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An inconsistent schedule can make it hard to implement or practice any kind of consistent sleep window. You clearly have the superpower of problem-solving as you are trying to create a more consistent work schedule!
All human beings generate sleep pressure — it builds with every minute of wakefulness. And, sleep pressure can be suspended to keep us alive when a threat or a danger is present (thanks, brain)! When we have a lot of experience battling with insomnia, the brain can believe that being awake is a threat.
I am yet to meet anyone who has complete control over their minds so we probably can’t switch the brain off and make sleep happen upon command. Luckily we can always control our actions.
So, perhaps the way forward here is to focus on how we choose to respond to being awake when we’d rather be asleep. Do we continue to battle away (and reinforce the idea that being awake is a threat and a danger) or do we explore how we might experience being awake with less struggle (and also train the brain that being awake isn’t a threat or a danger)?
Travel can make keeping a sleep window more difficult and it’s up to you whether or not you choose to maintain a sleep window while away. Perhaps what matters most is the fact you will be traveling, doing things that matter, and living life? I suspect that might have more of an impact on your life and be more memorable in 100 years compared to how you slept!
To answer your final question: sleepiness is difficulty staying awake. Fatigue is feeling exhausted, worn-out, or “running on empty”.
I hope there’s something 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.
The puzzle pieces you’ve been missing are already within you — hopefully the course helps you tease them out 🙂
It sounds as though, even this early on in the course, you are pulling out some important insights — and that’s thanks to your strengths of self-reflection, curiosity, and commitment to action!
You have already learned that there’s no need to get out of bed just because you are awake. You’ve learned that you can stay in bed. You’ve learned that you prefer to stay in bed. You’ve learned that you can start dismantling rules and rituals that don’t serve you.
You’ve learned you have options. And, you’re just getting started!
Thank you for sharing!
—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.
Only you know if it’s OK to fall asleep on the couch or not, since you are the expert on you! Sleep doesn’t need (or want) rules — rules are control behaviors and sleep cannot be controlled!
If you have anxious thoughts that means you are a human being because all human beings experience anxiety. And, all human beings sleep.
So, perhaps this means that sleep is possible even when anxious thoughts exist?
—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 Shila! As you learned from Lu, you are not alone! There are ups and downs on all journeys — especially ones that matter!
If you are assessing progress based on the presence or intensity of anxiety, you might find yourself continuing to struggle — because when we try to fight or avoid anxiety we can get anxious about the possibility of anxiety showing up! To avoid something, we need to look for it. And, anxiety is a feeling that cannot be switched off through effort (trying only makes it more difficult and more powerful, right?).
A more useful way to measure progress might be reflecting on what you are learning as you change your approach to all this difficult stuff. Another way to measure progress might be reflecting on how you respond to wakefulness and how you respond to the presence of natural and normal difficult thoughts and feelings.
Are you trying to fight or avoid them (and where does that usually get you) or are you practicing and building skill in acknowledging them and allowing them to be present (so they might start to lose their power and influence over you)?
There’s a whole load of learning experience in your post — experience you can draw on and use to keep moving forward. Might I suggest reading through your post again with a kind and curious mind? What positives do you see there? What important information do you see there?
Imagine someone you loved dearly posted that message. What strengths do you see from that person who posted? What might you say to them to support them and keep them moving closer to where they 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.
It can take time to adjust to a new sleep schedule. Does going to bed later at night feel more aligned with how you want to live your life? If not, perhaps it’s OK to continue going to bed earlier at night. If not, perhaps it’s worthing committing to that action. You are the expert on you!
Remember that a sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. It’s simply a tool that can help you move away from chasing after sleep — something that makes it more difficult!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing that you are noticing progress and learning from what you are doing! It sounds as though you are finding the buffer zone particularly helpful.
Sleep doesn’t care what we think or how we think — it cares about whether our actions are trying to control it! And, when we try to control sleep, sleep becomes a lot more difficult!
It’s great to hear that you are playing around with the AWAKE and NOW exercises. Remember that they aren’t supposed to stop your mind racing or to stop it from doing whatever it chooses to do. As you know from experience, trying to control your mind only creates a struggle that makes things more difficult.
It’s natural and normal to find your mind wandering, especially during the AWAKE exercise. That’s simply an opportunity to practice acknowledging your mind is wandering and kindly bringing it back to the practice.
You are learning new skills — and new skills take time and ongoing practice. And, like all skills, they are hard before they become easy!
—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.
Only you know if your actions are sustainable since you are the expert on you! What is your goal when you get out of bed during the night? In other words, when you choose to get out of bed, what are you trying to achieve?
—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.
Congratulations on your commitment to meaningful action!
That trip to Punta Cana sounds fantastic and will no doubt be something that will enrich your life and provide you with lifelong memories. In 100 years from now, you might be more likely to remember experiences like that rather than how you slept at night!
You are clearly doing more of what matters to you, independently of sleep. Your actions are serving you and the life you want to live. This, in turn, reduces the power and influence that anxiety and insomnia has over your life.
As you shared, this doesn’t magically transform everything into sunshine and roses! Yet, you are continuing to move closer to the life you want to live. You are heading in the direction you want to be heading. You are also practicing a radically different approach and new skills — and they’ll take time and ongoing practice to develop.
That difficult night gave you the opportunity to practice responding in a way you want to respond — and to learn, too. It’s good to know you are feeling proud of yourself, because you should be feeling proud of yourself! What you are doing isn’t easy. It’s hard. It can be scary, too. You are taking action and you are learning from your actions. 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 panic attack was clearly a very scary experience and so it makes sense that you are on edge, afraid they’ll return or escalate into something even bigger.
What do you think is the best way forward? What does your own experience have to tell you about whether thoughts and feelings (including really intense ones) are within your control? What does your own experience have to tell you about whether your actions are within your control?
Finally, would you like me to share a book recommendation related to dealing with panic attacks that is closely aligned with the philosophy shared in this 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.
Thanks for sharing! Through your strengths of self-reflection and curiosity you realized your experience was telling you that sleep isn’t something you make happen. Rather, it’s something that happens to you! And, the more you try to control something that’s out of your control the more you struggle and the more difficult everything becomes.
To break out of that ongoing and endless loop, you changed your approach. You focused on action. You deliberately and consciously chose actions that would serve you (rather than choosing actions in an attempt to serve sleep).
As you did this, you learned more. You reinforced the insights you were gaining.
Acceptance cannot be forced — as you shared, acceptance must be genuine and it doesn’t happen overnight! To practice acceptance, we need to practice experiencing acceptance with no motive other than acceptance.
It sounds as though you have given sleep the opportunity to take care of itself and freed up energy and attention to refocus attention on living the kind of life you want to live independently of sleep. That’s all down to you. Congratulations 🙂
—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, anything you do with the intention or goal of controlling something that your experience tells you is out of your control will only create struggle and more difficulty.
For that reason, my course frequently and repeatedly emphasizes that nothing shared is intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen or fight or avoid any kind of thought or feeling.
The tools shared in my course are intended to help you build skill in experiencing wakefulness, thoughts, and feelings with less resistance and attempts to control them so you are better able to experience them without struggle and better able to do things that matter even in their presence.
With that in mind, I am not sure that the approach shared in the Insomnia Coach course is much different from the philosophy Alina seems to have. And, anything and everything in my course is optional and isn’t going to be helpful or right for everyone. You are a unique individual and you are the expert on you. So, you can pick and choose and experiment with whatever tools or exercises you feel might be most appropriate for you.
What matters is the intent behind your actions — because, as you have discovered thanks to your strengths of self-reflection, curiosity, and self-advocacy, trying to control what is out of your control (like sleep, what thoughts your brain generates, what feelings it generates) only creates a struggle that makes all this stuff more difficult.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It sounds as though you have understood how to create a sleep window, Raju 🙂
You start with the time you want/need to be out of bed in the morning. For you, that’s 5:00 AM. Then, if you are usually getting less than six hours of sleep at night, you can start with a sleep window that’s six hours long. Counting six hours back from 5:00 AM gives you an earliest bedtime of 11:00 PM.
So, with a sleep window of 11:00 PM to 5:00 AM, you avoid going to bed (or falling asleep!) before 11:00 PM and you only go to bed after 11:00 PM once you feel sleepy enough for sleep. Then, regardless of how the night goes you are always out of bed by 5:00 AM.
As you practice a new sleep routine your brain is going to generate lots of thoughts and feelings such as anxiety and frustration — that just means it is doing its job of looking out for you (thanks, brain!).
You always get to choose how to respond. If your previous sleep schedule wasn’t working for you, perhaps it’s worth experimenting with a new approach? You get to decide because you are the expert 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.
If you find that watching TV on the couch leads to unintentional sleep, then an alternative activity might be worth playing around with. Often, any activity that requires some movement will make it harder to fall asleep unintentionally.
Those dozes sound light and short so they’re probably not having a huge effect on sleep drive. How long before your sleep window begins do you typically start finding it hard to stay awake?
—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 that you are happy with how things are going so far — you deserve all the credit because you are the one who is learning and taking action. You are doing all the work and change is not easy!
It probably doesn’t matter too much what you decide to do with the sleep window. Remember that it’s nothing more than a tool to help you move away from chasing after sleep. It’s not something that can make a certain amount or type of sleep happen.
So, if you feel you are chasing after sleep and/or the time you spend awake at night is creating a lot of struggle, then extending the sleep window might not be helpful.
If those periods of wakefulness are pretty comfortable and you are feeling sleepy enough for sleep before your sleep window begins or feel your sleep window is reducing the amount of sleep you are getting, then extending it a bit might be useful.
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.
It sounds as though you are learning from your experience, and that means progress is happening 🙂
If your experience tells you that sleep is out of your control, perhaps measuring progress based on how you sleep from night to night might have the potential to create some ongoing struggle?
An alternative might be to measure progress based on what you can control — action! And, with that being said, thanks for sharing that you are playing around with the AWAKE exercise (and you are also learning from what you are doing there, too).
It’s OK to think (you probably can’t stop that from happening for as long as you are alive) and you always have control over your actions and you are the expert on you! There can definitely be a fine line between consuming information and putting it into action versus endlessly consuming information and missing out on life!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
