Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
A lot of the original posters in this thread have since graduated from the course.
It’d be great if any current postpartum clients shared in here — and in the meantime, here are some podcast episodes that might be relevant:
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
A sleep window is based on the sleep you are getting at the present time, medication or not. I wouldn’t usually suggest a sleep window of much less than six hours and a sleep window shouldn’t be less than your average nightly sleep duration over the past week or two.
A sleep window can still be helpful when taking medication if the amount of time you currently allot for sleep is a lot longer than how much sleep you usually get, if you find yourself going to bed earlier in an effort to make sleep happen, or if you find yourself staying in bed later in an attempt to “catch up” on sleep.
We’ll be exploring how to respond to waking during the night in a workable way in Week 2. In the meantime, there’s no need to get out of bed just because you’re awake — but you certainly can if you want to!
The goal here is to experience that time awake with less struggle and that can be done in bed or out of bed. Your choice!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for letting me know you found this helpful!
Acknowledging your fears helps you accept their presence so they aren’t as easily able to pull you into a struggle that makes them even more difficult.
Validating the presence of fear and understanding that it’s a normal human emotion might also be an act of self-kindness, helping you move away from being hard on yourself for noticing their presence.
You are finding it helpful to remind yourself of your strengths and your experience and you have been reminded of your natural ability to experience successive nights of sleep.
I wish you all the best as you continue to move forward. It’s great to have you here 🙂
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing, Bobbi!
Your actions each day are guided by your values — not the sleep you got the night before or the thoughts and feelings that might be present. When you are awake at night there is no struggle.
If you were out of the waiting room, what would be different? And how much control do you have over the things that would get you out of the waiting room?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thank you so much for sharing!
By continuing to play around with noticing and acknowledging your thoughts and feelings (and how they can pull you into actions that don’t move you toward the life you want to live) you discovered that adding the phrase “and I don’t have to” gave you some space and a better opportunity to choose a workable response.
By allowing thoughts and feelings to be present without automatically trying to resist them, troubleshoot them, or seek reassurance, you found that you were better able to do more of the stuff that matters to you. And, you have found that the more you do that, the less power and influence all this stuff has over your life.
You are being more open, being more curious, and being kinder to yourself. You are more tolerant of uncertainty.
You are reclaiming your life — and that’s all down to the actions you are taking!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Bobbi!
It sounds like your experience tells you that when you wake during the night, you cannot make yourself fall asleep through effort and you cannot make your mind stop catastrophizing or generating certain thoughts and feelings. And so, for as long as you try to do those things, you might continue to feel stuck.
If you are practicing the AWAKE or NOW exercises with the goal of calming your mind, stopping thoughts, making sleep happen, or otherwise controlling or changing sleep or thoughts or feelings, you aren’t going to get anything from them — because that’s not their intention and none of those things are in your control.
The goal of the AWAKE exercise is to help you build skill in experiencing all these things with less struggle. More openness, more space. Being more of an observer rather than an opponent.
The goal of the NOW exercise is to help you refocus your attention so you can continue to do things that matter in the presence of unhelpful or distracting thoughts and feelings.
As you shared, you might not always feel joy when doing things that matter — especially after a night of battling with wakefulness and your mind.
Living by our values doesn’t always bring us joy (changing dirty diapers or standing up for ourselves or what we believe in, for example, isn’t always joyful).
What matters is that you are doing those things that matter, independently of the thoughts and feelings that might also show up. Those actions keep you moving in the direction you want to be heading.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Jay!
Breakups are hard. No doubt about it.
And at times of difficulty, stress, struggle, and heartache, it’s natural and normal to experience some sleep disruption.
None of that stuff can indefinitely overpower sleep drive, though. Sleep drive always wins in the end — it’s impossible to remain awake forever!
What matters is how you respond when things aren’t happening as you want them to happen. Thoughts and feelings are human and they are out of your direct control. Your experience also tells you that sleep is out of your control. So, for as long as you try to control those things, you are going to continue to struggle and make things harder for yourself.
Your response to all this stuff is what counts because your response is based on actions — and actions are within your control. You have all the power here. You get to decide if and how you’ll move toward the life you want to live each day.
You are practicing the AWAKE exercise to help you build skill in experiencing wakefulness and all the thoughts and feelings that can come with that, with less struggle. You are doing things that help you live a rich and meaningful life alongside the human emotion of grief.
As for your final question, I am not sure what dealing with grief before addressing insomnia would actually look like in practice — and how that would keep you moving in the direction you want to be heading. Would you like to share some more on that?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
The idea is this — when there’s no effort or pressure to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen, it has the best opportunity to take care of itself.
And, to get to that point (especially if we’ve been struggling for quite some time) we might have to practice and develop new skills that help us experience wakefulness and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it, with less struggle.
Having no expectations about sleep can be useful, especially if the removal of those expectations gives you a better opportunity to focus on actions that are in your control and that move you closer to where you want to be!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It sounds like eliminating medication is an action that’s important to you — and your choice of action is already moving you closer to where you want to be!
If your sleep window begins at 10:00 PM and you find yourself really sleepy and it’s hard to remain awake from 9:00 PM onward, you can certainly experiment with going to bed! Some people like to make the hour before their sleep window begins the last time they check the time and then go to bed whenever they notice sleepiness showing up.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for the update, Molly!
You are continuing to practice. Your actions are being guided more by your values rather than sleep or what you might think or feel. That’s not always easy — most of the time it’s hard — and it keeps you moving in the direction you want to be heading.
As you pointed out, it’s harder to celebrate the better nights (and days) — because they aren’t a problem so they often go unnoticed. That’s why making the conscious effort to identify positives and credit yourself for them can be so helpful — your brain usually won’t do it without prompting because good stuff isn’t a threat!
Monitoring is natural and normal and comes from your brain looking out for you. Sleep can still happen when monitoring is going on (and your brain is always going to be monitoring anyway — even without insomnia and even during sleep it’s monitoring your environment to keep you safe).
The more practice you get in with less resistance and more acceptance when awake, the better able your brain might be to recognize that wakefulness isn’t a threat it needs to be so alert to protect you from!
As for romanticizing the past, perhaps there’s an opportunity there. Reminders of what matters. In that past when sleep wasn’t an issue or a concern, what were you doing that you aren’t doing (or are doing less of) now? That’s the stuff that you miss. That you want back. And those actions are always within your control.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Good on you for playing around with the AWAKE exercise, Janet!
When you acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, you might notice more feelings of anxiety. That’s a natural and normal and part of the process of acceptance — more noticing. More awareness. More space for that stuff to exist.
Noticing you are awake when you are awake is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of awareness and that’s a strength.
When you acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, that includes acknowledging the appearance of anxiety. It includes acknowledging a feeling more intense anxiety, too. You are noticing and acknowledging and allowing everything to be present — because you know that it’s only going to show up anyway, so why go to all the effort of trying to resist it?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
You’ve got a lot going on right now, Steph!
As you continue to do things that matter, independently of sleep, you notice your problem-solving brain generating completely valid and understandable thoughts and fears related to making mistakes due to impaired daytime function.
And here’s the thing. All humans make mistakes, independently of sleep. And, you are in control of your actions so you get to decide whether to continue doing everything as normal, scale things back a bit, or completely withdraw. And only you know which of those options will help keep you moving in the direction you want to be heading.
I get the impression that your experience has taught you just how capable you can be when sleep is proving difficult — as many human beings can be! Trainee doctors and surgeons, for example, might work over 100 hours each week, get in the region of about three hours of sleep, AND still manage to complete their training and typically without making many serious mistakes along the way.
If you think that driving would be unsafe then you shouldn’t drive — you are the expert on yourself. It also sounds like your most important work is scrutinized by others so perhaps the risk here might be a little bit lower than what your problem-solving brain suggests?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
If you are currently averaging about three hours of sleep, I’d suggest starting with a sleep window of about six hours.
So, if you want your final out of bed time to be 6:00 AM, then the start of your sleep window (your earliest possible bedtime) would be midnight.
Does this help?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Good on you for remaining committed to a sleep window, Kevin!
By committing to that action, you have noticed a stronger sense of sleepiness as bedtime approaches. You’ve also gained more time to do things that you enjoy.
Your practice of the 3 good things exercise is expanding the focus of your attention. You are better able to notice the good stuff that exists, even when things might be hard.
You are clearly moving in the direction you want to be heading and that’s entirely down to the actions you are taking! I wish you all the best as you continue to move forward!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
You could — the reason I suggest adjusting the start time instead is because the body often becomes more accustomed to a consistent wake time.
So, if your body gets accustomed to waking at 6:00 AM (for example), you might find that after shifting the end of your sleep window 6:15 AM or 6:30 AM you continue to wake at 6:00 AM.
You get to decide how to move forward though, since you are the expert on yourself 🙂
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
