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As you pointed out, Dazzio, it’s early days. You’ve *set* your sleep window, now *forget* about making any changes or evaluating it for at least two weeks. Eliminate all the mental gymnastics and keep looking forward. Consistent implementation of the process will lead to more consistent 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.
For best results with the sleep window, it can be so helpful to take an attitude of “set it and forget it”. If you engage in ongoing experimentation and modifications, it can be difficult to make progress.
Ultimately, if you want to enjoy consistent sleep, a consistent sleep window is really helpful. This means sticking to a consistent and appropriate sleep window for at least two weeks before even thinking about drawing any conclusions!
It can be helpful to think of the start of your sleep window as simply your earliest possible bedtime. If you don’t feel sleepy enough for sleep when your sleep window begins, it can be a good idea to avoid going to bed until you do feel sleepy enough for sleep.
Regardless of how well or how poorly you sleep, it’s quite important to try to get out of bed by the end of your sleep window every single day. This gives your body clock a strong morning anchor and helps ensure you are allowing enough time for sleep drive to build during the day to help you sleep at night.
It’s usually a more appealing alternative to get out of bed and do something relaxing and somewhat enjoyable when being in bed during your sleep window doesn’t feel good. You aren’t going to become more awake, because awake is awake! However, you will shift that unpleasant wakefulness away from the bed and this will prevent you from reinforcing a negative association between the bed and unpleasant wakefulness.
Getting out of bed instead of struggling in bed can also reduce anxiety since it gives your mind something else to focus on. If nothing else, getting out of bed and doing something else can be a good mental distraction.
Finally, since medication doesn’t generate sleep, any sleep you get when you take medication is still sleep you are generating. So ultimately, it’s not going to have much of an effect on your progress.
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 unusual to develop sleep disruption at the current time since sleep is very sensitive to our overall well-being. So, when we are stressed, worried, anxious, or at times of uncertainty, it’s completely normal and to be expected for sleep to be disrupted.
As long as you can avoid the temptation to try to compensate for sleep disruption by doing things like spending more time in bed and canceling daytime plans (for example), your sleep will recover all by itself as you adapt to the current circumstances.
You might find this video helpful: What to do when stress, worry, and uncertainty lead to sleep disruption and insomnia.
—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 offering such positive encouragement, @Jworbhsd!
You have not failed, @Dazzio — you just had a particularly challenging night. Try to use this as a positive learning experience, and keep looking forward!
—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.
Sleep disruption linked to hormonal changes isn’t particularly unusual. As long as you don’t try to compensate for those short-term difficulties by doing things like spending more time in bed, your sleep will almost always get right back on track all by itself.
I’m so glad to hear you tried cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and found it helpful. When you are able to avoid implementing thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate insomnia, insomnia can never become a long term problem.
—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.
Hundreds, if not thousands, maybe even millions of people have experienced insomnia just as you have done. So you aren’t alone!
As you pointed out, trying to sleep only increases anxiety and makes sleep more difficult, so this is usually best avoided.
The fact of the matter is, we cannot make ourselves fall asleep on demand, we cannot control if or when we wake, and we cannot control how long we will sleep for. Sleep is a process that the body takes care of all by itself. When we try to get involved and control sleep, that’s often when the problems begin.
Implementing evidence-based cognitive and behavioral techniques will help you identify the sleep-related thoughts and sleep-related behaviors you have implemented in a bid to improve your sleep that are actually perpetuating insomnia. Since this addresses the root cause of insomnia, it’s a very effective way of improving sleep for the long term.
—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 experience is not unusual. Feeling sleepy before the sleep window, then alert when the sleep window begins is a classic symptom of conditioned arousal — one of the three forms of arousal that evidence-based cognitive and behavioral techniques help tackle. It will take time and consistent implementation of what you’re learning to get consistent results, so I encourage you to keep looking forward and see each night as a fresh start!
—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, danielstreva.
I am so encouraged that you are giving sleep restriction a try because allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep and maintaining a consistent out of bed time helps with sleep onset and sleep maintenance insomnia.
It does usually take more than two weeks of consistent implementation of an appropriate sleep window to notice consistent improvements in sleep. So, I would encourage you to keep moving forward.
Feeling very sleepy before the start of the sleep window and then feeling very alert when the sleep window begins is a classic symptom of conditioned arousal. In other words, since you have experienced so many nights of sleep difficulty, your mind has associated going to bed with sleep difficulty and activates the arousal response to protect you from what it expects to happen next.
Unfortunately, the brain can’t really distinguish between a real threat and an imagined one — so it can activate the full-on “fight or flight” response to protect you from the danger it thinks you are being exposed to by going to bed.
The good news is that since this association was learned, it can be unlearned — you can learn to see the bed as a pleasant place to be again. You can learn to associate the bed with sleep and pleasant wakefulness. This is done primarily through stimulus control.
Ultimately, you only want to be in bed when being in bed feels good (or when you are asleep)! So, any time being in bed doesn’t feel good, that’s your cue to get out of bed and to do something relaxing and somewhat enjoyable until you feel calm and relaxed again. Then, return to bed and repeat the process.
Not only is getting out of bed usually a more appealing alternative to staying in bed and feeling anxious or frustrated, but it gives your mind something else to focus on and this means it often becomes easier to restore a sense of calm.
Furthermore every time you get out of bed you help retrain yourself to associate the bed with sleep and pleasant wakefulness and, over time, this will reduce that sense of worry or even panic you might have experienced upon getting into bed.
Just as it took time for you to associate the bed with unpleasant wakefulness, it will take time (albeit usually less time!) to associate the best with sleep and pleasant relaxation again. Every time you get out of bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good, you will edge yourself closer to that goal.
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.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Pallavi!
Your transformation occurred because you committed to implementing techniques that helped you adopt more constructive sleep-related thoughts and behaviors and allowed you to rediscover your own, natural ability to sleep and to sleep well!
Of course, every now and then there might be a difficult night — because these happen to everyone from time to time! The difference now, of course, is that you don’t react to those difficult nights — so your sleep recovers very quickly.
Congratulations and best wishes for the future!
—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.
If you are finding it hard to estimate that 30 minutes, you can determine when to get out of bed by how calm and comfortable you feel. So, if you are awake and it feels good to be in bed, and you feel calm and relaxed, let yourself stay in bed — conditions are right for sleep!
If being in bed starts to feel unpleasant, that’s your cue to get out of bed and do something relaxing and enjoyable instead. This way, you aren’t reinforcing a negative association between the bed and unpleasant wakefulness and you give your mind the opportunity to focus on something other than 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.
I have a feeling that although it might be more difficult to attend a meeting after just an hour or two of sleep, you’ll be able to do it — and that’s because the body is remarkably resilient and remarkably able to cope after difficult nights of sleep!
Sleep disruption is not unusual when we are in a different environment such as a hotel room. There are a few things you can do to improve the likelihood of sleep, though. For example, you might only allow yourself to go to bed when you feel sleepy enough for sleep, try to stick to a consistent out of bed time in the mornings, and try to remain active during the days.
These behaviors will help set the stage for sleep — and that’s the most we can hope for since we cannot directly control sleep. Trying to do so, trying to put effort into sleep, usually serves only to make sleep more difficult.
You might find this video helpful, too: How to reduce sleep disruption when traveling with chronic insomnia.
—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, Pds1969!
Although five days with no sleep can be quite concerning, this also means that you have experienced far more nights with sleep than without sleep!
I am glad to hear that you are planning on implementing cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) to help you identify and fix the sleep-related thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate insomnia!
You CAN sleep and you do not need sleeping pills 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.
Sleep disruption at the current time is completely normal and to be expected — because sleep is very sensitive to our overall levels of stress and well-being.
Ultimately, if you are able to avoid the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption, your sleep will almost certainly recover all by itself.
Here’s a short video about this that you might find helpful: What to do when stress, worry, and uncertainty lead to sleep disruption and insomnia.
—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, NikkiInTheDesert85. What you have described, although distressing, is not particularly unusual. Your experience with insomnia is pretty typical — it began with an identifiable trigger and became perpetuated by thoughts, worries, and behaviors developed in response.
You might find this video helpful: Watch me use my mystical powers to reveal how your sleep issues began and why you now have insomnia.
I think it’s important to emphasize the fact that although you have been terrified of sleep for 15 years, you are still here today and you still managed to earn two academic degrees in that time! So, although sleep is a problem in your life, you are still surviving, getting through life, and accomplishing things!
Furthermore, if there was any grain of truth in the idea that you wouldn’t wake up if you fell asleep, I’d say that has been completely debunked since here you are, 15 years later!
In other words, your body has proven to you that you will wake up after falling asleep — and it has proven this to you for 15 years (or at least 5,475 times!). In fact, you have a 100% success rate of waking up after falling asleep over the past 15 years!
The fact you feel a lot of fatigue isn’t unusual either, because — along with heightened arousal — this is one of the primary complaints associated with chronic insomnia. The fact you recognize that you never sleep at an appropriate time also implies that you might find cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques helpful since they’ll help you implement an appropriate and consistent sleep schedule.
CBT-I techniques aren’t intended to address a fear of sleep since most people with chronic insomnia are desperate for sleep — but they can help set the stage for sleep and give sleep the best chance possible of occurring.
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, @lightbearer.
Why do you feel you need to move when in bed? Do you feel a tingling or a creepy-crawly sensation in the limbs that you feel the urge to move? Does that feeling go away when you move those limbs? If so, you might want to talk to your doctor about restless legs syndrome.
If not, and if you have been struggling with sleep for a while, it could simply be a symptom of hyperarousal.
In any case, nobody here can offer a medical diagnosis but hopefully this gives you a couple of avenues to explore!
—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.
