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Having a child is a common trigger for sleep disruption, and that’s probably not too surprising! Usually, our sleep recovers as the baby develops a sleep/wake schedule — but sometimes our sleep might not recover, and that’s almost always because the way we think about sleep changes, and because we often implement behaviors in a bid to improve our sleep that actually perpetuate the sleep disruption.
So, since we can see that nothing about your insomnia seems to be unusual, there’s no reason to believe that you need to live with insomnia for the rest of your life! If you can identify and address the thoughts and behaviors that make sleep difficult, you will almost certainly get your sleep back on track!
As suggested by @Jess84, you might want to start by looking into sleep restriction, which is one component of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
CBT-I techniques can be really helpful because they tackle the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption.
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.
The good news, Susie, is that the sleep you got after taking half a pill is still sleep you generated all by yourself — because no medication can generate 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.
Great to hear you got that long period of sleep — it was inevitable because sleep drive always wins in the end! If you regularly find yourself experiencing “rollercoaster nights” of short stretches of sleep followed by a night or two of better sleep, you might be allotting too much time for sleep. If that’s the case, this video might be helpful:
How to stop the sleep roller coaster and make sleep more consistent and more predictable.
You might also want to explore what it is about wakefulness that seems to generate worry or anxiety since it’s often the fear of wakefulness that can be a huge obstacle to sleep.
Not being able to nap is not unusual whatsoever because, ironically, people with insomnia are very rarely sleepy during the day (they’re typically fatigued instead). When we aren’t sleepy, it’s always difficult to sleep!
From the snippets of information you’ve shared, I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t find it helpful to implement cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques.
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.
Ups and downs are completely normal, Susie! Since you were at the stage where you were falling asleep within 15 minutes and sleeping for five to six hours with only one interruption to use the toilet, there’s no reason to think that won’t happen again — you have proven to yourself that you’re capable of that kind of sleep!
It can be helpful to recognize that you can sleep like that, but to avoid the temptation to put pressure on yourself to sleep like that! As soon as we put any effort into sleep or strive for sleep, that’s when sleep becomes very difficult.
Usually, the best way to react to a few difficult nights is not to react since our reactions are often unhelpful and can perpetuate the sleep disruption. So, I would encourage you to avoid the temptation to change things by spending more time in bed or modifying your days in response.
The good news when it comes to daytime fatigue is that we can do things to reduce that fatigue — we can pursue enjoyable and enriching daytime activities! These not only reduce fatigue but they improve the quality of our days and help us recognize that we can still have good days (or at least experience some positive moments) after difficult nights. Walking or bike riding sound like a couple of great activities to me!
Since you know from experience that sleeping pills aren’t a solution, it might be worth exploring whether reaching for a pill would be the right response. As you know, after four difficult nights, sleep drive will be very strong — and this makes sleep increasingly likely. If you take a pill when sleep drive is strong and sleep because of that strong sleep drive, it’s easy to believe you only slept because you took a pill — and that can make it hard to regain sleep confidence!
You’ve got this, Susie!
—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 Line and thanks for sharing your story!
The really big insight in your post that I think will help a lot of people is your recognition that all your sleep problems began when you started to worry about sleep and put effort into sleep.
As you now know, as soon as we worry about sleep or put any effort into sleep, we immediately make sleep more difficult — and this can generate more worry and more effort!
As you pointed out, you still experience a bad night every now and again. The difference now, though, is that you recognize that a bad night is a normal part of life and you don’t worry about it. As a result, you don’t perpetuate that sleep disruption and your sleep is able to get right back on track all by itself!
The only thing I would add is that although I share evidence-based cognitive and behavioral techniques with clients, I am not a therapist so I don’t “do” CBT-I. For that, someone will need to see a licensed therapist. I simply provide the information and support clients with any behavioral changes they decide to implement!
Thanks again for sharing your story, Line — all the improvements you are enjoying are down to your own efforts and 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.
Thank you for sharing your experience, @attynemo!
In my experience, some clients respond really well to some behavioral changes alone. Others find it more helpful to explore the cognitive side — the sleep-related thoughts and beliefs that can increase arousal and make sleep more difficult. For other clients, addressing thoughts *and* behaviors proves to be the most effective way to improve sleep for the long-term.
All that matters is that you figured out what was most helpful for you — and that you gave yourself the opportunity to explore new ways of thinking about sleep. Because of your own efforts, you experienced improvements in your sleep and you now seem to have a really positive outlook on life!
—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.
Many of us think retirement will be a time of blissful sleep — but the truth is we can easily experience sleep disruption as the daily structure we have become accustomed to (and that helps strengthen sleep drive and our body clock) disappears! Furthermore, if we become less active during the day that can mean more time to think and worry about sleep and more sedentary behavior — things that generate arousal and fatigue.
I am so glad to hear that you discovered cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and that the resources here at Insomnia Coach seem to have worked as a helpful “top-up” to further lower stress and help you create the right conditions for sleep!
As you said, you CAN 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 @nette! I am so glad you returned to the forum to share your story since we stopped working together over a year ago — this proves that everything you learned and the changes you made are helpful and effective for the long-term!
I am sure many people will identify with your experience of having tried sleep hygiene and all the other sleep rituals that serve only to add a burden to our lives while not making any difference to our sleep!
As you pointed out, sleep drive always wins in the end — we never lose our ability to sleep! Furthermore, getting out of bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good is usually a more appealing alternative to staying in bed and it comes with the added bonus of helping to address conditioned arousal while also improving the quality of the night.
Giving yourself the opportunity to recognize that you can still function and get through the day even if you don’t sleep is huge and it often requires a real leap of faith to continue the day (or even add to it!) after difficult nights. As you pointed out, the fact you did this allowed you to lower sleep-related worry and that contributed to better sleep!
I love how you described that building an intense level of sleep drive in the short-term really helped make bedtime a time you looked forward to, rather than dreaded!
As you pointed out, since you learned techniques that help address the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption, they are now with you for life — so, any time you experience some temporary sleep disruption, you know exactly what to do!
Thanks again for sharing your story, @nette! You got results because of your own efforts and your own natural ability to sleep. I just know that your story is going to help a lot of people!
—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 Ralph and thanks for sharing your transformation with everyone and for starting a discussion that has attracted so many positive, motivating, and reassuring contributions from other members!
You described the lows of insomnia in a way that I am sure many people will identify with and that’s great because if others can identify with what you went through and see where you are now, it means they can get to where you are now, too!
You got results from the coaching because you implemented what you learned! You took steps to build sleep drive, strengthen your body clock, and lower arousal. As a result, you started to sleep better — and your results are entirely down to you, your efforts, and your 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.
Thank you so much for taking the time to come to the forum and share your success story, AKG — and for returning to offer support and reassurance to others!
I am so glad that after four weeks of implementing sleep restriction and stimulus control you didn’t give in to the temptation to start taking medication! Instead, you battled on and — after 10 weeks(!) — you were enjoying significant improvements in your sleep.
I am particularly grateful for the fact you shared that you experienced ups and downs along the way because progress is rarely linear. Goodness me, imagine if you had thrown in the towel during those setback at Week 5 or Week 7 — you wouldn’t be in the great position you are in today!
All the improvements you are enjoying are down to your own commitment, tenacity, and natural ability to sleep! I hope you give yourself credit for just how far you have come — because your progress is a direct result of your own efforts!
—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, KatBLilly!
I hope you find it reassuring when I tell you that nothing in what you’ve shared sounds unusual in any way — it sounds like a typical case of insomnia.
We actually have a model for describing how insomnia develops, called the 3P model.
The first “P” is predisposing factors — put simply, some of us are more predisposed to sleep disruption. For example, we may be more reactive to stress, tend to worry a lot, maybe have a stressful job, or be a light sleeper. This puts us more at risk for temporary sleep disruption.
The second “P” is precipitating factors. This is the event or issue that triggers actual sleep disruption. There are as many triggers for sleep disruption as there are people in the world! These could be things like health issues, an injury, receiving bad news, having a tight deadline at work, losing our job, getting a new job, arguing with our spouse, etc.
Usually, sleep recovers by itself after the precipitating issue has been “processed” or is no longer an issue. However, sometimes sleep issues remain — and this is usually down to the third “P”, which are the perpetuating factors.
These perpetuating factors are the things we do in response to the bad nights and things we might do to try to get our sleep back on track but have the opposite effect — they make it harder for our sleep to get back on track. Examples include spending a lot of time researching sleep, thinking about sleep, worrying about sleep, spending more time in bed, trying to conserve energy during the day, and modifying our lives in response to poor sleep.
These perpetuating factors make it hard to get sleep back on track because they lead to one (or all) of the following problems:
1. Sleep drive disruption (in other words, we might go to bed when we are not sufficiently sleepy for sleep, nap during the day, or stay in bed longer than usual)
2. Body clock disruption (usually caused by an inappropriate or irregular sleep schedule, and daytime inactivity)
3. High levels of arousal (this includes cognitive arousal, physiological arousal, and conditioned arousal)Cognitive arousal describes the worries that keep us awake or fill our daytime thoughts, hyperarousal/physiological arousal describes our body’s response to arousal (such as a racing heart), and conditioned arousal describes the sense of fear, worry, anxiety or even dread that many people with insomnia have learned to associate with their own beds.
The good news is, cognitive and behavioral techniques help address all these perpetuating factors so they are really effective at helping people who struggle with insomnia make long term improvements to their sleep.
This model is put into a bit of context in this YouTube video: Watch me use my mystical powers to reveal how your sleep issues began and why you now have 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.
Welcome to the forum!
I wonder if it might be worth exploring the accuracy of the belief that you can only feel refreshed and energized if you get between 7.5 and 8.5 hours of sleep? Have you ever felt refreshed and energized after 7 hours and 20 minutes of sleep, for example?
Also, is it 100% true, 100% of the time that the more sleep you get, the happier you will be during the day? If, for example, you got five hours of sleep but then won the lottery that day, would you be happy? Or, because you got only five hours of sleep would you still be unhappy?
These thoughts and beliefs can be worth exploring because they can cause us to put effort into getting a certain amount of sleep — and as soon as we put effort into sleep, we make sleep more difficult!
Waking during the night is not unusual, and since you’ve had a sleep study that found nothing unusual going on, this might be one less thing for you to feel concerned about!
Very few people fall asleep at the exact same time every single night! For this reason, it can be helpful to think of your bedtime as an earliest possible bedtime — if you don’t feel sleepy at 11:00 PM, for example, you might want to delay going to bed until you do feel sleepy (while sticking to the same final out of bed time in the morning).
Like you, I find it very hard to sleep around people who snore! Since melatonin doesn’t generate sleep I doubt you’ll find it helpful for that. As for whether medication would be appropriate, that’s a conversation you should probably have with your doctor!
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’s not usually helpful to use alcohol as a sleep aid since that can lead to alcohol dependence, which comes with its own set of problems.
Furthermore, although alcohol can help us fall asleep it can disrupt sleep later in the night. That’s because, as the body breaks down alcohol, it has a stimulant effect — so, although a few nightcaps might help you fall asleep faster, they can lead to nighttime awakenings, more time spent awake later in the night, and reduced sleep quality.
There’s no need to abandon alcohol consumption if this is something you enjoy — but it’s usually not a good idea to consume alcohol in a bid to generate sleep. Limiting alcohol to one or two servings a couple of hours before bed will help limit any potential impact on sleep.
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.
There absolutely is hope for you! I know of many people who were convinced they couldn’t sleep without medication but now sleep well without any medication whatsoever!
You might find these podcast episodes motivating, inspiring, and reassuring:
How Sally improved her sleep after 60 years of insomnia and 10 years of sleeping pills (#19)
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.
Welcome to the forum, Bumblebee!
Everyone experiences some sleep disruption now and again, so that is not especially unusual. If you feel really moody, irritable, and exhausted the next day there’s some opportunity there to improve the quality of your days (independently of sleep) — and that can be helpful since it not only makes the day better, it can help us test the idea of whether the quality of our day is 100% predetermined by how we sleep.
So, after difficult nights it can be really beneficial to pursue enjoying and enriching activities that will improve our days (and give us something to think about other than sleep)!
It can also be helpful to reduce the amount of time you spend in bed at night when being in bed doesn’t feel good, and to reduce the amount of time available for extended wakefulness during the night.
What time do you usually go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed to start your day in the morning, and how many hours of sleep would you say you 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.
