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It’s a good question. Alcohol can definitely disrupt sleep as can perhaps billions or even trillions of other things.
So we have two choices here.
We can spend our lives trying to identify and avoid all the things that might disrupt our sleep, get pulled away from doing things that matter to us, and maybe enjoy some nights of better sleep as a result (and maybe not).
Or, we can spend our lives doing things that matter to us, independently of sleep, and acknowledge that we might experience some sleep disruption from time to time (and maybe not).
I’d suggest choosing the option you think is most workable and will better help you live the life you want to live. The choice, as always, is yours!
—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.
This is very common and not unusual at all!
Let me ask you this: Is there a difference in your intent before your sleep window begins compared to after it begins and you are in bed?
In other words, before the sleep window begins is your goal different compared to after the sleep window begins? If so, is there an insight there that might help explain why sleepiness seems to disappear?
On a separate note, when you get up to avoid the mind racing and anxiety, does that mean that getting up guarantees that your mind never races and you never experience anxiety?
—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.
Sounds like it might be worth an experiment, @GC1500!
—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 all part of the journey.
If you struggle with visualization, you aren’t alone — this lesson might be helpful: If Visualization Is Difficult.
You aren’t looking to find comfort in what you are thinking and feeling or even change what you are thinking or feeling at night. When that’s our intent we can get pulled into a struggle since that’s like trying to turn the moon into cheese — we have a complete absence of control over that and trying to control what cannot be controlled only creates struggle, which makes things even more difficult.
The goal of the AWAKE exercise is to practice building skill in experiencing wakefulness and all the thoughts and feelings that can come with it with less struggle. You aren’t trying to fool yourself into wanting these thoughts and feelings, you aren’t trying to think positive, you are just practicing not going to war with them — since going to war consumes all your energy, creates more struggle, and makes everything even more difficult (and perhaps more scary, too).
As for Experiencing wakefulness, it doesn’t matter if watching TV or reading makes you wide awake because you aren’t trying to make sleep happen! What matters is this: is watching TV or reading more appealing than battling with all these invisible enemies? If so, it’s probably a more workable way of responding compared to donning the suit of armor and going to war.
Sleep doesn’t care what the time is — you can look at the time or not look at the time. What matters more is your intent and your experience on the usefulness of looking at the time. What does checking the time (or not checking the time) do for you? How does that action serve you? Many people find that checking the clock throughout the night only makes things more difficult — but everyone is different and you are the expert on you!
You might want to revisit this lesson from Week 2, specifically the first question: “Do I really need to avoid checking the time when my sleep window begins?”.
It can feel as though a return of difficult nights is going to lead to a downward spiral but the fact is, with every difficult night you are building more sleep pressure — so better nights become more likely. And, with every difficult night you have the opportunity to practice (and build skill in) responding to this difficult stuff in a more workable way.
I hope there’s something useful here!
—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.
That’s great to hear — thanks for sharing! You are discovering that there’s no need to go to war with anxiety (as much as you’d like to get rid of it) and that giving it some space to exist helps it come and go, rather than stick around and become more powerful and more difficult. Good on you for getting stuck in with an open and curious mind!
—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 people have experienced multiple nights of no sleep. They’re hard. No doubt about it.
Each night of no sleep increases the likelihood of sleep on subsequent nights thanks to the accumulation of sleep pressure. What suppresses that sleep pressure (and therefore generates a requirement of more wakefulness) are all our efforts to make sleep happen.
The thing about anxiety and hyperarousal is that we can still sleep in their presence. When we go to war with anxiety and hyperarousal, things get more difficult and sleep moves further away. After all, human beings wouldn’t be around today if they fell asleep in the middle of a battle, right?
It’s interesting that you’ve found yourself experiencing a lot of sleepiness during the day when you don’t want sleep to happen and might not be trying to make sleep happen or putting pressure on yourself to make sleep happen. Is there an insight there, perhaps?
—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.
Our own experience can often be a very valuable guide. Have you napped in the past? What did you learn from that?
—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 @Bsue and welcome aboard — it’s good to have you here and it’s great to know that you are excited to explore a new approach. That’s concrete evidence of your tenacity and growth mindset!
I think @cr.burgman gave some great tips — and we’ll be exploring how to respond to nighttime wakefulness in a lot of detail in Week 2.
In the meantime, what might be useful is getting in some practice with acknowledging what you are thinking or feeling when you are awake at night, being kind to yourself, and — instead of battling with wakefulness and those thoughts and feelings — engaging in an alternative activity (in bed or out of bed, your choice) whenever you find yourself struggling.
The goal of the alternative activity isn’t to change your thoughts and feelings or to make sleep happen — it’s to give you a more constructive and more appealing way of responding to that wakefulness (especially if you know from experience that battling and struggle tends not to be a workable approach).
I hope this helps!
PS: You are having a hard time turning off your brain because that only happens when we are dead!
—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 Nicki_23! Why does it feel important to you to move away from sleeping pills?
In terms of how to approach this, in my experience the approach or strategy itself doesn’t matter a whole lot. What matters is discussing this with your doctor and then coming up with a realistic plan that you feel you can stick to — and then sticking to it each night, regardless of how sleep goes.
With a good plan, there should be no ambiguity about what the medication usage is going to be each night — this should be known in advance. Taking medication based on “how the night goes” is often a surefire way to create more difficulty since your mind is going to be more active to monitor/evaluate/troubleshoot/brainstorm/debate etc.
Your plan might involve a really slow taper, it might involve a faster taper, it might involve going cold turkey. Sticking to the plan as best you can is really all that matters.
Is this something you’ve spoken to your doctor about?
—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.
Excessive heat can definitely make things more difficult — and perhaps what makes that heat even more difficult are our attempts to fight the wakefulness and the thoughts and feelings that show up with it?
—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 do whatever feels right for you! I usually suggest simply choosing an out of bed time that’s aligned with the life you live (or want to live) — we can get a bit tripped up with the sleep window if we use it in an attempt to control sleep; its true intent is to help move us away from chasing after 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.
You’re welcome, Chantal! You clearly have an analytical and problem-solving mind — both of which are true strengths!
I am not sure we’ll ever see studies that provide evidence that only five, or four, or three, or seven hours of sleep are necessary since we still don’t really know why we sleep or even how much we truly need. It’s a bit like trying to figure out what size foot is necessary.
We’re only ever guessing and playing with averages and associations — and, even if we had a clear answer on the amount of sleep that’s necessary (or the foot size that’s necessary!), what can we do with that information when neither can be controlled through effort anyway?
Your awareness that this preoccupation might be counterproductive is a valuable insight. You might not necessarily be able to control thoughts related to this stuff — but you can always choose how you respond. In other words, you can always choose to do something other than Google for answers over and over again — and, perhaps doing something that’s aligned with your identity and values might have more of a positive influence over the kind of life you live?
—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 Chantal!
This study found that sleeping for under 4.5 hours (or more than 6.5 hours a night!) was linked with cognitive decline.
Again, this is only a “link” — as with most sleep-related studies. The main point I was trying to make here is that there’s no universal sleep duration that fits everyone and it can be quite futile to try to generate a certain amount of sleep (since that’s out of our control).
When it comes to averages, this study found that the “average” sleep duration for women was under 7 hours and for men it was under 6.5 hours. Furthermore, sleep duration and sleep need vary as we age, too.
I think what matters here is this:
1. Nobody really knows how much sleep the body needs — there’s no universal sleep need (just as there’s no universal shoe size).
2. Sleep averages are not the same as individual sleep needs (and how sleep is recorded/reported can bring huge variability and uncertainty).
3. The body will generate the amount (and type) of sleep it needs as long as we give it the opportunity to do so.
4. Things get more difficult the more we get involved in the process — but the body can still generate, at the very least, the minimum amount of sleep it needs no matter what we do.
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 are clearly a strong advocate for yourself and a keen problem-solver!
Nothing there says that chronic insomnia causes any health condition or problem (and no such study exists). Furthermore, acute sleep loss is not chronic insomnia and sleep deprivation is not chronic insomnia.
Now, that’s not to say sleep definitely has no influence over what you are describing — I am not a doctor! It’s just that I’ve not come across any evidence that suggests sleep is the cause of what you are describing.
I would encourage you to discuss the swelling you described with your doctor — this is not a place to obtain medical advice, unfortunately.
—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.
Regardless of direction, my suggestion would be the same. If you don’t feel sleepy when your sleep window begins, you might want to wait until you do feel sleepy before going to bed, while maintaining the same out of bed time as usual (for example, 6 AM at home would be 6 AM at your destination, too).
If a sleep window of 12-645 when on vacation better helps you live the life you want to live and moves you away from trying to control or chase after sleep, then go for it!
—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.
