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It might be best to discuss your concerns with your doctor. We typically see people with DSPS have no problem at all with sleep when they give themselves the opportunity to sleep according to their internal body clock. Sleep only becomes an issue when they try to sleep at what might be thought of as more socially acceptable times (ie during the night!).
It might not be a good idea to experiment with your sleep schedule based on the assumption you have DSPS without seeking a medical diagnosis first.
—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 Wayne and welcome to the forum, and congratulations on your ongoing sobriety!
The best natural sleep aid is already within you — it’s your body’s natural ability to sleep. This is an ability that never goes away!
What can happen is that when we become concerned or worried about sleep or put effort into sleep, we create arousal and this can suppress sleep. However, sleep drive always wins in the end — so we will always get, at the very least, the bare minimum amount of sleep we need to get by.
Often the best thing to do to improve sleep quality is to avoid the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate sleep disruption. This is where the implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques can be so helpful.
—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 talking isn’t my area of expertise but you might find this factsheet from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine helpful.
Have you discussed cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) with your doctor as a potential option for tackling your 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.
The good news is there is no evidence that chronic insomnia causes any health problem. You might find my podcast episode with behavioral sleep medicine expert Dr. Jade Wu helpful since she dispels many of the common myths and concerns commonly associated with 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.
This is very encouraging, Pippa! Everyone makes progress at a different pace and there will always be ups and downs along the way. When it comes to sleep restriction, the best start possible is simply getting started!
—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 for the first few nights of sleep restriction to be particularly difficult and even lead to less sleep. However, this is temporary — sleep drive ALWAYS wins in the end! So, if you remain consistent, if you can set your sleep window and then forget about evaluating it, if you can engage your robot mind, you will make progress!
—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.
A key point you made was that when you wake, you practice mindfulness to try to get back to sleep. This sounds like a sleep effort because you are doing something with the express intention of generating sleep.
We have absolutely no control over sleep. We cannot make ourselves fall asleep or fall back to sleep. Whenever we do something in a bid to try to sleep, we generate arousal and this makes sleep more difficult.
When we believe we can generate sleep we can also go down the rabbit hole of experimenting with different rituals, different diets, and different supplements. However, this doesn’t work since nothing can generate sleep other than being awake for long enough. The more effort we put into sleep, the longer we need to be awake to generate enough sleep drive to overpower the arousal system.
Abandoning all effort to make sleep happen or to generate sleep is, perhaps ironically, the best way to improve sleep. Of course, it’s also often easier said than done — and this is where cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques can be so helpful since they redirect our efforts into setting the stage for sleep rather than trying to directly 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.
I’m so happy to hear that your sleep has improved — getting six-and-a-half hours of sleep on a regular basis sounds pretty good! Why do you want to get at least seven-and-a-half hours of sleep? How will that extra hour of sleep change your 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.
Welcome to the forum, @Louis1007! All that stuff you mentioned reading about at the end of your post is sleep hygiene stuff — and we know that doesn’t help people with chronic insomnia because it doesn’t address the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate insomnia.
As you said, as soon as you find yourself trying to sleep, sleep becomes a lot more difficult. That’s completely normal. For sleep to happen, we need to abandon all effort to sleep.
It sounds as though you’re doing a lot of self-monitoring for sleep and this is common among people with chronic insomnia. Self-monitoring is a type of arousal, and arousal is a perpetuating factor behind chronic insomnia.
You might find it helpful to implement some cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques since they will help build sleep drive (which reduces wakefulness and helps with sleep onset), strengthen your body clock, and lower arousal.
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.
If you have chronic insomnia, I would suggest starting by learning a bit more about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques since they address the factors that perpetuate chronic insomnia (our thoughts and our behaviors).
—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 has been said that the average person lives with chronic insomnia for 10 years before finding cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
That’s a real shame and is down to the fact that information on CBT-I isn’t as widely available as it should be, and there aren’t enough people out there familiar enough or trained in CBT-I techniques to support people with insomnia who want to implement the recommended and recognized first-line treatment for chronic insomnia!
The good news is, you are now familiar with CBT-I — so it’s something you can try! If you recognize your experience with insomnia in any of the guests on the Insomnia Coach Podcast, then there’s no reason to believe you won’t be as successful as they were because your insomnia is just the same as theirs was!
—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 just that, wendye! Have you tried implementing 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.
Have you been able to identify the thought(s) that generate worry, anxiety, and/or panic, HB? This can be helpful because when we do this we can then test those thoughts for accuracy — and very often the thoughts that can generate such intense arousal aren’t as accurate as they first seem.
I am encouraged to hear that you are implementing sleep restriction and stimulus control since these techniques help build sleep drive, reduce the amount of time spent awake during the night, and help weaken any conditioned arousal that might be making sleep more difficult.
—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 great to hear you’ve been implementing sleep restriction, sleepyDeb! Have you also been implementing any of the other techniques you learned in the emails you received?
Sleep restriction helps build sleep drive and reduces the amount of time spent awake during the night — two issues that can perpetuate sleep disruption. However, there’s more that can be done to reduce arousal and increase the likelihood of sleep — one very helpful technique is to get out of bed whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good. Is this something you are doing?
You might also find it helpful to explore what it is about the idea of getting a couple of hours of sleep that generates such arousal/worry since the thoughts that generate worry are rarely accurate when we identify them — and this can strip them of their power!
—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 to me as though you are making very clear progress — why would you stop at this point? I wouldn’t usually suggest extending the amount of time you allot for sleep if your sleep efficiency is currently around 80% since this might just lead to more time awake during the night.
You might find it helpful not to check the clock during your sleep window (if you are doing that) since this can increase arousal when you wake, and make it harder to fall back to sleep. Are you also getting out of bed during your sleep window whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good? That can be a good way to reduce arousal, which, like poor sleep drive, is another perpetuating factor behind 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.
