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I think you’d find cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques very helpful, too!
It sounds as though you are paying a lot of attention to your sleep — and this is completely understandable, but unfortunately, it’s rarely helpful! Since you are referencing sleep cycles in particular, are you using a sleep tracking device to monitor sleep?
If you have any sleep-related worry or anxiety, I would encourage you to avoid using a sleep tracker since the data they collect isn’t always accurate and gives you information that, ultimately, you can’t really do anything with!
We have no direct control over the length of our sleep cycles, how long it takes to fall asleep, how much sleep we’ll get, or when we’ll wake.
CBT-I techniques are helpful since they’ll help reduce sleep-related worry and reduce the amount of time you spend awake during the night (by building sleep drive, strengthening the body clock, and reducing arousal).
You might find my podcast discussion with Dave helpful since he talks about how CBT-I techniques such as sleep restriction led to less time awake during the night and more sleep.
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 can’t comment from the viewpoint of someone with mild chronic fatigue syndrome, but what I can say is that chronic insomnia is always perpetuated by sleep-related thoughts and behaviors. So, if you are able to address these thoughts and behaviors, sleep will improve. In your case, I would suspect that as your sleep improves, your CFS symptoms would improve, too.
Skipping a few nights of sleep isn’t pleasant and is never a goal of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques — however, sometimes there is a bit less sleep in the short-term as you adjust to the techniques. If your goal is better sleep for the rest of your life, it might be worth pushing through in order to reap the long-term rewards.
The alternative, of course, is to continue as before — and I suspect this may not be a viable option 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.
I am so happy to hear that you overcame your insomnia after a number of years — this is so encouraging! How did you manage to get your sleep back on track? Were there any specific techniques that you found particularly helpful?
Remember that occasional bad nights are completely normal and to be expected! Even the best sleepers among us will have a bad night every now and again. It would be impossible to sleep perfectly, every single night, forever!
—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 can be very easy to believe that you can’t sleep without sleeping pills — however, it can be helpful to recognize that no pill can generate sleep! The only thing that can generate sleep is your own biological sleep drive — and this is something that never goes away. With enough wakefulness, everyone will sleep.
Hypothetically speaking, do you believe that if you didn’t take sleeping pills you would remain awake indefinitely, or do you think that sleep might happen in the end?
—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.
So glad to hear that you are starting to feel more relaxed about sleep — especially after 40 years of struggle! This is very encouraging and, in my opinion, is a far better predictor of your future success than the one or two nights when you are waking during the night!
Waking during the night is completely normal — if you are able to recognize this and not worry about the awakening, you’ll fall asleep much faster!
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.
Just a quick note that since medication doesn’t address the perpetuating factors behind insomnia (thoughts and behaviors) they are never a long-term solution for chronic insomnia. I would also encourage anyone interested in that specific medication to read the FDA clinical trial information rather than a press release written by the drug company:
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-approvals-and-databases/drug-trials-snapshot-dayvigo
Digging into the data, it looks as though the drug helped people fall asleep about seven minutes faster than a placebo, and reduced time spent awake by about 15 minutes compared to a placebo (participants taking the drug still averaged around one-and-a-half hours of wakefulness during the night after taking the drug for six months). Sleep efficiency was largely unaffected.
—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, Phil? Any updates for us?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
You are NOT alone! As you have rightly identified, experimenting with sleep aids is rarely helpful and certainly isn’t a long term solution! Have you tried implementing cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques to get your sleep back on track?
—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.
So glad to hear your sleep is improving and that you are now averaging between five and six hours of sleep each night! When insomnia becomes chronic (ie you’ve been living with sleep disruption for at least three months) then it might not go away by itself — and that’s because by this point our thoughts and behaviors are perpetuating the problem, so we need to address those thoughts and behaviors to get our sleep back on track. This is where cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques come into play.
You can find many examples of people who have found CBT-I helpful by looking in the insomnia success stories forum, the client case studies page, and the Insomnia Coach Podcast.
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.
Welcome to the forum, Chris. Have you looked into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)?
Ultimately, it’s the thoughts we have and the behaviors we implement in a bid to improve our sleep that perpetuate insomnia. So identifying and addressing these thoughts and behaviors is almost always the best way forward — and that’s why CBT-I techniques are so effective.
—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.
Feeling sleepy before the start of your sleep window and then not sleepy when the sleep window begins is a common symptom of conditioned arousal — you are recognizing sleepiness cues before the sleep window begins because you know that it is not time to sleep. In other words, there is no “performance anxiety” or pressure to sleep.
You are just as sleepy when the sleep window begins, but the arousal system is suppressing those sleepiness cues to “protect” you from the night of struggle it is predicting.
You might find this video helpful: What to do when you feel sleepy early in the evening but don’t feel sleepy when it’s time for bed.
Making sure that you build enough sleep drive before going to bed by observing an appropriate sleep window can help override the arousal system, and getting out of bed when you are struggling can prevent you from reinforcing the idea that your bed is a place for unpleasant wakefulness.
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.
It’s not too surprising that you are struggling with sleep even after the initial triggers aren’t an issue because insomnia is perpetuated by our reaction to the initial sleep disruption — we, quite naturally, start to think (and worry) more about sleep and implement behaviors such as spending more time in bed and modifying our days to try to improve our sleep. Unfortunately, all these thoughts and behaviors actually make it harder for our sleep to recover.
I would suggest starting with sleep restriction by creating an appropriate sleep window since this will help build sleep drive, reduce the amount of time you spend awake at night, and bring a bit more consistency and predictability to your sleep.
This may be all that’s needed to help get your sleep back on track.
—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.
Your concerns are completely understandable! One thing that might be worth asking yourself is how well you sleep at night when you take naps during the day. If you sleep well at night after a nap, then you know that naps aren’t a problem. If you aren’t sleeping well at night, it might be a good idea to avoid those daytime naps.
Naps, in general, can feel great at the time but they reduce sleep drive and this can make sleep at night more difficult. So, you are effectively “kicking the can down the road” every time you nap during the day. If you feel you absolutely must nap, it’s a good idea to take the nap as early in the day as possible and to limit the nap to around 20 minutes.
The exception here is if you need to take a safety nap, since safety trumps everything. So, if you are going to be driving or doing anything that requires you to be awake but you think you might fall asleep, a safety nap is always appropriate.
Here’s a short video you might find helpful: Why you should avoid daytime naps if you have chronic insomnia.
When it comes to implementing sleep restriction, it’s important to consider that sleep drive always wins in the end — we cannot stay awake indefinitely! So, if you allot an appropriate amount of time for sleep and only allow yourself to sleep during that time, that is when you will sleep.
When you observe an appropriate and consistent sleep window, you will recognize a stronger sense of sleepiness at night and spend less time awake during the night. This will usually lead to less sleep-related worry and anxiety, and this leads to better sleep, which leads to less 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.
You are not alone, MB!
If you are in bed awake at night and your mind is racing and being in bed is unpleasant, it’s usually a good idea to get out of bed and do something you find relaxing and enjoyable until you feel calm and relaxed. Then, return to bed and see what happens.
One of the best ways to reduce the amount of time you spend awake during the night is to make sure you are not allotting too much time for sleep. What time do you currently go to bed at night and when do you get out of bed to start your day in the morning? How many hours of sleep do you 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 AK and welcome to the forum. It sounds to me as though hyperarousal might be playing a role in your current difficulties with sleep. That’s because it’s clear from your post that you are (quite understandably!) paying a lot of attention to sleep.
I can also see a lot of sleep efforts such as taking supplements, meditation routines, and the implementation of sleep hygiene techniques.
Unfortunately, all these things can actually make sleep more difficult!
First of all, I think you would find it very helpful not to check the time or pay any attention to the time between getting into bed and getting out of bed. Checking the time during the night rarely helps us fall back to sleep if we have any concern about sleep!
Bear in mind, too, that waking during the night is completely normal! Most people pay no attention to these awakenings so they fall back to sleep very quickly and rarely even remember them. Unfortunately, as soon as we become concerned with these awakenings, we activate the arousal system and this can make it harder to fall back to sleep.
Another thing that can be helpful with nighttime awakenings is simply to allot an appropriate amount of time for sleep. You mentioned a bedtime between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM and a wake time between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM. This means you are allotting between seven and nine hours for sleep.
I would suggest figuring out your average nightly sleep duration taken over a week or two, adding half-hour or so to that and allotting that much time for sleep each night for a few weeks. This should help build sleep drive and reduce the amount of time you spend awake during the night.
Getting out of bed when being in bed becomes unpleasant is also helpful over the long-term since it prevents you from reinforcing the idea that the bed is a place for unpleasant wakefulness rather than sleep.
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.
