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Welcome, @Carter72 and thank you for the kind words about the Insomnia Coach YouTube channel!
Those remaining hard nights are very common — I refer to them as “holdout nights” and talked about them in this video: What to do when you still have some bad nights of sleep during/after a course of CBT for insomnia.
The brain will want to dwell on the bad nights (even when they are in the minority) so, to keep yourself feeling positive, it’s important to make a conscious effort to focus your attention on all the good nights.
It can also be helpful to focus your attention on implementing effective techniques to improve your sleep (ie CBT-I techniques) rather than monitoring for results.
I talked about that in this video: If nothing works for your chronic insomnia, try to focus on practicing rather than achieving.
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, Mr.feynman. Has there been any improvement since you posted?
It sounds as though you may be a bit more predisposed to sleep disruption since you mention that you have never been a great sleeper. Then, when you changed jobs and country of residence this triggered an episode of sleep disruption — and this is something to be expected since any major life change can affect sleep.
What can happen at this point is, instead of sleep recovering once we become accustomed to the change or new circumstances, we start to think (and even worry) more about sleep than we did in the past.
We might also do things in a bid to get our sleep back on track that actually make it harder for our sleep to recover. For example, we might start to spend more time in bed, we might spend a lot of time researching insomnia and sleep, we might start putting pressure on ourselves to sleep, or self-monitor for sleep.
Have you tried implementing CBT-I techniques to improve your sleep? CBT-I can be very effective for chronic insomnia since it addresses the perpetuating factors behind insomnia — and, since the techniques are skills-based, once you have learned them and are confident and comfortable with implementing them, they stay with you for the rest of your life. So, if sleep issues return, you know exactly what to do to get your sleep back on track.
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, Lana! I’m glad to hear that you have discovered CBT-I but I’m sorry to hear that it doesn’t begin officially until October — that’s a long time to wait!
CBT-I techniques are helpful whether you are taking sleeping pills or not — so you shouldn’t feel pressured to stop taking sleeping pills when you start a course of CBT-I. The only time sleeping pill use can be a problem is if you take sleeping pills contingently.
You might find this short YouTube video helpful: Does cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) work if you are taking sleeping pills?
Have you tried my free sleep training course? I think you might find it helpful, at least while waiting for your group therapy in October.
—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 with coming off the sleeping pills? Most of us (particularly when insomnia began relatively recently) are able to identify an initial trigger for sleep disruption — in your case, it sounds as though this was the stress of being in hospital.
Typically, when sleep doesn’t resolve on its own there are perpetuating factors at play — things we do in an bid to improve our sleep that often make the problem worse. For example, we might start to spend more time in bed, go to bed earlier, stay in bed later, cancel plans with friends, try to conserve energy, nap during the day, spend time thinking about, researching, and worrying about sleep.
If you recognize any of these factors, you will likely find CBT-I techniques helpful if you are still struggling to get your sleep back on track.
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.
Sorry to hear about your struggle with PLMD, wantok. Unfortunately, CBT-I techniques aren’t intended to address PLMD. Using CBT-I to address anything other than chronic insomnia is unlikely to be helpful. I wish I could offer you some more advice, but this is outside my area of expertise.
—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? Any improvement over the past few weeks? Usually, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques are the best way to improve 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.
Thank you so much for sharing your success story with us all. I am sure that many people will take great comfort from your story. I think that having a wind-down time (what I refer to as a buffer zone) before bed is so important — and it really doesn’t matter too much what you do during this period.
—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.
Are both you and your wife going through a course of CBT for 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.
Unless it’s suspected that you have sleep apnea, a sleep study is unlikely to be particularly helpful. You may want to discuss this with your doctor.
CBT-I is effective for sleep maintenance insomnia as well as sleep-onset insomnia because chronic insomnia is typically perpetuated by sleep drive disruption, circadian rhythm disruption, and/or arousal. CBT-I addresses all three of these factors.
When you wake during the night (which is actually quite normal), what do you think is stopping you from being able to fall back to sleep? If you no longer feel sleepy, it’s possible that you may have simply got enough sleep.
Fatigue is different to sleepiness and is not necessarily a symptom of insufficient sleep. You might find this video helpful:
Daytime fatigue is caused by more than just a bad night of sleep
It sounds as though you are doing a lot of things right, but I can’t offer much more specific advice without knowing a lot more about your history and current sleep pattern.
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, Meg. Do you tend to wake with a jerking movement and feel suddenly wide awake, or do you wake and still feel calm and relaxed and you’re able to fall back to sleep again quite quickly?
—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.
Most people with chronic insomnia have great sleep hygiene! Sleep hygiene is known not to fix chronic insomnia.
When you followed a sleep window of midnight to 6:00 AM for five weeks, did you make sure you didn’t go to bed before midnight, not nap during the day, always get out of bed by 6:00 AM, and always get out of bed during the night when you couldn’t sleep, every single day (without fail) for those five weeks?
If so, how long ago did you try these techniques, and were you being regularly supported by a therapist or coach? Was it explained to you why these techniques can be so helpful or were you expected to simply blindly follow those directions? I think a key to success is understanding why individual CBT-I techniques can be so helpful (and how they work) and having adequate support and guidance throughout implementation.
—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 and I am sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep. The good news is, nothing you have shared in your post sounds unusual and follows quite a similar pattern to how insomnia usually develops.
Since you have always been a night owl and experience anxiety and depression, you may be a bit more predisposed to sleep disruption compared to others. When this sleep disruption occurs, you may also be a bit more likely to worry about it or become concerned about it. This, in turn, can make sleep more difficult.
In addition to the sleep-related worry, we can also try to compensate for sleep disruption by doing things like spending more time in bed, researching sleep and insomnia, canceling plans with friends, trying to conserve energy, etc — and all these behaviors actually perpetuate the problem.
Since you are now out of school for the summer, it’s not surprising that you have noticed your sleep has become worse. When we are less active and not following a schedule, sleep can become more difficult — so, again, nothing really unusual is happening here.
I doubt a sleep study would show anything unless your doctor suspects you have sleep apnea. It might be a good idea to avoid using the Fitbit to measure your sleep because they are notoriously inaccurate when used by people with insomnia and they are unable to accurately measure sleep stages since they do not measure brainwave patterns. Looking at the Fitbit data can increase sleep-related worry and could be making your sleep more difficult.
I would suggest looking into CBT-I techniques since these will help address the perpetuating factors of insomnia and help you improve your sleep 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.
Welcome to the forum, Mrivers322, and I am so sorry to hear that it seems the only “solutions” you have been offered for your insomnia have been medications and supplements. Have you been diagnosed with a medical condition other than chronic insomnia?
The best treatment for chronic insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). I know you have tried a lot of things to improve your sleep. Is CBT-I something you have tried?
—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 the great question @jivangilad. It really doesn’t matter too much what you do when you are out of bed practicing stimulus control during the night. Lying down is perfectly fine as long as you don’t fall asleep when 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.
Welcome to the forum, Mim. @gsdmom asks a great question — if you can recognize a potential cause of your sleep disruption that began four weeks ago, we can work on getting 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.
