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Glad to hear you’re implementing sleep restriction as a way to build sleep drive and reduce nighttime wakefulness!
It sounds as though you aren’t recognizing a lot of sleepiness when you go to bed but you don’t mention any issue with falling asleep at the start of the night. Do you usually find it easy to fall asleep at the start of the night? If so, this suggests that you are sleepy enough for sleep when you go to bed. If not, you might find it helpful to think of the start of your sleep window as your earliest possible bedtime and only go to bed when you feel sleepy enough for sleep once the start of your sleep window has passed (while still keeping the same final out of bed time in the morning).
It also sounds as though you might be spending a lot of time in bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good (you mentioned tossing and turning and feeling an adrenaline rush when you wake before the end of your sleep window) and this could be creating arousal that makes it harder to fall asleep.
With this in mind, you might find it helpful to work on lowering arousal since that could be an obstacle to falling back to sleep. We can help reduce arousal by actually getting out of bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good, by not checking the time during the night, and by eliminating all sleep-related effort and striving.
Often, it’s our desire to fall back to sleep, our desire to sleep until a certain time, and/or our desire to get a certain amount of sleep that is the biggest obstacle to reaching those goals!
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 doing really well at working on the anxiety side of insomnia and that’s important since arousal is something that can perpetuate sleep disruption — so you seem to have the “C” part of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) covered!
This means there’s still the opportunity to address the “B” part — the behaviors that can perpetuate sleep disruption. So, doing things like allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep and getting out of bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good might be the final part of the puzzle!
How are you getting on 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.
Welcome to the forum, Rabbit! Menopause can certainly be disruptive to sleep but it doesn’t mean that we have to ensure poor sleep for the foreseeable future — there are things we can do to help build sleep drive, strengthen the body clock, and lower stress/anxiety, and this can make sleep a bit easier.
Have you tried implementing any cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques?
—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, Hilary! Medications aren’t usually a helpful long-term solution for insomnia since they don’t address the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption — they can also erode sleep confidence since we can easily learn to believe that we can only sleep if we take a medication.
You said you’ve done a lot of research — did you come across cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) during the course of your research?
—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.
Going to bed only when you feel sleepy enough for sleep is a great tip — so many people with insomnia go to bed before they feel sleepy in an attempt to make sleep happen. This usually only leads to more wakefulness and more sleep-related worry!
—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 fact you keep on trying is very encouraging! It’s normal for it to take a number of attempts to succeed at something that is challenging — smokers, for example, often take many attempts to quit and experience a number of relapses before they are ultimately successful!
So, the key is to keep on trying! If you have given up in the past, that doesn’t mean you can’t try again!
What are the most difficult aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)
techniques that you seem to struggle with?—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, chippy — and thank you, speedwalker, for the encouraging words you offered!
It sounds as though you’ve tried the typical sleep hygiene stuff and didn’t find it helpful, and that’s actually not surprising since sleep hygiene alone doesn’t really do anything for people with insomnia!
I would suggest looking into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques since they will help address the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption and really help tackle the root of the problem.
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.
You shared a huge insight in this post, @speedwalker! The less we do during the day, the more difficult sleep can become! That’s because we have less opportunity to give our mind something to focus on other than sleep, we have less opportunity to feel engaged, positive, and productive, we are often more sedentary, and we might start spending more time in bed or even trying to nap during the day.
All these things can weaken sleep drive, disrupt the body clock, and increase arousal — and this, in turn, perpetuates sleep disruption.
So, if we can recognize that we aren’t doing much during the day, it can be so helpful to do more during the day! The more structure we can add to our days, the more enjoyable activities we can pursue, the less we typically worry about sleep, the more we enjoy our days, and the better we 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.
Welcome to the forum @kkengels! Have you ever returned to bed before feeling sleepy and fallen back to sleep relatively quickly? If so, you might actually be sleepy but your arousal system could be suppressing sleepiness cues — this can happen if we have a lot of worry/anxiety about sleep and being awake during the night.
Since getting out of bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good can help to address that anxiety, I am encouraged that you are implementing this technique! Do let us know how you’re getting on 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.
Welcome to the forum, bikash — and thank you, hiker, for the encouragement and support you offered!
It’s not too surprising that you didn’t find medication or yoga worked, bikash — that’s because medication or yoga cannot generate sleep! The only thing that can generate sleep is your own biological sleep drive — and sleep drive is generated through wakefulness.
In other words, when we have been awake for long enough, we will ALWAYS sleep!
You might find it helpful to look into evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques since they help address the thoughts and behaviors that often get in the way of sleep. Furthermore, since CBT-I is ultimately a collection of skills, they will be with you for life — so you will always know exactly what to do should sleep become difficult again in the future.
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.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques absolutely can be helpful for sleep maintenance insomnia because sleep maintenance insomnia can occur as a result of diminished sleep drive, a disrupted body clock, and heightened arousal — all things that CBT-I helps to tackle.
Your desire to get back to seven hours and 15 minutes might actually be an obstacle to reaching that goal since we have no control over sleep duration (this is something the body takes care of by itself) but as soon as we try, we increase arousal and this disrupts sleep.
So, you might find it helpful to strengthen sleep drive, strengthen the body clock, and lower arousal by allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep, getting out of bed and starting the day at the same time each day, getting out of bed during your sleep window whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good, not checking the time during the night, and being active during the day.
These are, of course, just general initial suggestions — but they could be a good place to start!
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.
Sorry to hear about your struggles with anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. Let me reassure you that you haven’t forgotten how to sleep! We never lose the ability to sleep — when we have been awake for long enough, we will sleep.
If we have a lot of worry about sleep, are feeling anxious, stressed, etc, we might need to build more sleep pressure to overpower the arousal system and generate sleep — and this is why it can become harder to fall asleep and harder to stay asleep. However, we’ll always get (at the very least) the bare minimum amount of sleep we need.
You might want to ask your doctor if they think you’d be a good candidate for cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), perhaps alongside separate treatment for the panic attacks.
I hope this helps, and wish you all the best!
—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 your health challenges and difficulties with sleep.
The fact you haven’t found medication helpful isn’t too surprising since medications cannot address the thoughts and behaviors that usually perpetuate sleep disruption.
Have you asked your doctor whether they think you’d be a good candidate for 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.
Congratulations on getting started with sleep restriction!
It can often take longer than two weeks to notice significant and consistent improvements in sleep, so I’d encourage you to stick with it!
It might also be helpful to consider that there are many things that influence fatigue other than sleep, so it might not be useful to evaluate sleep based on fatigue alone. Stress, worry, and inactivity, for example, are really big drivers of fatigue.
A good way to help lower fatigue, independently of sleep, is to be active during the day — engaging in activities that you find personally rewarding and enjoyable can be particularly helpful since they can give the mind something to focus on other than sleep, improve the quality of our days, and help us recognize just how much control we can have over how our days go.
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.
Sorry to hear about that setback! It sounds as though you got results implementing CBT-I techniques before, so perhaps you just need to implement them again, or get consistent with them again?
Ups and downs are completely normal — when our sleep confidence is low, a difficult night of sleep can bring back all our old worries and fears and this can lead to changes in the way we think about sleep and even our sleep-related behaviors. This is when it can be really easy to fall back into all the old habits that perpetuate sleep disruption.
Often, the most helpful thing to do in response to a difficult patch of sleep is nothing — because it’s usually our reaction that makes it harder for sleep to happen.
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.
