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Wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing, @Kriskin1! Unnecessary thoughts will probably still show up from time to time — that’ll be your brain looking out for you!
When you are able to reflect on any positive stuff that’s present even when things are difficult, you are helping to open yourself up a bit more to the world around you — and so perhaps some of the difficult stuff might be a bit more “diluted” when it shows 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.
Thank you for sharing and good on you for getting in some practice! Remember your goal isn’t to try to control your thoughts (we never have control over those) but to help you practice being a bit more present and better able to do things that matter when difficult or unhelpful thoughts show up and try to sweep you away or pull you away from doing things that matter!
—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 wonder if this might be a good example of how our desire not to experience wakefulness or other difficult thoughts and feelings can pull us away from living the life we want to live? If so, perhaps not traveling — if that’s something important to you — might not be a workable response?
If you agree, what might a more workable response be? How might you respond to the difficult thoughts and feelings that show up and how might you act in response to them?
Jet lag comes with international travel — there’s not a whole lot we can do about it (remember we can’t control sleep)! If you are following a sleep window I’d suggest simply continuing with it, keeping the start and end time the same but in local time. So, for example if your sleep window begins at 11:00 PM at home, you might start it at 11:00 PM local time when away.
More importantly, I wonder if shifting your focus onto the life enriching experience travel has to offer might be more important than any sleep window and, perhaps, even sleep itself?!
—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 @Jenna and thanks for your post! I wonder if part of the difficulty you mentioned might come from trying to “manage” anxiety? I wonder if allowing it to come and go as it pleases might help free you from the struggle?
@Milko: Good on you for doing something that matters, even though it didn’t feel pleasant! Quite often, difficult thoughts and feelings come along for the ride when we do things that matter. We can’t control that since they’re part of being a human being (it’s when we try that we’re more likely to get tangled up in a struggle).It sure sounds as though you are practicing a new approach and are starting to notice how that might be useful, Milko!
—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 don’t know of any way to make sleep happen — usually, the more we try to make sleep happen, the more we struggle and the more difficult sleep becomes.
If you have found that you cannot force yourself to sleep, perhaps a new approach might be useful? An approach that frees you from struggle and might help you experience wakefulness in a more workable way?
The AWAKE exercise might be helpful for that — is it something you’ve been practicing with?
—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 Sal and thanks for the great questions!
What would be the benefit of checking the time when you wake? What would you be able to do with that information?
In terms of dealing with thoughts that arrive when you travel, what do you think would be a workable way to respond to those? Have you been able to successfully (and permanently) fight, avoid, or otherwise control what your mind does up to this point? If not, perhaps moving away from trying to fight or avoid certain thoughts or feelings might free you from some struggle? We’ll cover this in a lot more detail as the course progresses.
Finally, in terms of thanking your brain, what’s your goal with that? If your goal is to control your mind, it’s not going to “work” — I don’t know many people who can control their minds! It’s simply a quick way you can respond to your thoughts in a way that tells your brain that you’re listening and so you might then be able to engage in meaningful action rather than getting tangled up in a battle with your mind!
—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! It can be quite interesting to notice just how inaccurate many of our thoughts can be, right?
It doesn’t really matter how we practice detaching ourselves from our thoughts and recognizing them for what they are — we just want to ensure we don’t fall into the trap of trying to control what our mind chooses to do (because it’ll usually do whatever it wants to do anyway)!
So, if difficult thoughts disappear, it can be useful to recognize that they’ll almost certainly come back at some point (there’s no delete button for the brain!). Without that understanding, we might be more likely to get pulled back into a struggle with them when they reappear!
—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.
My apologies — it looks as though there isn’t a way to see the quiz again once it has been submitted! In other words, you were right and my response was wrong and confusing! Sorry!
Would you find it helpful to have a downloadable “cheat sheet” for each quiz that you can refer to after you’ve submitted it? If so, perhaps I can work on making that happen!
—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 Milko! I’ve moved your post here from the public forum to help avoid any confusion. It can be so frustrating when insomnia seems to disappear only to return, right? And, when insomnia happens often it comes with its “passengers” of difficult thoughts and feelings such as anxiety.
Based on what you’ve been learning as you’ve been going through the course, what do you feel would be a workable way to respond to the appearance of those difficult nights?
Try to control sleep and try to fight or avoid wakefulness and all the difficult thoughts that come with it (has that been an effective long-term solution for you in the past)?
Or, practice moving away from the struggle and using your energy (and attention) in ways that help you live the kind of life you want to live, even after difficult nights and even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings?
What might a workable response look like for you, Milko?
—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 Jane! I’ve moved your post from the public forum to the client forum to keep things organized 🙂
You can review the quiz and survey again at any time by clicking on it from the left-hand column of the page when you are on any of the lesson pages. So, if you want to review the Week 1 quiz, you can click on the link that says “Week 1 Quiz and Survey” under the “Week 1” heading (even though it’s crossed out).
You can use this same method to review any previous lessons, too — even if you’ve marked them as complete.
Here are direct links to the quizzes offered up to this point:
Week 1 Quiz and Survey
Week 2 Quiz and Survey
Week 3 Quiz and SurveyAll I would ask is that you don’t submit the quiz more than once 🙂
If you need any further help with this, please let me know!
—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, Suchitra! It’s so interesting to hear you say that you are finding your mind is now more actively looking for the good stuff around you, even in the presence of the difficulties you face. Do you think that happened directly as a result of practicing the three good things exercise?
Remember that the AWAKE exercise isn’t supposed to get rid of any thoughts and feelings or prevent them from showing up — your brain will create whatever thoughts and feelings it chooses to generate. Each time a new thought or feeling shows up, that’s a great opportunity to practice acknowledging it and allowing it to exist.
If you find that you are able to ignore a thought or feeling so effectively that it never shows up again, then that sounds like it might be a workable approach to you. If not, it might be worth practicing allowing your thoughts and feelings to flow, so they are less likely to get stuck.
In terms of nighttime activities, since you’re awake anyway it doesn’t matter too much what you do when awake — your goal is to practice allowing yourself to experience wakefulness without struggle, not to make sleep happen. Of course, riding a roller coaster at 3:00 AM might not be useful — but otherwise, any pleasant activity might be more useful than tossing and turning, trying to make sleep happen.
Remember, too, that it’s OK to stay in bed when you’re awake!
—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 Milko and congratulations on following the action plan and practicing a new way of responding to nighttime wakefulness. Since you have no control over what’s generated inside of you (thoughts, feelings, sleep) perhaps it’s worth focusing your efforts and attention on what you can control? Those would be the actions that you are practicing and can continue to practice.
You don’t need trust to practice, right? You just need to do it — and you always have control over your actions 🙂
So, keep moving 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.
It sounds as though your struggle might come from the idea that all your efforts are intended to make sleep happen — so, whenever a difficult night happens you think that all your efforts are no longer “working” and that something is wrong.
“Insomnia immunity” comes from a genuine willingness to experience insomnia and a complete abandonment of trying to control sleep, avoid wakefulness, and no longer doing battle with the difficult thoughts and feelings that can often show up when we have difficult nights.
If you would do nothing differently in your life if you were getting the exact amount and type of sleep you would like to be getting, perhaps all the struggle you describe comes from trying to control what you are thinking and feeling and/or trying to fight or avoid nighttime wakefulness? All things that are, ultimately, not 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.
Way to go, getting some practice in and playing around with the AWAKE exercise!
Thanks for sharing that you were able to be kind to yourself when you found your mind wandering (natural and normal) and when you found yourself trying to remember each step (natural and normal)! As you suggested, the more your practice, the more skilled you’ll become!
Remember your goal isn’t to make sleep happen or to control your mind — the goal is to practice experiencing nighttime wakefulness in a more workable way; to practice being more comfortable with nighttime wakefulness when it happens so you might be less likely to get tangled up in a struggle with 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.
Thank you so much for sharing! Sometimes we can feel less anxious when we practice reflecting on three good things — and that can be a bonus side effect!
If we find ourselves trying to combat our thoughts or feelings, we might get a bit tangled up in a battle with our minds — something that can lead to some struggle.
As you mentioned, the real goal is to refocus our attention — to expand our focus so we might be better able to notice some of the good stuff we easily miss out on when we are dealing with difficult stuff!
—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.
