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The good news is that since cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is basically a set of skills and knowledge, all you need to do if sleep issues return at any time in the future is simply reimplement all the techniques that worked for you in the past.
If you are finding the techniques less effective, it may be that you aren’t giving the techniques enough time, you may not be implementing them appropriately, or you may not be implementing them consistently.
The techniques worked before, so they will work again!
I hope this is helpful and gives you some ideas.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
There is no evidence that insomnia causes any health problem. Pursuing a search for evidence is going to be fruitless and will only lead to more time thinking and worrying about sleep which isn’t helpful if you want to improve your sleep!
You might find my podcast episode with Dr. Jade Wu helpful since we actually cover this in some detail:
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’d suggest asking your doctor — he or she will hopefully be able to refer you to someone.
—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.
As you know from experience, sleeping pills aren’t a long-term solution for insomnia. Have you looked into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)?
CBT-I techniques are a great long-term solution for insomnia because they address the sleep-related thoughts we have and the sleep-related behaviors we implement that actually perpetuate insomnia. These thoughts and behaviors perpetuate insomnia because they disrupt sleep drive, disrupt our body clock, and heighten arousal.
Changing the way you think about sleep and implementing appropriate sleep-related behaviors can address all these perpetuating factors and that’s why CBT-I techniques are 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.
That’s not too surprising since no medication can generate sleep — nothing can generate sleep apart from our own biological sleep drive. Medication can help lower that initial barrier to sleep (often sleep-related worry/anxiety) but it can never generate sleep itself.
If you are looking for a long-term solution for insomnia, I would encourage you to ask your doctor about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
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.
Hello Christie77 and welcome to the forum. Are you implementing cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) with a therapist? If so, I would encourage you to raise your concerns and challenges directly with them.
If you are currently averaging around four hours of sleep each night, it sounds as though a six-and-a-half-hour sleep window might be setting you up for quite a lot of wakefulness (up to two-and-a-half hours) during the night.
Stimulus control is a long-term technique intended to help you associate your bed with sleep rather than unpleasant wakefulness. So, it probably didn’t directly “work” for those first few days since it usually takes longer to experience results and recondition yourself to see the bed as a place for sleep.
I suspect you found it easier to fall back to sleep at first because you had the belief that it was going to help you fall back to sleep — then, on the first night that you found it harder to fall back to sleep, you started to worry that the technique wasn’t working and this triggered your anxiety (which, in turn, can make sleep more difficult).
As you pointed out, it’s usually not helpful to be performing all the “mental gymnastics” at night trying to figure out when or if you should get out of bed. I would suggest that as soon as you start to feel worried or anxious, you start tossing and turning, fighting with the bedsheets or start groaning with frustration, that is your cue to get out of bed — because, under these circumstances, you’re probably not going to fall asleep any time soon.
If you are awake but feel calm and relaxed, I think it’s OK to stay in bed because the conditions are right for sleep. As soon as being in bed becomes unpleasant, that can be your cue to get out of bed.
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.
This rollercoaster of bad nights and good nights is often perpetuated by an irregular or inappropriate sleep/wake schedule. When do you typically go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed to start the day, and — if you took all the good nights and the bad nights over a two-week period and averaged them all out — how much sleep would you say you currently get on an average night?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello again, Tswezey!
I am so glad to hear that you are implementing sleep restriction for insomnia.
If you go to bed around 12:30 AM and get out of bed around 6:30 AM, this means you are allotting six hours for sleep. If you typically get around five hours of sleep then this is probably about right (if you want to be more aggressive you might want to try allotting five-and-a-half hours for sleep).
You mentioned that the sleep restriction doesn’t seem to be working, yet you also pointed out that you are spending less time awake during the night. Since spending less time awake during the night is one of the goals of sleep restriction, we can see that it is working!
It sounds as though you might be taking your sleep meds contingently or irregularly and this might be making it harder for you to make progress. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques are effective regardless of whether or not you are taking meds but if you take pills contingently it can make progress more difficult. Here’s a short video about why:
Does cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) work if you are taking sleeping pills?
If you are waking during the night and finding it hard to fall back to sleep you will probably find it helpful to get out of bed until you feel calm and relaxed before returning to bed so you don’t reinforce the idea that your bed is a place for wakefulness and worry. This is another CBT-I technique known as stimulus control.
Finally, I think it’s important to recognize that waking during the night is completely normal and is a normal part of sleep. It’s usually only when we worry about these awakenings that it becomes harder to fall back to sleep.
This video might be helpful: What is “normal” sleep? (And why it’s important to know the answer when you have chronic insomnia.)
Ultimately, it sounds as though you are making progress so I would encourage you to keep going and focus all your attention on consistent implementation.
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 sleep difficulties. Shift work is very hard on the sleep system and sleep disruption associated with shift work and an irregular schedule is more of a circadian rhythm issue than exclusively an insomnia issue. With this in mind, I would encourage you to look for someone who specializes in circadian rhythm sleep disorders and has experience helping people who work shifts since this is an area of sleep that I do not have adequate expertise in.
—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.
Some people are definitely more predisposed to sleep issues — and temporary sleep disruption is normal, to be expected, and affects everyone.
When sleep doesn’t recover and becomes a longer-term problem it’s because of the sleep-related thoughts we have and the sleep-related behaviors we implement in a bid to improve our sleep that actually perpetuate the problem.
In your case, it’s completely normal and to be expected that sleep will be disrupted when traveling — especially if you are crossing timezones. The body will usually recover all by itself after a few days. If it doesn’t, it’s worth exploring whether your thinking about sleep has changed (for example, more sleep-related worry or research starts happening) and whether your behaviors have changed (for example, spending more time in bed, trying to conserve energy during the day, modifying your day after a hard night, experimenting with sleep supplements or other sleep rituals).
If you can recognize changes in your thoughts or behaviors, then you will almost certainly find cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques helpful since they address these thoughts and behaviors and arm you with all the skills you need to get your sleep back on track and prevent short-term sleep disruption from becoming a long-term problem 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.
Thank you for adding your perspective. Although you seem to be on the extreme side of short sleep duration, if nothing else, your post reminds us that we all have our own individual sleep requirement and that it is entirely possible to get through the day and have a productive life after just a few hours of 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 am so encouraged to hear that you are following a cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) program! I have no doubt that it will help you improve your sleep.
The techniques, although quite straightforward, can be challenging to implement in the short term. However, if you stay consistent you will start to notice results — and this will give you the confidence and motivation to continue.
So, keep moving forward and keep putting in the effort. You’ve got this!
—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.
Sometimes it can be helpful to make a conscious effort to focus all your attention on the better nights! It’s natural for the brain to focus on the harder nights because the brain sees these as something that needs to be fixed — it wants to protect you from those nights, even though there’s no harm in them!
FFI/SFI is so rare that it really shouldn’t even enter your thinking as something to be concerned about. To my knowledge, there have been around 30 cases out of a global population of around eight billion (8,000,000,000). You are more likely to get crushed by a meteorite, become an astronaut, achieve sainthood, or win the Powerball lottery jackpot than to have FFI/SFI!
If you have PTSD and anxiety disorder it’s probably a good idea to discuss your concerns about this with your therapist if you are seeing one.
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.
Sometimes it can be helpful to write all the thoughts that tend to run through your mind during the night on a piece of paper before going to bed — this of this as a “mind dump”.
If the same thoughts return during the night and you are finding it impossible to fall back to sleep, it can be a good idea to get out of bed and do something relaxing and enjoyable to distract your mind and return to bed only once your mind has calmed down.
It’s also helpful to make sure you aren’t allotting too much time for sleep each night — use sleep drive to your advantage to help reduce the amount of time you are awake during the night and consolidate your sleep.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello @cheg_1 and welcome to the forum. Nothing in your post sounds unusual — so I have no reason to think that you wouldn’t find cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques to be very helpful.
You have made a lot of progress yourself by not allowing insomnia to control your life, so you have a lot of the cognitive issues “under control”. Adding the behavioral components will almost certainly help you get your sleep back on track and give you back your sleep confidence.
—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.
