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Thoughts don’t always make sleep more difficult (the brain is always generating thoughts) — trying to fight or avoid them sure can, though!
It sounds like you have two options here:
1. Go to bed when you feel sleepy, regardless of when that sleepiness shows up.
2. Go to bed when you feel sleepy, only after your sleep window begins.Which do you feel is the right option for you, and why?
—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! Have you tried playing around with the AWAKE exercise to help you build skill in experiencing those thoughts (and wakefulness itself) with less struggle?
Remember that your goal isn’t to get rid of difficult thoughts and feelings (or wakefulness itself). That might happen as a bonus side-effect from time to time, but it’s not the intent. The intent is to build skill in experiencing all this stuff with less struggle. To be more of an observer rather than an opponent.
Since this is a skill, it requires ongoing practice
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
A sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. It’s nothing more than a single tool that can be used to help us move away from chasing after sleep.
What probably matters most is ensuring you only go to bed when you are ready to go to bed (for many people this means they are feeling sleepy — finding it hard to stay awake) and to maintain a reasonably consistent out of bed time in the morning.
Does this help?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing, Jack! As Helen pointed out, practice is what matters
Reframing the goal when you go to bed from sleep (something your experience probably tells you is out of your control) to rest (an action that’s within your control) is something that a lot of people find 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 the focus of your attention is expanding — it’s not laser-focussed on sleep anymore. You are moving away from sleep tracking and other sleep-related rules (such as getting out of bed if you are awake for more than 15 minutes).
As a result, sleep is starting to lose its power and influence. As you are less involved in the process of sleep, it is better able to take care of itself.
You are taking meaningful action, and that’s what counts.
Thanks for sharing, Helen!
—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, Jack! How did you respond to the thought, “I hope I sleep tonight”?
What might be most important here is that you engaged in activities the next day that mattered to you. For the first time in your life you went surfing. And you had a great time with your son. Even after a difficult night.
In other words, you continued to live the kind of life that matters to you, independently of sleep. What might happen, the more you do that?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Christina and welcome to the course. Feeling hopeless doesn’t mean you are hopeless — and I would suggest that enrolling in this course demonstrates that you aren’t hopeless. You have given yourself the opportunity to approach this difficult stuff in a way that will help you move toward the life you want for yourself.
Remember that the goal of the sleep window isn’t to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. As your experience tells you, the more you chase after sleep the more elusive it can become.
The sleep window is simply a tool that can help you move away from chasing after sleep (by doing things like going to bed earlier or staying in bed later in an attempt to make sleep happen).
With this in mind, there might be nights when you don’t sleep during your sleep window. And, if you continue to only allow yourself to sleep during your sleep window, that is when sleep will start to happen — because sleep always happens in the end.
The racing heart and adrenaline when you get into bed is difficult, and it’s a normal part of the insomnia struggle. Your brain is firing up to protect you from the battle it predicts is about to come.
As you work through the course you’ll practice and develop skills that will help you move away from battling (and the struggle it creates). In turn, this can help train your brain that nighttime wakefulness isn’t a threat that it needs to fire up to protect you from.
You are clearly doing what matters most — you are taking action. Consuming the information shared in the course can be helpful, but it doesn’t make change happen. Action is what makes change happen. And, action is hard. You are putting in the work. You are moving closer to where you want to be
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Welcome aboard, Lou! I am sorry to hear the birth of your first child was traumatic. As you shared, insomnia can be a long and lonely journey. You are not alone and I wish you all the best with the course.
—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 suggestion would be to do whatever you want to do during your sleep window. The only thing to be mindful of is your intent — because it can be so easy to engage in activities in an attempt to make sleep or sleepiness happen and the more we chase after sleep the more elusive it can become.
I would also add that, since you are the expert on you, it can be helpful to avoid anything that you know to be too stimulating (trampolining, for example).
To use your example, some people find TV relaxing and others don’t. So, I’d invite you to do what feels right for you. This is your time.
—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 course!
Feeling tired can be related to sleep. It can also be related to many other things. I sleep well and frequently feel tired as I juggle work, family life, and all the obligations that come with being a human being!
If our experience suggests we cannot eliminate tiredness through effort, perhaps trying to do so might create a struggle that can make us even more tired. Perhaps what’s more important here are our actions — how we respond to tiredness.
Do we continue to do things that move us toward the life we want to live or do we do less and get pulled away from the life we want to live?
At the same time, it’s important to recognize that fatigue feels difficult because it is difficult — so acknowledging that and being kind to ourselves when we feel tired can be important, 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.
Recognizing/acknowledging your thoughts is often a helpful first step toward not giving them power and that power comes when they control our actions in an unhelpful way!
We’ll be exploring this in more detail as you work through the course — in the meantime, acknowledging and even thanking your brain for looking out for you when certain thoughts and feelings show up might be a more helpful way to respond compared to trying to fight them or permanently delete them from your mind!
If nothing else, that’s an approach that might help you move away from struggling with them.
—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 to @Arnoldgonzalez112, you know you aren’t alone here @agnespg!
All those “what if” thoughts are natural and normal and are evidence that your problem-solving brain is doing its job and looking out for you (thanks, brain!). What do you think is the most workable way to respond to those thoughts?
When it comes to living your life and doing what matters when your sleep is poor, you seem to have two options:
1. Do less and get pulled away from the life you want to live
2. Continue to do things that matter to you and move toward the life you want to liveI am not sure there are other options — can you think of any?
As for taking medication to avoid certain experiences, that’s totally understandable! Is a strategy of avoidance working for you? Is it getting you closer to where you want to be?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
What you’re experiencing is difficult and it is a common part of the insomnia struggle that many people here will be able to identify with.
It can perhaps be summarized as: the more you try to make sleep happen, the more difficult it can become and the more you try to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings (such as anxiety) the more power and influence they can have and the more you can struggle with them.
With that in mind, what do you feel is a workable way to respond to all this? What guidance does your own experience have to offer?
—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! There’s a lot of information about CBT-I on this page and the free insomnia sleep training emails break down a lot of the CBT-I techniques (with some influence from ACT-I, too).
If you have any questions as you work through all this material, just let us 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.
Welcome to the forum — you are not alone.
This feels difficult because it is difficult. As you shared, insomnia usually comes with a lot of difficult thoughts and feelings and most (if not all) of them are involuntary — they just show up, even though we might wish they didn’t. And then, we might start trying to get rid of them. And that can make them more powerful and more difficult. We might also be hard on ourselves when things feel difficult, and that rarely makes things any easier.
Since you’ve been dealing with this for 10 years, you’ve got a lot of experience and knowledge to draw from and that’s a real strength. What do you feel is the best way to respond when it is taking a long time to fall asleep? What do you feel is the best way to respond when those difficult thoughts and feelings 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.
