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It sounds as though you read some scary articles and your brain fired up to protect you — and that might have pulled you back into a bit of a struggle.
As you likely know from experience, we can’t control our thoughts — and since some of them can be really difficult to experience and since we recognize that some of them can be unhelpful, we can easily get tangled up in a battle with them, trying to fight or avoid them.
That, in turn, can make everything more difficult!
So, what you might want to explore is acknowledging all the thoughts your brain is generating (and maybe even thanking your brain for looking out for you!) and allowing them to come and go as they choose. Being kind to yourself if they feel difficult. And then continuing to do things that matter to you.
PS: There is no evidence that insomnia causes any health problem; associations, links, and “maybes” are not the same as causation 🙂
—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.
I think you might have hit the nail on the head there! How old is your little one?
—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.
I think that comes down to your intent.
If you are thinking about changing your sleep window in an attempt to control what cannot be controlled (how much sleep you get or when you wake during the night) then that might not be helpful.
If you are thinking about changing your sleep window so you can do more of the things that matter to you and help you live the life you want to live, that 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.
Welcome to the forum! How do you currently respond to those awakenings when they show 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.
I am so sorry for your loss, Mane. No doubt things are very difficult for you right now and it makes sense that with that difficulty might come some sleep disruption, too. Do you have any friends or family to help support you during this difficult time?
Are you experiencing consistent sleep disruption over the past couple of months, or do you experience ups and downs of pretty good sleep and disrupted sleep?
Please be kind to yourself because what you are going through is extremely difficult and words can’t really describe it. You are in my thoughts and I wish you all the best.
—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 traditional CBT-I approach involves getting out of bed after a certain amount of wakefulness. The idea being that being awake in bed can reinforce an association between the bed and nighttime wakefulness.
This approach can be helpful — evidence proves it.
Some people struggle with it, though — especially if getting out of bed becomes a sleep effort. Something that is done in an attempt to get rid of wakefulness or make sleep happen.
In my experience, the problem here isn’t that the brain associates the bed with wakefulness (after all, think of all the people who sleep well and yet they spend a lot of time awake in bed watching TV, reading, scrolling on their phones, etc).
The problem is that the brain can associate the bed with struggle — and it’s the ongoing struggle that makes sleep more difficult, generates difficult thoughts and feelings, and draws us into a battle that can put our brains into overdrive!
So, what might be helpful is to practice moving away from struggling with wakefulness and any difficult thoughts and feelings that might choose to show up.
Instead of trying to fight the wakefulness and any difficult thoughts and feelings that come along for the ride, we can practice acknowledging their presence and allow them to come and go as they choose.
We can also engage in a more pleasant activity if that will help us experience wakefulness with less struggle — and since the goal is simply to practice moving away from the struggle, it probably doesn’t matter whether we stay in bed or get out of bed.
I hope this helps!
—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 again Lujesa!
Did sleep restriction at least reduce the amount of time you might have been spending in bed, trying to make sleep happen? Or, did you find that it had no value or benefit whatsoever? (Either option is perfectly fine, I’m just trying to get more of an idea of your experience here.)
Sleep restriction (although it has an awful name!) shouldn’t deprive you of sleep since it usually involves allotting an amount of time that is at least as long as your average nightly sleep duration over the past week or two.
Is there a difference between your approach to sleep in the days when it wasn’t an issue or a concern, and now?
Do you feel as though your struggle with sleep might be influenced by trying to make it happen? How much effort do you find yourself putting into sleep? How hard do you try to avoid nighttime wakefulness when it shows up?
As you have seen here, you aren’t alone. What you’re going through is hard, so please be kind to yourself, too.
—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.
Ah yes, the ups and downs of sleep — something that is out of your control! How did you respond to the more difficult nights? Were you able to be kind to yourself and continue to do things that matter? Were you able to practice moving away from struggling with wakefulness and any difficult thoughts and feelings that chose to show up?
Waiting to go to bed until we are sleepy can be useful — it’s a bit like waiting to eat until we are hungry, right? Of course, we might be able to sleep before we are sleepy (just as we might still be able to eat before we are hungry) but there are never any guarantees!
If you are feeling comfortable when awake in bed, there might not be any need to force yourself to stay out of bed until long after your planned bedtime — that in itself might be an attempt to control something that cannot be controlled (ie, sleep!) and come with the potential of creating some struggle!
Wakefulness itself isn’t really the problem — it’s a normal part of sleep. It’s our attempts to get rid of it that can end up making things more difficult!
—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! I particularly appreciated that last insight you shared — how we feel (especially first thing in the morning) might be influenced by things other than sleep alone.
—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! What do you feel were the key insights or changes you made that helped you move away from sleeping pills and transformed your relationship with sleep?
—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 Sam and thanks for the great questions!
To answer each in turn:
1. Week 2 will open up exactly one week after you enrolled — not one week from finishing Week 1 (although Week 1 will need to be completed in full before you can start Week 2).
2. What does your own experience tell you here? Have you tried going to bed if a strong sense of sleepiness shows up before the start of your sleep window? If so, did that prove to be helpful? If you haven’t tried it yet, I would suggest maybe making the hour or so before your sleep window begins the last time you check the time at night and then allowing yourself to go to bed whenever you feel ready to go to bed from that point on.
3. Before sleep was of much concern, what did you do? When sleep didn’t feel like a struggle and wan’t something you thought much about, did you use a phone in bed before sleep? Did you use a white noise machine?
—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.
Ultimately, you can’t make yourself fall asleep upon command. If there was a magic sleep switch, I’d share it with you!
You can only control your actions. So, you can go to bed when sleepy enough for sleep and get out of bed at a reasonably consistent time each day.
Sleep might not come until later in the night or close to when you need to start your day — you can’t control that — but if you continue to practice focusing your attention on the actions you can control and away from sleep itself, you will give your sleep the best opportunity to take care of itself (just as it wants to do).
—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.
Yes, post away — that’s what the forum is for 🙂
It sounds as though hyperawareness of noise might be one of those things that we just can’t really control too well.
And, just as we can’t eliminate all potential triggers of sleep disruption we can’t eliminate all potential sources of noise at night, right? And trying to do so is where we can end up stuck.
So, instead of going to war with them, instead of battling with them, instead of trying to fight or avoid them, you might practice acknowledging them and allowing yourself to observe them — perhaps with a curious mind.
You might actively listen to all these sounds, seeing if you can notice anything new or different about them. So, ultimately, you are gaining skill in being more comfortable with the presence of these sounds, rather than treating them as an adversary.
Of course, if eliminating these sounds is possible and doesn’t cause any difficulties, you can just go ahead and do that — we’re not looking to become martyrs of suffering here!
If we sleep alongside a snorer we might find that earplugs mean we aren’t disturbed by the snoring and we can create better conditions for sleep. In that case why not use earplugs?!
If eliminating the sounds is not possible or it will cause it’s own set of new difficulties (for example, if switching off the HVAC will turn you into a cooked lobster overnight) then perhaps an approach of acknowledgment and acceptance might be more useful?
Remember that you cannot delete frustration and worry from your brain! Those feelings will show up whenever your brain chooses to generate them. You always get to choose how to respond, though — and that’s 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.
Can you tell us more about the CBT-I you tried? What did you change and how long did you experiment with those changes? If they had worked, what would be different?
—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 and welcome to the forum! Quite often, if the trigger or cause of our sleep disruption isn’t obvious or is no longer present or relevant, we might be finding things difficult because of a change in our approach toward sleep.
When there’s no effort to sleep and sleep isn’t the focus of our attention, it often happens really easily (ask someone who sleeps well how they make sleep happen and you’ll probably get a plan and confused stare, right?).
If we experience sleep disruption we are more likely to work on fixing that disruption. Human beings are fixers by nature — we see a problem and we try to fix it, especially if we see that problem as something that might make it harder for us to do what matters.
Unfortunately, with sleep, the more we try to make it happen, the more difficult it becomes. And so, ultimately, the key to moving past insomnia is to move away from all effort connected to sleep. This is often far easier said than done, and it usually requires a lot of ongoing practice — but it can be done!
—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.
