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Thanks, I watched a talk by Howard Schubiner, it’s very interesting. I don’t really understand how my insomnia started (I think it was a combination of many things, physical and psychological) but it’s possible that my brain somehow learned that sleeping is dangerous, and now it has to unlearn that. When I was really sick, strange things happened when I fell asleep, my body was failing, sometimes I was convinced I was going to die or something worse. It could be that my brain has been conditioned by those experiences, and now there is no danger anymore but that conditioning remains.
I’ll also continue with stimulus control and sleep restriction, and positive thoughts like “my body knows how to sleep”. I’m quite optimistic about all this! It may be that we have to go through a process of learning all the CBT-i stuff until we develop the right habits, and then we have to move our focus away from it. If you were all day concerned about how to breath correctly, it could become difficult to switch to automatic breathing, right?
Good luck!
Hi Elena,
I’m insomniac for four months now, and the first two months were a lot like you described. It was hell on earth, I wanted to die. I would also spend some nights in a row not sleeping at all. What’s worse, I was never sleepy, so I thought my brain was broken. Doctors didn’t help. I had all kinds of physical and psychological problems. My life was put upside down and I was constantly thinking it was the end. I got pills for anxiety that just made the problem worse.
Eventually I settled down, I accepted I was sick and stopped worrying. I also decided to stop taking the sleep medication, reducing the dose very slowly. Some nights I wouldn’t sleep at all, but I didn’t give up, and after some time I started sleeping by myself. Now I only sleep an average of 3 hours, but I sleep every night and I’m optimistic it will improve. Now I’m in a state were I can use regular therapy for insomnia, but as you saw I had to arrive here on my own.
I wish this may give you some hope, improving is possible!
