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Glad to hear you’re doing well, Benny!
—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, TripTrap! When do you usually go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed to start your day, and roughly how many hours of sleep would you say you get on an “average” night? When you wake during the night, what happens next — how do you react to waking during the 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.
Sorry to hear about that sleep anxiety, Dhla82. Can you tell us a bit more about it? Do you fear not being able to sleep — as in never? How likely do you think such an outcome might be? Do you know anyone or have you read about anyone who lives without 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 speedwalker — and sorry to hear about the heightened anxiety and insomnia you’ve been experiencing this month.
There’s nothing you can do before the sleep window begins to make sleep happen because sleep cannot be controlled. So, I simply suggest doing things that you personally find relaxing and enjoyable. This is going to be different for everyone.
If you can fall asleep really easily in your chair but then find it really hard to sleep when in bed, this suggests that (through repeated experience) you’ve learned to associate your bed with unpleasant wakefulness. So, to protect you from this unpleasant wakefulness, the body activates the arousal system as soon as you get into bed and this, understandably, makes sleep quite difficult.
The good news is that since this association has been learned, it can be “unlearned” — and one way we can do that is by ensuring that we only allow ourselves to sleep in our bed and that we get out of bed whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good. This is part of a cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) technique known as stimulus control.
Just as it took time for that conditioned arousal to develop, it will take time to address. It can be challenging (especially in the short-term) but if you only allow yourself to be in bed when conditions are right for sleep (or you are actually asleep) your mind will — once again — form a strong association between the bed and sleep.
As this happens, you will likely start to find that you can maintain sleepiness as you transition from being out of bed to getting into bed (especially when combined with an appropriate sleep window).
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 sounds as though you’re able to trace back your sleep disruption to an obvious initial trigger — but it sounds as though that is no longer an issue. This suggests that the way you think about sleep and/or your sleep-related behaviors are now different compared to when you were sleeping well — and that’s usually what ends up perpetuating sleep disruption.
At the current time, when do you usually go to bed, when do you get out of bed to start your day, and how many hours of sleep do you usually get on an “average” 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.
You can sleep, Atlanta! I’d suggest looking into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques since they help address the thoughts and behaviors that usually perpetuate sleep disruption.
If you have any specific questions, 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.
It’s good to hear you’re falling asleep quickly and at least managing to get a good chunk of sleep before waking! When you wake after around five hours, why do you think you find it hard to fall back to sleep?
When you were implementing sleep restriction and stimulus control and it came time to extend your sleep window, how did you do that and when did you find that it started to lead to more time awake again?
—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.
Did you recently start sleep restriction, Bluejeans? Heightened sleepiness as the sleep window approaches is a common short-term effect of this technique, and is actually a short-term goal since it’s evidence of strong sleep drive, makes the idea (and process) of getting into bed feel really good, and helps with sleep onset while also reducing nighttime wakefulness.
Often, any kind of movement is the best way to reduce the risk of falling asleep before the start of your sleep window since it’s hard to fall asleep when we are moving or doing something that requires us to stand.
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.
How long did you try sleep restriction for, Pike? It can take a few weeks of consistent implementation before results become noticeable.
If you are currently averaging around six-and-a-half hours of sleep, do you think it might be helpful to allot something like seven hours for sleep each night? In the short-term, this might help build sleep drive and help maintain sleep through the night (while also reducing the amount of time available for nighttime wakefulness).
If you are currently going to bed at 10:00 PM and starting your day at 6:45 AM, this means you’re currently allotting just under nine hours for sleep. This could explain the difficulties you sometimes experience with waking prematurely and/or spending a lot of time awake during the 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.
Welcome to the forum! Parenthood is a common trigger for sleep disruption — many people with chronic insomnia are able to trace back their initial sleep disruption to that time of their lives and I think sleep disruption at that time is quite normal and to be expected!
For most people, sleep gets back on track once we’ve adapted (and once our little ones start to sleep a bit more predictably!) but for some of us, our sleep doesn’t seem to recover — and that’s usually because the way we think about sleep changes and because of the completely understandable new behaviors we implement in a bid to improve our sleep that actually backfire and perpetuate sleep disruption!
So, with this in mind, I am so encouraged that you have been implementing a technique that is intended to help build sleep drive and reduce unpleasant nighttime wakefulness (and the worry and anxiety that goes along with that) — namely, sleep restriction.
It’s so encouraging that you have noticed definite improvements and I think the fact you are no longer using sleeping pills and you feel that you can fall asleep on your own are two big indicators of your progress!
If you find that you are struggling to stay awake before the start of your sleep window but then find it hard to fall asleep, this suggests that some conditioned arousal might be present. How does it feel when you are in bed, waiting for sleep to happen? If it feels pleasant, relaxing, and good to be in bed waiting for sleep, then I’d say that there’s no need to get out of bed — because conditions are right for sleep!
If, however, being in bed doesn’t feel good, that can be a good time to get out of bed and do something more appealing instead. If and when you feel sleepy again, you might then return to bed and repeat this process as necessary.
Not only does this give you a more appealing alternative to staying in bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good, but it also prevents you from reinforcing a negative association between your bed and unpleasant wakefulness — something that reinforces conditioned arousal.
Conditioned arousal occurs over time, so just as it might have taken time for your mind to associate the bed with unpleasant wakefulness rather than sleep, it will take some time (albeit usually less time!) to associate it with sleep (or pleasant wakefulness). We do this, ultimately, by only being in bed when asleep or when conditions are right for sleep.
Finally, you said you really want to stop thoughts about sleep from consuming your day — if you remain as active and engaged in enjoyable and enriching activities as possible during the day, your mind will have something other than sleep to focus attention on (and you have the bonus of improving the quality of your days — and life, too)!
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.
Your concern is completely understandable! Let me ask you this — have you ever read of someone who was able to remain awake indefinitely? If someone existed who was able to remain awake indefinitely (or with just a few minutes or seconds of sleep) I imagine they’d be a media sensation and be very famous.
If you can’t think of any examples of someone like this, perhaps this is evidence that sleep always happens once we have been awake for long enough?
To answer your second question, the body always gives us, at the very least, the bare minimum amount of sleep we need. If we are able to worry less about sleep, avoid the temptation to control sleep, and implement behaviors that build sleep drive and strengthen the body clock, we give ourselves the opportunity to get more than the bare minimum!
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.
What a fantastic and positive discussion this has turned into — thank you, Scott, for kicking it off by sharing your success story and for returning to offer additional guidance and insight. Thank you kobalap for your detailed description of your own journey toward better sleep and the great insights you shared, 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.
I love how you completely changed your relationship with all the thoughts that can easily interfere with sleep through a process of acceptance and curiosity since our default response is usually far more adversarial, and that’s not helpful when it comes to creating the right conditions for sleep!
I think your experience also shows that when it comes to improving sleep, we don’t have to choose between CBT-I and ACT — they can each complement one another!
Being able to recognize that sleep will happen when sleep drive is strong enough and arousal is low enough is a clear sign of your ever-increasing sleep confidence. Thanks for sharing your transformation and for offering so many helpful tips!
—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 was a pleasure to work with you! As I believe we have discussed before, it’s completely normal to wake during the night — those awakenings often become a problem only when we worry about them.
The fact you are now getting around seven hours of sleep each night is entirely down to your own efforts to change the way you think about sleep and to implement behaviors that build sleep drive, strengthen the body clock, and lower arousal.
All that sleep is also evidence of your own natural ability to 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.
It’s so great to hear how well you’re doing, three months after we stopped working together, Line!
It sounds as though you are now able to recognize any obvious causes of sleep disruption (rather than worrying that your insomnia has returned) and you now know exactly how to respond to any difficult nights!
Because of your own efforts, you are now sleeping significantly better and have only experienced three or four difficult nights over the last 90 nights! If that’s not evidence of your natural ability to sleep well and a sign that you know exactly how to avoid perpetuating sleep disruption, I don’t know what is!
As you said, you will always fall asleep! Sleep drive always wins in the end!
—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.
