I’m happy to report that I’m doing well over the course of the last 4-5 days. We’re almost at a phase 1 reopening here in New York though (mid May estimated) so I’m thinking that will likely bring me back to work in some capacity. I have absolutely loved these work from home days and the beautiful sleep that has come with it. I can only hope and pray that some of the sleep confidence I’ve gained over this last month+ will carry over, but I know it will not be that cut and dry.
How about yourself, Deb? Good nights through and through?
-Mac
Sorry to hear about this rather bad setback, Manfred. The first thing you should know is, at least from my experience and seemingly many others is, with regards insomnia, when it rains it pours. This means that when you have a bad night, more times than not it means you’re going to have a few bad nights, or sometimes even enter a new flat out bad PHASE, before your nerves eventually calm back down and you get to sleeping better again. I don’t even consider these “relapses” but more of just part of the up and down process that is chronic insomnia recovery.
The hope is that as you continue to get past these bad nights/phases, your sleep confidence will improve more and more until your good nights/phases are outweighing the bad. I’m really not sure where you are at in your recovery process (maybe you can sum it up for me), but if you’ve been dealing with this for long time then by no means do I think you should be implementing CBT-I after just two bad nights. Instead I think ACT is the right form of approach for something so short. Now if it were two bad WEEKS, thats another story.
Deb, how are you doing these days? I myself actually had a few rough nights these last few days, ironically starting it seems right after I gave you my good update. Nothing more than what Manfred is pretty much dealing with. I had one rough night, and now it’s spiraled a bit, though Saturday I did sleep well. Last night however there was a unique circumstance where I went to bed in sweatpants which is something I rarely do on a count of 90% of the time I usually end up too hot. I felt however that it was chilly enough outside that it wasn’t going to be an issue. Wouldn’t you know it, at 4:15am I awoke basically sweating. Took the pants off, but was never really able to fall back asleep. Especially with my 7am alarm coming up for work from home.
Just sad sometimes to think about how, years ago, or when I was a teen, whatever, if this ever happened I’d wake up, get rid of the pants, and fall back asleep within minutes probably. But these days I’m a changed sleeper unfortunately. Anxiety is still there at times. Nothing like it used to be in years passed, and yes I’ve improved greatly over the course of the last year, but, the sleep anxiety still comes out at times, last night an example.
Well I hope that tonight is the start of heading back into a good phase. I don’t know why but sometimes After a period of bad nights like I’ve just had, one day I’ll just have a *feeling* that I’ve had enough now, and I’ll likely be coming out of it.
Deb how are you doing over the last week?
Hi Deb. Yes, I am! Not perfect (few small issues here and there), but overall this is the best I’ve been sleeping in a long, long time. That first week working from home adjusting to the totally new lifestyle along with the Covid life changes really did a number on me but I got out of that and adapted rather quickly. If there was ever a 100% verdict on if my sleep was anxiety related this is certainly it (not that I didn’t know that before though)
It is just a shame though knowing that in a month or so from now there will be a huge challenge going back to my 6am alarm that I know will ultimately bring me problems. Its like I’ve said many times before Deb, no matter what, 6am is just too early for me in general. I have had anxious thoughts a couple of times over the last few weeks just THINKING about going back to work (in office), knowing what that will likely bring with it. Just have to keep hoping that I can one day get a job that allows me to go to sleep at night without worrying about such an early wake up time. I’ve been waking around 7-7:15 most days lately.
How are you?
Hi Deb. Much better, thank you. Finally seemed to have gotten over the initial anxiety over this new working from home lifestyle. Been getting around 7 hours every night now. Kind of what I always envisioned for myself once my 6am alarm was thrown out of the way.
So you’re back to normal you say. I haven’t really been keeping up the last couple weeks too well. What exactly went wrong? Was it another minor relapse of sorts?
Slept a little better the last two nights. Ironically I made it a thing to not get into looking at my phone while in bed before I crashed these last two nights. While Deb I agree that I actually don’t think playing with the phone right before sleep is the reason for bad nights (though I don’t think it helps matters) I DO think however that this act can trigger some weird/negative thoughts in the back of my mind, such as ‘well, maybe i shouldn’t have been doing that, now maybe it might affect my sleep bc this is all i’ve read about for years… no blue light before bed’
In any event, even though ACT is all about “letting go”, ACT still teaches us to practice good general sleep hygiene, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with putting the phone away before we get into bed. I also still think I have some significant underlying anxiety leftover from all that is going on in the world. Again, I live in New York, and over here literally everything is closed. It really hit me again this week how this is not changing anytime soon and how my life is now drastically altered bc of it. I can’t go get a haircut, I can’t go out with a friend to a restaurant, I can’t go shop for a shirt in a store, I’m waiting on a “social distancing line” at CVS just to go in and buy a pack of gum yesterday. Definitely it has affected me.
I hope everyone else is doing ok.
Thanks Deb and Gsd. I think I just had the usual anxiety spike Sunday night realizing that it was back to work Monday, even though I was working from home. Not sure how to describe it. I guess I let it get the best of me. Something as simple as waking up to go log onto a computer at my dining room table. I just didn’t think it was that bad of anxiety that would have provoked such a horrible night. But, this is just me. I am a bit of an anxious person in general sometimes and this is what it’s going to be for right now.
At the end of the day as nicer and easier working from home is and as much as it will help my sleep, the reality is I am still in recovery from Insomnia. Working from home wasn’t going to fix things overnight, though I do think over time I would absolutely improve as I already did a bit last week. Last night was a little better..
Had a terrible night. My first in about a week since working from home. Things improved as the week went on last week butI guess some anxiety crept back in last night knowing that it was back to work today, even though I’m home. Still didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. Really just pissed off at this point. It’s bad enough that i’m basically quarantined at home all by myself, but now I can’t even enjoy that.
One thing I have been getting into the habit of doing which I know is wrong, but, at the end of the day this is “ACT” and you’re supposed to just let go of everything, is looking at my phone a good bit while in bed before I crash. Last night I did so for a good 10-15 minutes before finally putting it down. Then I had some trouble nodding off, tossing and turning for a while before finally falling asleep. Who knows, maybe the phone wired my brain up and affected things. But 10-15 minutes of use to cause a horrific night of sleep? I just don’t know.
Great post. Much props to you for coming on here to share. I too have realized it’s usually not one single thing that gets us back on track within a few weeks/months but rather a combination of things that ultimately slowly but surely allows us to believe we can be normal sleepers again without fear. Once those thoughts finally click in our head, we let go more and more and ultimately become more positive which leads to an eventual recovery.
I agree with Steve, there is no shame at all in having to take an Ambien in a stressful state due to your job having to reopen. Just curious your job being closed was due to Covid?
Speaking of that, I’ve finally began to reap the benefits of working from home starting Tuesday night with a solid night of sleep. I felt pretty good yesterday and close to the same today. I expect this to continue and likely even get better. Make no mistake about it though once they call us back to the office I know a minor relapse will be possible. But I’ll just have to accept it and continue trying to improve from there.
Hi Deb. Its day 2 of working from home and so far no, I haven’t been sleeping too well, but there’s good reasons for that. While I’m definitely starting to settle down about the pandemic and accept the new reality of life, its still lingering just a bit. On top of that I had some general anxiety about the whole brand new work from home dynamic that started yesterday. We have NEVER done this before so I had a little worry over making sure I was up and ready to login to the system at 7:30am. (They want us to email to ensure we are actually in and working at the start of the day).
Today was a tad better as far as working went and I got the hang of things. Still didn’t sleep well, but I feel better mentally. I do feel that in time, probably a couple of days, I’ll begin to accept this new reality of working from home a lot more and thus sleep will improve for sure. There’s just been a LOT to adapt to in the last 2 weeks as I’m sure you know, especially over here in New York.
If there’s one thing I realized even more through these last 2 weeks its that I really do have at least a very low grade of general anxiety. It’s anything but serious and it’s nothing I feel i’d ever need medication for, but it’s there, just enough to (obviously) mess with my sleep if nothing else, and creep up sometimes when things are thrown out of their element in my life or I have an issue going on (i.e. Work/relationships). I think its somewhat normal for anyone to get a little anxious about the latter things, but for me it’s probably a tad on a higher level than most.
I don’t want to upset anyone or concern anyone, but today was quite possibly the worst zombie day of my entire life. I literally could not stand straight, felt dizzy all day, and at times felt light headed enough to the point where I thought I was going to pass out. This is 1000% because of what is going on in the world (on top of my already pre-existing insomnia-related anxiety). The thing is, most of this week including last night, like my usual routine, I went to bed rather calm. Heart not racing, mind not racing. But I could tell for sure in the back of my mind I still cannot wrap my head around what is going on. Here in New York it’s reached a bit of a scary level. People on the streets just down the block from me wearing face masks which can only be described as creepy, supermarket shelves completely empty like I’ve never seen in my lifetime, everything except essential closed, work relying on me to come in and step up, a takeout burger place telling me to order on the phone and they’ll bring me the food in my car, my barbershop closing leaving me looking a mess. Surreal is the understatement of the century for me today.
I honestly am more strong than I might sound in this post. I’m not freaking out and calling people screaming for help by any means, and I’ve even comforted a few people at work this week as I am very optimistic about this all. But I don’t know. Hard to explain my anxiety. I guess it’s just the extreme underlying type, if that’s a thing. I know we’ll get past this, but the fact that the (my) world is upside down just destroys me deep down. It was very hard today being at work seeing everyone kind of cheery at the end of the day, making jokes and trying to make everyone laugh, and I kind of just hid in my cubicle completely sleep deprived to a point like I’ve never experienced before. I was literally almost unable to hold a conversation today, that’s how bad it was. I hope and I pray that this calms down in a few weeks and the peak of the “curve” happens sooner than they think.
On ONE good note that I’d like to share. Finally beginning Monday I will be working from home. It will not be easy, but for me it is better than going into the office with everything that is going on. Steve, Deb and everyone else please be well.
Hi Steve- Glad you’re doing ok right now. Though I’m sure not having an alarm is a huge part of that. But still, if you can put together weeks of good sleeping now, it can absolutely carry over and help your recovery long term. This is what I wish I had. I handle payroll for the MTA (transportation here in the NYC area). So basically, until the trains shut down which probably won’t happen unless there’s a complete lockdown scenario (which is unlikely imo), I have to go in to make sure people still get their paychecks. Unfortunately the job just isn’t set up where you can work from home. If things got really drastic it’s possible to do so, but it wouldn’t be at all easy.
Today was just a VERY bad day. Aside from having to wake up as usual the additional stress of going into work when seemingly *everyone* else is working from home right now is bothering me, not to mention the state of the country in general. Thoughts of a recession when all this is set and done and my home value dropping. Possible realities I never thought we’d see again after 07/08, but here they are now in my life as a home owner. On top of all that it’s just crushing to see all these business in my neighborhood closed, some likely to never reopen. Can’t go to the gym which is a psychological boost for me, always. Very stressful times for me right now. I’m trying to find a way into a peaceful mindset, but in my entire life I’ve never seen anything even close to this.
Hi Deb. Really not doing well to be honest as the pandemic has risen some general anxiety in me and has led to some REALLY bad nights this week. I am in New York which as we all know is the most infected state so there’s a little bit of a panic in the air though I can say today things finally seem to start becoming more “normal” again at work and the initial shock of all this is dying down. So yes I am still at work every single day as my job is considered essential. Zombie most of this week. Not much else to say other than I hope this all passes sooner than later. All restaurants/bars/gyms etc, closed here
Hi Deb. Glad to hear you at least had some improvement the last couple of nights, though as we all know it’s really just about riding things out. Not to say you will, but tonight could easily be a bad night for you, but its how you REACT to it and handle it tomorrow that will determine more long term results. So just to try and verify Deb, since recovering the first time from ACT last year, how many relapses have you had?
I personally have been doing slightly better since my first one a couple of weeks ago, though ironically last night was probably my worst night since then. I’m an absolute zombie today like I haven’t been in quite some time. As we all know there’s a lot of craziness going on in the world right now and yesterday just shocked me when seeing some things on the tv late at night (I.e. NBA season suspended). I stayed up a little later than usual watching tv, texting with friends, and just being shocked by all this news. I went to bed kind of wired no doubt, and given my current fragile/in recovery condition, I just had a brutal night. Seemed to be up quite a bit/in light sleep for most of the night, etc. Absolutely shot today to a rather scary level.
But still, it’s all part of this process. In the grand scheme over the last 2 weeks I feel I’ve improved a bit on ‘acceptance’ more. I’ve come to a solid realization that one single bad night usually isn’t the case. It’s usually a few in a row, if not more, until we start to come out of it and reset again. This has helped my thoughts a lot. Hopefully as time goes on this will help my sleep even more.
