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Sorry to hear about your issues with sleep. When you wake before the end of your sleep window, what makes you decide whether or not to get out of bed? Do you ever go to bed before the start of your sleep window, or nap during the day?
—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 Karen! Unfortunately, this isn’t my area of expertise (and I suspect that none of our forum members have expertise in this area, either). I would suggest talking to your child’s pediatrician about your concerns.
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.
Welcome to the forum, Aaron. It sounds as though work-related stress is disrupting your sleep and, I suspect, that you have some worry that insufficient sleep might impair your work performance and put your job (and livelihood) at risk. Does this sound accurate?
Ideally, anything you can do to reduce your work stress will no doubt help your sleep improve. Another way you can reduce the power of your arousal system (the system responsible for making it harder for you to fall back to sleep when you wake) is to make sure you are allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep and getting out of bed when you are finding it hard to sleep.
When we allot too much time for sleep and stay in bed “trying” to sleep, we make sleep more difficult and this perpetuates insomnia.
When do you normally go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed to start your day in the morning, and roughly how many hours of sleep do you get on a typical 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.
I don’t think that there are more people out there with insomnia, but I think that more people with insomnia are finding this forum!
Everyone who posts here will get a response — even if that response comes only from me. However, I am only one person so sometimes it takes me a while to write a response since I have to prioritize my time so I am always available for my clients.
Of course, it’s also great to see other members here contribute and respond to others, even if it’s just to lend a sympathetic ear — and I would love to see more of this!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing these kind words, Phil. I know that sometimes my answers to questions can be a bit frustrating because I am so keen to ensure that every client implements CBT-I techniques correctly to help ensure their success.
In addition, without that person looking over your shoulder to keep you accountable, it can be hard to stay consistent with CBT-I techniques when you are first learning them!
As you know, the results you are enjoying are down to your own efforts. I am merely the guide (and, of course, your #1 cheerleader!). Keep going and your sleep will continue to improve — I look forward to another positive update when you reach the one-year anniversary of your graduation!
—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, Gail — glad to hear you are coming off the sleeping pills. Sleeping pills are not an effective long-term solution for chronic insomnia. Instead of looking for an alternative medication, I highly recommend you look into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques.
CBT-I is recommended as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the American College of Physicians, and the British Association for Psychopharmacology. Furthermore, since CBT-I techniques are skills-based, they remain with you for life — so, should sleep issues ever return in the future, you will know exactly what to do to get your sleep back on track.
CBT-I works because it addresses the root cause of most cases of insomnia — incorrect and/or inappropriate sleep-related thoughts and behaviors. When we get rid of the perpetuating factors behind insomnia, sleep improves — and it improves for the long term.
I hope this helps.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Cam37. Welcome to the forum, and let me reassure you that you aren’t alone, that you don’t have to live with insomnia, that your sleep system isn’t “broken”, and that you have not lost the ability to sleep.
It’s normal to feel anxious about the effects of insomnia because the media bombards us with terrifying headlines. Yet, not one single study has found that chronic insomnia causes any health problem whatsoever (if you are still concerned about this, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Dr Daniel Erichsen’s short book “Why We Don’t Sleep“).
Can you tell us a bit more about your current sleep pattern? When do you normally go to bed at night, and when do you normally get out of bed to start your day? Do you typically find it hard to fall asleep at the start of the night, or stay asleep throughout the 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 Joe. Can you tell us a bit more about what you mean when you say it’s a challenge to wake up at the same time every day? Do you mean that you often wake up early in the morning, before you want to be waking up?
Unfortunately, although we can somewhat train ourselves to wake at a similar time each day, we can’t reliably control when we wake. If we wake and no longer feel sleepy, and we don’t feel fatigued during the day, we may have simply got enough sleep.
If, on the other hand, you often wake in the early hours of the morning, find it hard to fall back to sleep, and don’t feel good during the day, there are steps you can take to improve things.
When do you normally go to bed at night and when do you get out of bed to start your day?
—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 want to offer specific recommendations in your brother’s case since he does have a medical history that includes PTSD, OCD, and bipolar disorder.
I usually suggest implementing cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques as the first step for people with chronic insomnia — but with your brother’s history, I would urge you to seek medical advice before going this route.
If nothing else, a doctor or therapist familiar with your brother’s history should be able to tell you whether or not CBT-I might be a suitable intervention.
I hope this helps.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Julie and welcome to the forum. Did your insomnia return as soon as you stopped taking the antidepressants? If so, this could be because you had come to see the pills as something that generated sleep.
In other words, instead of learning to trust your own sleep system, and recognize that you alone were generating sleep, you might have believed that you were only sleeping because of the antidepressants — so, when you stopped taking them you became a lot more alert at night, perhaps self-monitored for sleep, and this made sleep more difficult.
Have you tried implementing CBT for insomnia techniques? I think you will find them helpful since they will help you regain confidence in your own ability to sleep and help address any thoughts or behaviors that might be perpetuating the insomnia.
—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 Tasha. Glad to hear you’re implementing sleep restriction for your insomnia!
It’s not usually very helpful to compare your progress with others since everyone is different. Some people notice improvements relatively quickly, while others take longer. However, if you implement CBT-I techniques consistently, you will notice your sleep improve. Sometimes it can be helpful to focus your attention and efforts on implementation rather than monitoring for results.
What is your current sleep window? Do you find it hard to fall asleep at the start of the night, to stay asleep through the night, or both? Are you combining sleep restriction with other 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.
Everyone here knows what you’re going through, Antman455. Why not share a bit more about your sleep with us, so we might be able to offer some additional guidance and support? What is a typical night like for you? When do you normally go to bed, when do you get out of bed to start your day, and roughly how many hours of sleep do you get on a typical 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 Sablana
First of all, if you were averaging a sleep efficiency of 87%, I am very surprised that you were advised to reduce the amount of time you allot for sleep. Most of the time, it is suggested that at around 85% sleep efficiency we maintain the current sleep window and above 85% sleep efficiency, we look to slightly extend it.
If you were averaging 6 hours and 15 minutes for sleep, and were given a sleep window of 6 hours and 30 minutes, this suggests your therapist was looking for you to reach a sleep efficiency of over 95% which would be extremely high, even for someone with no problems with sleep! That’s because it’s normal for it to take time for us to fall asleep at the start of the night and it’s normal to spend some time awake during the night.
It’s important to bear in mind that sometimes sleep can initially become worse when you start to implement CBT-I techniques — but if you ride out the short-term pain, you will usually start to notice improvements.
Have you heard back from your therapist yet? Why do you feel that the shorter sleep window (which was still longer than your average nightly sleep duration) led to significantly less 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 to the forum, Maggie! It’s not uncommon for people to develop insomnia upon retirement — and that’s often because we no longer have the daytime routine in place that is so important when it comes to regulating our body clocks.
Furthermore, inactivity during the day can make it harder to build sleep drive — so, we might start going to bed before we are sleepy enough for sleep.
Another problem is that we no longer have the daytime distraction that works gives us. So, if we have a bad night, instead of being distracted by the things we need to do during the day, we can spend more time thinking and worrying about sleep, and perhaps even implementing compensatory behaviors in a bid to improve our sleep than can actually make the problem worse.
The good news is that you don’t have to accept a life of insomnia now you have retired! Can you describe an average night for me? When do you normally go to bed at night, when do you normally get out of bed to start your day, and roughly how many hours of sleep do you get on a typical 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.
I am sorry to hear about your ongoing struggle with insomnia, java. When do you normally go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed to start your day, and roughly how many hours of sleep do you get on a typical/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.
