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If you wake during the night and find it hard to fall back to sleep, there are usually one of two issues at play:
1. You might be allotting too much time for sleep (is the difference between when you go to bed at night and when you get out of bed to start your day significantly longer than your average nightly sleep duration?).
2. There might be some conditioned arousal. In other words, through repeatedly waking and finding it hard to fall back to sleep you may have associated waking during the night with difficulty falling back to sleep. So, you find it hard to fall back to sleep.
So, to help address these two options you can ensure you are allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep. You can also get yourself out of bed when you wake during the night and being in bed doesn’t feel good. This will help you relearn to associate the bed with sleep and pleasant wakefulness rather than reinforcing a negative association between the bed and difficulty falling back to sleep.
It can also be helpful to reduce overall levels of arousal by not checking the time if and when you wake during the night and making sure you are filling your days with enjoyable and enriching activities. The latter gives your mind something to focus on other than sleep and helps you recognize that you can have good days or even just a few enjoyable moments after difficult nights of sleep.
If you are able to recognize that wakefulness during the night doesn’t dictate the quality of your day (or life) you will likely be less concerned by the awakenings and this can, in turn, reduce the amount of time spent awake during the night.
I would not suggest looking for a pharmaceutical answer to this challenge since drugs are never a long-term solution for insomnia.
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.
As you pointed out so well:
1. Sleep disruption is completely normal at times of stress, worry, or uncertainty.
2. Thoughts are just thoughts! Thoughts are not facts.
3. A bad night of sleep (or a string of bad nights) actually increases the likelihood of a better night due to the build-up of sleep drive (but it’s helpful to see each night as a fresh start with no expectations).
4. We have a lot more control over the quality of our day than how we slept the previous night — and daytime performance is less connected to sleep than we might believe.
5. Abandoning all sleep effort and giving insomnia and sleep as little attention as possible is a great way to improve sleep and begin the process of getting rid of insomnia.
Thanks for sharing your insights!
—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.
Setbacks and ups and downs are completely normal! Ultimately, if you are able to stick to a consistent final out of bed time and not go to bed before the start of your sleep window (and only when you feel sleepy enough for sleep) you will start to fill that sleep window with sleep if you are allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep.
It will usually take a few weeks of consistent implementation to notice consistent results, so I’d encourage both of you to continue looking forward and see each night as a fresh start!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Riding the roller coaster of lots of sleep then little (or no sleep) then lots of sleep is almost always a symptom of allotting too much time for sleep and not observing a consistent out of bed time in the morning.
If it’s important for you to enjoy more consistent sleep, it’s important to observe a consistent sleep schedule!
Here’s a short video about this: How to stop the sleep roller coaster and make sleep more consistent and more predictable.
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.
How are you getting on since you posted? Have you tried implementing any 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.
Welcome to the forum, Kaci! I am glad to hear your daughter is better now. I think that you have recognized how “normal” your insomnia is — it started with a memorable event and has been perpetuated by your completely understandable reaction to that sleep disruption!
Putting effort into sleep and trying to control sleep actually makes sleep more difficult and this can lead to a lot of sleep-related worry and anxiety, which — in turn — can make sleep more difficult.
I’m so encouraged that you are no longer obsessing about sleep all day and that you are waiting until you are sleepy before going to bed!
When it comes to redirecting the mind when you get into bed, I don’t think it’s helpful to try suppressing thoughts or worries that might enter your mind. The very act of trying not to think about something makes it almost impossible not to think about that very thing! Trying to do this also takes a lot of mental energy and effort at a time when you want to be relaxing your mind to create the best conditions for sleep!
Sometimes it can be helpful to simply recognize thoughts for what they are — thoughts! Thoughts are just thoughts. Thoughts aren’t facts. And, ultimately, you get to decide how you respond to those thoughts. Will you simply recognize them as thoughts and allow them to enter your mind and leave your mind, or will you try to fight them, try to suppress them, and worry about what they might mean?
It can also be helpful to “shift” this worry/thinking time to the day by allotting 10 to 15 minutes during the day to allow yourself to worry and think all you want about whatever you want! With practice, your mind might learn to get most of its worrying and thinking done during that daytime period and this could lead to fewer thoughts and worries at night when you want to be sleeping!
Finally, sometimes thinking about something else can be helpful. Thinking about a TV show you are watching or a book you are reading and then imagining what might happen next might be something relaxing for your mind to focus on. Visualizations might be helpful, too — imagining yourself on a beach or in a forest and really exploring everything around you.
Whenever being in bed doesn’t feel good, that can be a good 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.
How are you doing since you posted? I am so encouraged that you are giving sleep restriction a try!
It does normally take more than two nights to get results — I would suggest adopting a “set it and forget it” attitude and sticking to your chosen sleep window without any thought or evaluation for at least a couple of weeks before determining if/how it’s helping.
Good luck!
—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.
How are you doing since you posted? There’s no reason to think that you won’t be able to improve your sleep if you implement cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques.
If you typically average around five hours of sleep, allotting somewhere between five-and-a-half and six hours for sleep might prove to be helpful since that will build sleep drive, generate some more consistency in your sleep, and reduce nighttime wakefulness that tends to feed into sleep-related worry and anxiety.
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.
The short answer is, if you get back into bed and are still finding sleep difficult, it’s helpful to get right back out of bed! I am moving away from encouraging people to estimate 30 minutes and moving towards simply determining when to get out of bed based on whether or not it feels good to be in bed.
If you are awake and it feels good to be in bed, it’s OK to stay in bed since conditions are right for sleep! If it doesn’t feel good to be in bed, getting out of bed to do something relaxing and somewhat enjoyable can be a more appealing alternative to staying in bed!
Furthermore, getting out of bed when being in bed doesn’t feel good to do something else can help distract the mind so it’s not obsessing/worrying about sleep and prevents you from associating the bed with unpleasant wakefulness.
To answer your second question, if your sleep window is from midnight to 6:00 AM and you only get sleepy and go to bed at 2:00 AM, it’s a good idea to still get out of bed by 6:00 AM. Here’s a short video related to this: Should you worry about how long it takes to fall asleep when following a short sleep window?.
—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.
Isn’t it amazing how the mind focuses on the one difficult night you experienced rather than the seven nights of good sleep you had? Ups and downs are a normal part of the process — if you can avoid the temptation to react and make changes in response to a difficult night your sleep will soon get back on track all by itself!
You might find these videos helpful:
When you have insomnia, keep looking forward and avoid dwelling on the setbacks and difficult nights.
If you have insomnia, what happens tonight is far less important than what you do today and tonight.
—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 think that learning more about the mechanisms of sleep — understanding how sleep works — can be really helpful since many of us have inaccurate beliefs that lead to more sleep efforts, the creation of unrealistic goals, and we then can end up putting more pressure on ourselves to sleep. This makes sleep more difficult!
Since nothing can generate sleep apart from your own biological sleep drive, you shouldn’t feel any pressure when it comes to getting off your sleep medication because it’s likely not having a huge influence on your sleep from a biological standpoint. This is a hurdle you can cross when you feel confident to do so — and, of course, should be done under the supervision of your prescribing physician!
—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 happy to hear that you have been experiencing some improvements in your sleep! How are you doing since you posted?
There’s a lot that goes into feeling refreshed after sleep — and it’s often influenced more by sleep quality than sleep duration alone. Many people also experience sleep inertia — a sense of grogginess in the morning that can take a half-hour or so to shake off. So, how you feel first thing in the morning isn’t always an accurate reflection of how well you slept.
I think that it’s entirely possible to feel good the next day after just one night of good sleep, but how we feel is influenced by many factors that are both related and unrelated to sleep. So, you might need more than one good night of sleep to feel refreshed in the morning (but you might not)!
—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 problem with feeling reliant on any external sleep crutch is that it can make it harder for you to rebuild confidence in your own, natural ability to sleep. The good news is that nothing can generate sleep other than your own biological sleep drive — so, even on nights when you do take medication, the sleep you get is sleep YOU are generating!
If you’re able to identify anxiety as being a primary driver of your insomnia, it might be helpful to see if you can identify the thoughts that are generating that anxiety. If you can do this, you can then evaluate those thoughts for accuracy. When you do this, you might see that the thoughts that generate so much worry aren’t very accurate — and this can strip them of their power!
Here’s a short video about this: “What to do when anxious thoughts are making sleep difficult and leading to insomnia“.
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.
How are you getting on since you posted? What is it about the idea of finding it hard to fall asleep that makes you feel worried?
—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 don’t know of any scientific evidence that supports the idea that a cold shower can improve deep sleep — and that’s probably not too surprising because the body takes care of sleep architecture all by itself.
When it comes to deep sleep in particular, this is the stage of sleep that is prioritized by the body — so very few people miss out on deep sleep for any significant period of time. Even if you are only getting a few hours of sleep, your body is likely getting all its required deep sleep. If you have a night (or a few nights) of absolutely no sleep, again the body will prioritize deep sleep when you do sleep — so you will spend more time in deep sleep.
Ultimately, sleep architecture is something that the body takes care of all by itself and it’s something we have no control over. So, worrying about sleep stages or trying to get more (or less) of a certain type of sleep usually only leads to heightened arousal and this can perpetuate insomnia.
On that note, the best way to improve chronic insomnia is by identifying and addressing the thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate insomnia — one of which is the attempt to control or force 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.
