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Hello @Meganb and welcome to the forum.
Sorry to hear about your ongoing struggle with insomnia. It sounds as though your experience is telling you that medication isn’t a long-term solution for you — and that’s something many people can relate to.
When medication doesn’t seem to work we can feel we are completely out of options because we don’t know of an alternative option or an alternative approach. We can also feel really lost if alternative approaches we tried in the past didn’t work out.
This doesn’t mean we are broken or that our insomnia is unusual or unique. All it means is that we haven’t found the approach that’s right for us.
My six-week online course offers a new approach and since it is based on action — something you can always control — medication use is not of much relevance. Action is what matters.
Do you feel ready, willing, and able to make changes? If so, I think you’ll find my six-week online course helpful.
Does this answer your question?
—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 @lora and welcome to the forum!
What you have described is difficult — your head hurts, your tummy is upset, you are using the bathroom more, your mood is altered, you might cry, you feel exhausted.
In the presence of all that really difficult stuff, you have a choice to make:
1. Do less of what matters and withdraw from life.
2. Acknowledge the presence of all this difficulty, be kind to yourself in return, and continue to do things (perhaps fewer things or less intensive things — but still things!) that are aligned with your values so that keep you moving toward the life you want to live.
You are the expert on you, so only you can decide which choice is right for you at any given time. It’s not about pretending none of this doesn’t exist — it’s about acknowledging that it’s present and that although we might not be able to control it or get rid of it through effort we can always choose how we respond to it.
You can read a bit more about this kind of approach here. I hope this helps and I wish you all the best.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing!
It sounds as though you are building skill in experiencing being awake with less struggle. We can’t always make ourselves feel calm or remain calm since that’s a feeling we can’t really directly or permanently control — but we can always choose how we respond to being awake and how we respond to all the thoughts and feelings that might show up with that wakefulness!
How did you realize that you can still function OK if you don’t have a full night of sleep? Was it a case of committing to doing things that mattered, independently 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.
Welcome back, @Insomniac1313! What was the best part of your vacation?
It doesn’t sound as though you are doing anything wrong when practicing the AWAKE exercise — and that’s for three reasons.
The first reason is that all that really matters is getting the practice in. Committing to the action of ongoing practice.
The second reason is that this is a new skill. And, developing new skills isn’t easy and it takes time and ongoing practice.
The third reason is that the human mind is always going to wander!
If you are visualizing your thoughts and feelings as clouds in the sky, when you have a new thought — such as you are thinking about how uncomfortable you are and how much you want to be asleep — you can place them as new clouds in the sky.
You are allowing and welcoming all of them to be present and to come and go as they choose — because you know the alternative approach (fight them) only creates a struggle that makes things more difficult.
Remember that, with the AWAKE exercise, you aren’t trying to control, change, or get rid of your thoughts and feelings. You are simply building skill in experiencing them with less struggle — you are building skill in being more of a curious observer of them rather than a raging opponent who is going to war with them!
Does this help?
—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 not a circadian rhythm expert, unfortunately! However, I do have some more questions for you if you’d like to explore this further:
1. When you wake at 5:00 AM and your brain feels alert, what do you do next?
2. Why is waking at 6:00 AM instead of 5:00 AM important to you? If you woke at 6 instead of 5, how would your life be different?
3. Up to now, how have you tried to make yourself wake at 6 instead of 5 and how have those attempts worked out?
—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 aboard @KSTRATEGIER89 — it sounds as though you have a curious and inquisitive mind and you are ready to make change happen! Change is difficult, but not changing is often even more difficult!
@Chrissie — It’s good to have you here! Your presence is evidence of your growth mindset and your understanding that change and growth is always possible!It makes total sense that you no longer go out at night or entertain because of how you feel after really difficult nights. When you stay home and when you aren’t entertaining, do you feel better? Withdrawing and doing less is completely understandable — how is that working for you? Is it moving you closer to where you want to be?
—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 Chrissie. I think many people can relate to a past experience of sleeping without effort — and, I think there is often an insight there.
If sleep previously required no effort, that suggests that sleep doesn’t require effort. Perhaps the understandable effort we might be putting into sleep when we find ourselves struggling might be something that’s making it more elusive.
The churning stomach and various thoughts and feelings that show up when you get into bed are difficult and they are natural and normal — they are evidence of your brain doing its job and looking out for you. Quite often it’s when we start trying to fight or avoid all these thoughts or feelings that they get even more difficult.
The fact you are here suggests you are ready to explore and practice a new approach. I wish you all the best and would like to remind you that you are not alone in this. What you are going through feels really difficult because it is really difficult. And, that difficulty is shared among many others who are also going through the struggle.
I wish you all the best as you work through the course.
—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.
Ah yes, nights of less than ideal sleep are still going to show up from time to time — just like less than ideal days!
You clearly have a strong awareness of when you are getting pulled into a struggle and that is a huge reflection of your progress since that awareness means you have the opportunity to respond in a different way
As you mentioned, you now have a selection of tools available to you — and tools only work when they are used, and we get better at using tools the more practice we get with them!
I wish you all the best!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It sounds as though you are fully committed to actions that serve YOU and the life you want to live rather than sleep. As a result, you are far less likely to struggle and you have freed up more energy and attention to do things that matter to you.
As you mentioned, change takes time. It’s also rarely easy and there are going to be ups and downs. You clearly have an awareness of when you are getting pulled back into a struggle and are able to respond in a different way. This is evidence of your growing skill and personal growth
—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, Rosanne! What actions did you practice to help you stop the struggle and how did accepting the presence of anxiety and wakefulness help you?
As you pointed out, sometimes there will be some difficult nights (and definitely some wakefulness since that’s a normal part of sleep). What matters is how you respond — you can resist and get pulled back into a struggle or you can acknowledge and allow and move away from struggle.
It sounds as though you have freed up a lot of energy and attention and are better able to live the life you want to live, independently of sleep. That’s all down to your own commitment to meaningful and workable action — good on you
—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 response of extreme anxiety, heart palpitations, tingling, panic, and a rush of adrenalin is really difficult to experience and it can feel very confusing.
What it actually is, is evidence that your brain is doing its job of looking out for you. It’s trying to protect you from what it has identified as the threat of being awake when you want to be asleep. So, it’s firing up that “fight or flight” response to protect you from being awake.
Sleep drive can overpower that response — eventually — since it’s impossible to remain awake forever. A quicker way to give sleep the opportunity to happen is to explore how, through your actions, you might be able to retrain your brain to recognize that being awake at night isn’t a threat. That, although you’d rather be asleep, being awake isn’t a danger.
This might be done during the night by moving away from trying to make sleep happen and/or putting pressure on yourself to make sleep happen — for example, by doing something else if you find yourself struggling.
This might be done during the day by being kind to yourself when things feel difficult and continuing to do things that matter to you, independently of sleep.
Is there anything 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.
Hello Vita and welcome to the forum! Have you asked your CBT-I therapist about this? It might be best to defer to them since different therapists might have different approaches here.
You might also consider your own experience. Have you tried going to bed when sleepy before the start of your sleep window? If so, how did that work out for you?
When I work with clients I typically suggest that if they are feeling really sleepy in the hour before the sleep window begins, they allow themselves to go to bed and see what happens.
When it comes to that sensation of feeling wide awake as soon as you get into bed, that’s a hallmark symptom of insomnia — and sleep restriction isn’t really intended to help with that. Within the framework of CBT-I you’d probably be looking to practice stimulus control.
Within the framework of ACT-I you’d probably be looking to explore how to experience wakefulness with less struggle (rather than doubling down on trying to make sleep happen and/or trying to control your thoughts and feelings).
I hope there’s something useful here and I wish you all the best! You are not alone.
—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 aboard, Sonya!
What you are going through is not unique or unusual — you definitely are not alone!
It sure can feel as though anxiety is the obstacle to sleep. More often than not, it’s our understandable attempts to fight or avoid anxiety that is the true obstacle to sleep.
You’ll be exploring this in more detail as you continue to work through the course! I wish you all the best 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.
That sounds difficult, @izabelaD. I am yet to meet anyone who struggles with insomnia who doesn’t identify the presence of anxiety as something that is making things more difficult.
The thing about anxiety is, all human beings experience it. It’s a natural and normal human feeling — and it keeps us safe and it keeps us alive. And, we can still sleep even in the presence of anxiety.
What can make sleep more difficult and make anxiety even more difficult to experience is trying to fight or avoid it. When we (understandably!) take that approach, we can get tangled up in an exhausting — and endless — battle.
What do you do at the moment when you are awake and sleep doesn’t seem to be happening and how do you respond to anxiety when it shows up? How are those approaches and responses working for you?
—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 Zoki! It sounds like you got a lot out of the course — how have things changed for you, and what actions did you commit to in order to experience those changes?
If you let me know which specific studies you are interested in, I’ll see if I can dig out some links and post them here for you
—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.
