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Giving yourself permission to not sleep sometimes can be a wonderful act of self-kindness and help reduce the pressure you might be putting on yourself to control what is out of your control.
And, as you shared, it’s normal and natural to not sleep sometimes — just as it’s normal and natural to have bad days sometimes, to trip over sometimes, and to say (or do) things we’d rather not sometimes!
Thanks for sharing!
—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.
Ups and downs are part of any journey, Jolanta!
What matters is how you choose to respond during the “downs”. Do you acknowledge what’s happening, practice being kind to yourself, and keep moving in the direction of where you want to be?
Or do you engage in actions that you know don’t help (because they are easier and perhaps more familiar and so they feel safer), try to control what can’t be controlled, be hard on yourself, and get pulled away from the life you want to live?
You always have the power to choose your actions — and that’s what counts!
—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.
Why are you looking for alternative to scrolling on your phone or watching TV?
Sleep doesn’t much care what you do before sleep — it’ll happen regardless of what you do, once you’ve been awake for long enough.
Of course, some common sense can be helpful here! Kickboxing while jumping on a trampoline might not create the best conditions for sleep — but if that’s something you enjoy, perhaps that’s more important compared to trying to bore yourself to sleep at night?
—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 in doubt, I’d suggest leaning toward actions (because you can control those!) that are aligned with your values and that keep you moving toward the life you want to live.
Doing less and withdrawing from life in an attempt to protect or control sleep might be more likely to pull you away from the life you want to live and give sleep more power and influence over your life. It might also make things more difficult as you do less and avoid actions that matter to you.
Life happens when we are awake — and in 100 years when you reflect on the life you lived I suspect you’ll reflect and remember all the things you did when awake (rather than the time you spent asleep)!
With all that being said, you are the expert on you! What do you feel is the best way forward?
(On a related note — perhaps attempting to make relaxation happen might be creating some additional struggle since relaxation might be a feeling that we can’t always switch on through effort.)
—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 your observation, Jolanta! Sleep can be sensitive to stress — and, quite often, stress comes with living a rich and meaningful life. So, it can’t usually be avoided (and trying can end up pulling us away from the life we want to live).
It sounds as though moving away from the pills is important to you and better reflects who you are and who you want to be. If that’s the case, congratulations — you are already getting your life back from insomnia!
—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 Jasmine! If you had a mantra that worked, what would be different?
Many people find that allowing their mind to think whatever it wants to think is the most workable way to deal with their thoughts because their experience tells them those thoughts are going to show up anyway — so why go to all the effort of trying to change or resist them?
With that being said, you are the expert on you!
—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 great question, and good on you for putting into action what you are learning from the course!
There’s nothing we can really do to make sleepiness or sleep happen — other than being awake for long enough! And your experience with feeling sleepy and then losing that sense of sleepiness when you go to bed is quite common.
It’s typically explained by the fact that before we go to bed there’s less pressure to feel sleepy or to make sleep happen. So, we feel sleepy! And, when we go to bed something changes — we might put pressure on ourselves to sleep or put effort into making sleep happen. And so, the brain fires up and we lose that sensation of sleepiness (even though sleep drive hasn’t fallen since no sleep has happened yet).
So, with this in mind, we might consider that the way forward here is to ensure:
1. We aren’t putting pressure on ourselves to make sleep happen,
2. We aren’t putting effort into trying to make sleep happen,
3. We aren’t battling away with wakefulness (and any of the thoughts and feelings that might come with it).This approach won’t magically guarantee the maintenance of sleepiness (or the appearance of sleep) since that is out of your control. However, with ongoing practice it can help move you away from trying to maintain sleepiness (or create sleep), which in turn can reduce effort and arousal and also train your brain that wakefulness isn’t a threat that it needs to be alert to “protect” you from.
Anxiety only shows up for one reason — your brain doing its job of looking out for you. And, since anxiety is a normal human emotion, it’s going to show up for as long as you are a human being! What matters is how you respond to it, since that determines how much struggle it will create and how much power and influence it’ll have over your actions (and your life).
You can battle away with it, trying to fight or avoid it. Or, you can acknowledge it and make space for it, be more of an observer of it, and be kind to yourself when it shows up.
Battling is usually our default response and it can make things more difficult. The alternative (which can be practiced with the AWAKE exercise) might be a more workable way to respond if your experience tells you that battling doesn’t seem to work.
To answer your question, I don’t think there’s any need to change your sleep window unless you want to. Remember the sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. The goal is to help you move away from chasing after sleep — because that immediately makes it more difficult!
Is there anything useful 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! You are noticing change because you are continuing to practice what you are learning. Action is what matters!
As you shared, patience can be really helpful, too — especially since progress cannot be controlled. You are also recognizing that you are a unique individual, on your own journey.
You might not be able to forget about sleep, but perhaps it will start to lose its power and influence over your actions the more you practice removing yourself from a struggle with it and the more you practice doing things that matter, independently of sleep!
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.
Hello Jasmine!
Many people find there’s a degree of liberation when they begin to accept the presence of insomnia. It can be helpful to be clear on what is meant by acceptance, though. What does acceptance mean to you?
Typically, insomnia is kept alive by all our (understandable!) attempts to fight or avoid it. Sleep happens best when there is no effort to make sleep happen.
For as long as your only measure of success is getting a certain amount or type of sleep you might find things difficult — because then you are more likely to put pressure on yourself to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen, you are more likely to put effort into sleep, you are more likely to attempt to fight or avoid the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with insomnia, and you are more likely to find your actions pulling you away from the life you want to live (rather than moving you toward the life you want to live).
Remember that waking during the night is a normal part of sleep. When you wake during the night (especially after four hours or so of sleep) sleep drive is going to be lower because of the sleep you experienced. And so, any attempts to make sleep happen — to control what you know from experience is out of your control — is going to make sleep less likely to happen, and is likely to create a struggle that only makes things more difficult.
It is totally understandable that you feel frustrated, and even angry about your situation. Those are natural and normal feelings. Perhaps exploring how you might be kinder to yourself when things are difficult might be helpful since being hard on ourselves when things are difficult rarely makes things any easier.
As for your fiancé, have you asked them how they seem to make such great sleep happen? Are there any insights from their response?
You aren’t alone, Jasmine. What matters are your actions because your actions determine your level of struggle, how much power and influence this difficult stuff has over you, and the kind of life you live. Change is hard. Ongoing practice of what you are learning, and an ongoing commitment to meaningful and workable action is what matters.
—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 Dave! The only thing that really reduces sleep drive is sleep (rest might also reduce it but to a far lesser extent).
How is your experience with that wakefulness between 4:30 AM and 6:00 AM? Is it comfortable and restful, or does it involve difficulty and struggle?
If it’s comfortable and restful, there’s probably no need to change anything. If it involves difficulty and struggle, a change might be helpful!
—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 as though your focus is starting to shift away from trying to control sleep and what you are thinking and feeling — and, instead, you are acknowledging what you are thinking and feeling and you are acknowledging that sleep cannot be made to happen through effort.
That shift can be quite liberating, even when difficult nights and difficult thoughts and feelings show up. Not battling with all these things reduces the energy and attention they consume. It reduces their power and influence. This, in turn, helps free you up to do more of the stuff that matters to you.
Thanks for sharing and I wish you all the best as you continue to move forward through committed, meaningful, and workable action!
—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.
What a mindset shift, Christina! Focusing our attention on getting a certain amount or type of sleep as our measure for success is understandable — and it can set us up for a struggle since sleep is out of our control!
What can be more helpful is digging a little deeper and exploring the obstacle sleep/insomnia seems to pose in our lives. What is it stopping us from doing? What actions are we doing because of sleep/insomnia that don’t reflect who we are or who we want to be? How is sleep/insomnia pulling us away from the life we want to live?
When we have the answers to those questions, we might be able to refocus our attention on actions that remove that obstacle. Actions that help us live a rich and meaningful life independently of sleep. And, when sleep/insomnia is no longer an obstacle, when we are living the life we want to live, sleep tends to take care of itself!
The progress you’ve made and the insights you’ve gathered are entirely down to your own commitment to action and your own resilience. It’s so easy to give up. It’s far harder to commit to change. Change is hard. Change is scary. And, without change, nothing changes!
As you shared, nobody here is broken and sleep exists within all of us. It wants to happen and the best way to allow it to happen is to remove ourselves from the process of trying to make it happen!
Thanks again for sharing and 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.
Hello Kelly and congratulations on your pregnancy! Life changes like this often impact sleep in the short-term. What matters is how we respond.
It’s great that you are reviewing your notes — many people also find it helpful to work through the course content more than once. There’s a lot to take in and it can take more than one “go through” for it to get fully absorbed!
The reappearance of difficult thoughts, difficult feelings, and difficult nights is hard to deal with and it’s so easy to get pulled back into a struggle with all that stuff. Often, we feel trapped when what we are doing to escape doesn’t seem to be working — and, with insomnia, what typically doesn’t work is a strategy of trying to fight or avoid difficult thoughts and feelings and trying to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen.
Feeling trapped is an opportunity to change approach. To do something different. And, that’s what is outlined in the course materials. It takes ongoing practice and it comes with plenty of ups and downs. However, for as long as you continue to practice and for as long as you are mindful of your intent with your practice (remember you aren’t trying to delete certain thoughts and feelings or make sleep happen as you know from experience those things are out of your control) you will always be making progress.
Things feel difficult right now because they are difficult right now. That doesn’t mean this difficulty will be around forever. Change is constant. You always have control over your actions. Please be kind to yourself and remember that you can continue to do things that matter (no matter how small) and continue to move toward the life you want to live, even when this difficult stuff is present.
Be sure to draw on your strengths and your superpowers. You’ve overcome adversity and difficulty before. You can do it again.
—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.
Ups and downs are natural and normal. We all have difficult nights just as we all have difficult days. What tends to make things more difficult is trying to control what our experience tells us cannot be controlled.
A couple of flags that imply actions that might be setting you up for struggle in your post include “couldn’t get back the calm” (trying to make a certain feeling happen can create struggle and difficulty) and “battling” (if you find yourself battling, that suggests you might be trying to control your mind or your sleep).
The brain never battles sleep but it does generate thoughts and feelings. Non-stop. And, since it is always generating thoughts and feelings, sleep can still happen in the presence of any thought and any feeling.
What tends to make sleep more difficult is trying to control the mind; trying to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings. And, as you know from experience, as soon as we try to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen (as soon as we “try” to sleep), it becomes a whole lot more difficult.
With all this in mind, what do you think is the best way to respond to nighttime wakefulness and the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with that? What responses might help you build skill in experiencing what you might not want to experience with less battling and less struggling? What actions will keep you moving toward the life you want to live, independently of sleep and even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings?
—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.
That’s a great question, Zoki! My advice would be to start by talking to your doctor. In my experience, whether someone goes cold turkey or tapers off doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference. What seems to matter most is coming up with a plan and sticking to it, regardless of how each night goes.
—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.
