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Since the body focuses on deeper sleep in the first few hours of the night, it makes sense to consider that you are more aware of dreaming after a few hours of sleep since that’s when we tend to do most of our dreaming. So far, then, so normal!
Let’s see if we can explore why you might be finding it hard to fall back to sleep when you wake and why you seem to feel unrefreshed in the mornings.
When you wake during the night, why do you think you find it hard to fall back to sleep?
What time do you usually go to bed at night, and when do you get out of bed to start your day?
—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.
Studies have found that CBT-I can be helpful for insomnia and conditions such as depression or anxiety that might exist alongside insomnia. This would be a discussion to have with your doctor though.
—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 decision to explore ways to eliminate sleeping medication from your life! I would suggest talking to your doctor about this since Lunesta is a prescription medication.
—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.
Changing our diet might lead to some temporary sleep disruption but diet isn’t usually something that perpetuates sleep disruption and causes chronic insomnia.
When did you stop eating rice at night, and how have you been doing since you posted?
—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 story, Eddie — and good on you for implementing sleep restriction! That is not easy!
I appreciate you sharing that you found it helpful and experienced ten days of good sleep — perhaps this proves that allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep might be helpful?
Difficult nights sure can bring back all those anxieties and worries about sleep and, in turn, create some additional sleep disruption. It can be helpful to recognize that occasional difficult nights are normal and to be expected — everyone experiences them!
If you continue to implement techniques that build sleep drive, strengthen the body clock, and weaken arousal — and if you are able to go about your days as normally as possible — you give your sleep the best chance to get right back on track!
The fact your wife is telling you that she has seen you sleeping when you have felt convinced you haven’t been sleeping suggests that you might actually be getting a bit more sleep than you think — and sometimes that, in itself, can be quite reassuring!
I actually recorded a video about this “sleep state misperception” (also known as paradoxical insomnia).
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.
I’d suggest that your mom speaks to her doctor if she has any concern about her sleep. If she is diagnosed with chronic insomnia, usually the best treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
—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 and thanks for sharing your story! Anxiety is definitely one of the things that can perpetuate sleep disruption, which is quite ironic when we consider that this anxiety often stems from the desire to get more sleep — and that desire, in turn, can make sleep 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.
Hello Dosey and welcome to the forum. I’d suggest talking to your doctor about the snoring — it might be alleviated by sleeping on your side, but if your snoring is particularly loud or intense it could be a symptom of sleep apnea, which may require medical treatment.
—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 David and thanks for sharing that you’ve experienced some great improvements over the past couple of weeks!
It can often be helpful to recognize that everyone experiences difficult nights of sleep from time to time — even people without insomnia! These difficult nights sometimes have an obvious cause, but sometimes they don’t. They’re just a part of life and the overall human experience.
Usually, the best reaction to difficult nights is no reaction — because it’s our reaction to difficult nights that risk perpetuating that sleep disruption. By resisting the temptation to modify your routine (for example, by spending more time in bed, canceling plans, or changing what you do during the day) you give sleep the best chance possible to get right back on track. Sleep drive always wins in the end!
As you shared, being angry or upset can make sleep more difficult since that increases arousal and the body then needs to generate more sleep drive (spend more time awake) to overpower that arousal.
If you fall asleep on the couch accidentally, there’s no need to feel angry or upset — that’s now in the past! Instead, you might simply move to bed if you still feel conditions are right for sleep. If conditions don’t feel right for sleep, then it might be helpful to do something you find relaxing and somewhat enjoyable until you feel conditions are right for sleep before going to bed.
Ups and downs are normal and to be expected (as most of the guests on the Insomnia Coach podcast talk about). Continue moving forward and you’ll continue to make progress!
—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 eliminating that final dose!
When we consider that the brain will always want to evaluate and monitor for the effect of any changes we make, might it be normal and to be expected that there might be some temporary sleep disruption during those first nights of zero medication?
What is it about the idea of not getting any sleep that seems to generate anxiety? Do you have anything good planned for today to help you train your brain that you might have a good amount of control over the quality of your day, rather than this being completely predetermined by how you 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.
What a great question! The short answer to this is no: the sleep window is not something you’re expected to follow for the rest of your life! It’s simply a way to rebuild sleep drive, reduce nighttime wakefulness (and, by consequence, help lower arousal) and create better conditions for sleep.
As sleep improves, the sleep window is usually extended and, when the time is right, followed less rigorously or even discarded entirely. If you ever find that long lie-ins lead to sleep disruption in the future, you might then explore whether catch-up sleep on weekends is a helpful strategy or not!
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.
Why does wakefulness seem to make you angry, Dauphin?
You can learn more about the sleep window on the page about sleep restriction.
If you have any questions after reading that page, please 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.
I suspect you will find sleep restriction helpful since the rollercoaster nights you described are a common symptom associated with allotting too much time for sleep at night!
You said that you wouldn’t be able to perform your job if you had gone in after a night of insomnia — can you tell us a bit more about that? What is your job? Do you truly believe that you would have been 100% incompetent because of your insomnia and been 100% unable to perform any part of your usual job duties?
Did staying at home after calling in sick lead to a better day or did it perhaps lead to more sleep-related worry and maybe a bit more fatigue due to less activity and fewer distractions?
You might find these videos helpful, too:
Rearranging your life around sleep only feeds your insomnia and makes the problem worse
The difference between chronic insomnia and sleep deprivation (and why it matters)
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.
It definitely sounds as though arousal seems to be making it harder for sleep to occur when you are in bed. So, let’s see if we can do anything to help tackle that!
First, I’d suggest not checking the time during the night since that increases arousal and makes falling back to sleep more difficult — if you are logging total sleep time, then it’s usually far more helpful just to use your best estimate.
If you are lying awake for hours in bed during the night, you might be reinforcing some conditioned arousal — training your mind over and over again that the bed is an unpleasant place to be. I’d suggest getting out of bed whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good and doing something to make nighttime wakefulness a bit more pleasant until conditions feel better for sleep (or, at the very least sitting up in bed and doing something more pleasant than tossing and turning).
Finally, what are the obvious negative consequences associated with not getting more than five hours of sleep? Are they 100% caused by how much sleep you get, 100% of the time? Might there be any other factors that influence the quality of your day other than the number of hours of sleep you get?
—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 have a feeling the reason why it’s hard to remember what you did when you were a good sleeper is precisely because you didn’t do anything — sleep was something you didn’t really think about or pay much attention to! Do you think this might be an accurate suggestion?
—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.
