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May I ask what CBT techniques, specifically, you’ve been implementing — and how consistently you’ve been implementing them?
How do you currently respond to the difficult nights you described? If they weren’t happening, what would you be doing differently with your life?
You might have noticed that the focus of this course is about moving away from all effort to control sleep and fight or avoid wakefulness and the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it. That’s because we can’t control any of that stuff — and quite often, the more we try, the more we get tangled up in a struggle.
Did you pick up any useful insights as you worked through Week 1 of the course? What’s your plan of action between now and Week 2?
—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 that works for you, go for it! Some people find that being sedentary promotes, rather than reduces, fatigue. So, if you find those 15 minute rests aren’t really doing much for the fatigue, you might want to experiment using that time to be a bit more active instead!
As a bonus, instead of trying to control how you’re feeling, being active might also help you do things that are important and meaningful and keep you moving toward the kind of life you want to live and the kind of person you want to be, even in the presence of fatigue.
—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.
So it sounds as though, over the long term, you’re not finding it too helpful or effective to try controlling your mind — to try making it think only certain thoughts or not think certain thoughts. With that in mind, I wonder if simply allowing your mind to do what it’s going to do anyway might help you move away from an ongoing struggle?
—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 certainly can do that, Milko! In Week 3 I’ll be sharing an exercise that is deliberately intended to help refocus attention during the day — but, even then, if you prefer the AWAKE exercise, have at 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.
Thanks for sharing, Geal! How effective do you find it to try to think of things other than sleep? Is that proving to be a workable long-term solution?
—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’d usually suggest starting with an out of bed time that you feel is most workable for you — that fits your lifestyle and helps you live the kind of life you want to live. That way, there might be less of a risk that you’ll get tangled up thinking that the sleep window is something that can make sleep happen and that should be used to somehow make more sleep happen or get rid of nighttime wakefulness.
Losing that sense of sleepiness when you first go to bed isn’t unusual (your problem solving brain is firing up to protect you from what it thinks of as the threat of nighttime wakefulness). What do you tend to do when you’re in bed and that happens?
If your sleep window ends at 6:30 AM, getting out of bed closer to 7:00 AM probably isn’t a big deal — as long as you’re not using that extra time in an attempt to chase after sleep (that would be a sleep effort that might be training your brain that wakefulness is indeed a threat, something that it needs to be vigilant to protect you from 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.
Hello Jenna (and Geal)!
As Geal mentioned, sometimes removing the source of the time from the room — or moving out out of reach — can be useful! Oh, and just to confirm that all of this is hard. No doubt about it!
When you do check the time, what’s the best outcome? Do you feel supremely happy, relaxed, and all anxiety and worry evaporates and you fall back into a deep sleep? Or, as I am going to guess is more likely, do you simply see the time and don’t have much of a reaction?
If I’m on the right track, it sounds as though the best outcome of checking the time is neutral — not much outcome at all — whereas the more likely outcome of checking the time is more struggle.
We’re all different though, so maybe I am way off base. If checking the time works for you, have at it!
In terms of the reaction to anxiety, sometimes the struggle there comes down to all our attempts to fight or avoid difficult thoughts and feelings like anxiety. Do you think that might explain at least some part of your struggle? Do you find yourself trying to avoid it and then, when it turns up, you try to fight it or otherwise try to push it away?
If so, how workable does that approach tend to be? Does it help over the long term?
—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! Since waking is a normal part of sleep, there’s nothing unusual with the fact you are waking around 3 or 4:00 AM. What might be making it a bit of a struggle is the belief that this is a problem — because then the problem-solving mind fires up and tries to fix this for you. And yet, you cannot control sleep so then you can end up tangled up in a struggle!
It sounds as though things start to feel more difficult for you when you know the time when you wake — so, have you tried not checking the time when you wake?
We’ll be exploring ways of working with nighttime wakefulness more in Week 2 in the course. In the meantime, how are you currently responding to that wakefulness — does it usually last until the end of your sleep window? — and how are you currently responding to the appearance of anxiety?
—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! Anxiety is often an unpleasant feeling — but it doesn’t stop sleep from happening. Trying to fight or avoid it sure can though! That’s because we cannot control the thoughts and feelings our mind generates as it does its job of looking out for us. So, the more we try, the more we can get tangled up in an endless, exhausting, and distracting battle with our minds!
—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 just wanted to chime in and share some words of appreciation for all the support and kindness going on here. You are all wonderful people!
Dani, I think you shared a huge insight right at the end of your last post: Despite this I have had the experience of doing social things after not sleeping and actually feeling better because it shifts my attention to something else.
With that in mind, perhaps you might not need to put quite so much effort into making sleep happen — perhaps you might be able to save your energy and use it to do things that are rich and meaningful and will keep you moving toward the kind of life you want to live instead?
—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 kho4874 and welcome to the forum! You aren’t alone and I don’t think there is anything wrong with your sleep drive — what’s likely happening is all your understandable efforts to make sleep happen are making sleep more elusive (it’s probably going to be hard to sleep when we are engaged in effort, right?).
When you are awake in bed and finding it hard to fall asleep or wake during the night and find it hard to fall back to sleep, why do you think that is? What is going through your mind? How do you respond to that wakefulness? How helpful is that response proving 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.
Welcome to the forum!
I’ve not heard of Paxil damaging some part of the brain responsible for sleep but I am not a doctor. What I can say is that we never lose sleep drive or the ability to sleep — when we’ve been awake for long enough, sleep will always happen. Without fail. Guaranteed. Every time.
You mentioned that you tried CBT-I but nothing improved because your insomnia was not behavioral. Can you share a bit more about that? Do you feel that sleep was difficult because of how your head felt? Are those feelings still present?
Not everyone who experiences chronic insomnia has anxiety. Chronic insomnia really comes down to our unwillingness to experience it — the more we try to fight or avoid wakefulness, the more we try to make sleep happen, the more likely we are to 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.
Congratulations on your baby and I’m sorry to hear about the difficulties you are currently experiencing.
You might find Cindy’s story helpful:
Cindy’s Forum Post: 100% cured from postpartum insomnia 🙂
Cindy’s Podcast Episode: How Cindy tackled the insomnia that appeared after her baby was born by accepting nighttime wakefulness and eliminating safety behaviors (#31)
I hope there’s something 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.
It’s OK for your nervous system to get activated and it’s OK to think about sleep. In fact, it’s OK to experience the full range of human thoughts and emotions. Some feel good, some don’t. Some are useful, some aren’t.
The true source of struggle often comes from all our attempts to control what cannot be controlled — to try to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings. To battle with sleep and wakefulness night after night.
If we think about it, how likely is sleep to happen if we are going to bed in a full suit of armor, a sword in one hand, a shield in the other, ready to engage in a battle the whole night?
What if we could allow the brain to do what it wants to do (and will do anyway)? How freeing might that be? How much more comfortable might it be to lie in bed without that big heavy suit of armor (and sharp, pointy sword)?!
—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.
Congratulations on the pregnancy!
Where I think traditional CBT-I programs can sometimes fall flat is that they can gloss over the legitimate thoughts, feelings, and emotions we experience. We are often encouraged to evaluate them or to change them — but I think that can get us tangled up in an endless struggle with our minds.
Unfortunately, we can’t control sleep, we can’t control wakefulness, and we can’t control our thoughts, feelings, and emotions either (at least, not for the long term!).
So, the understandable (and probably default!) human response to this difficult stuff (trying to fight or avoid it) is often the true source of all our struggles.
With this in mind, a new approach might be worth exploring — and perhaps that approach might involve moving away from trying to control what cannot be controlled and toward things you can control.
Actions that simply help set the stage for sleep and actions that keep you moving toward the kind of life you want to live, even in the presence of difficult nights and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with them.
I wonder what the outcome of that might 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.
