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Hello Stacie and welcome to the forum — you are not alone!
It sounds as though you have some understandable concerns when it comes to using medication and they might be best discussed with your doctor.
What I can tell you is that there’s no right or wrong answers here; you are the expert on you and you will always make the decision that is right for you.
Have you explored any alternatives to medication, if you feel that’s an option you won’t wish to pursue at the current time?
—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 questions about the sleep window (I’ve merged them both into this topic to keep things organized)!
For figuring out an initial sleep window, I usually suggest considering your average nightly sleep duration over the past week or two. If that doesn’t make things any clearer you can simply start with a sleep window of 6 hours and go from there.
As for what to do when you are awake, it might be worth asking yourself this — what is your intention? What are you trying to achieve? That might help you determine the workability of your plan and the actions you might engage in.
When it comes to your second question/point — it’s very common to feel really sleepy and then go to bed and feel anxious and wide awake. That’s your brain doing its job of looking out for you, trying to protect you. Since you’ve struggled so often with wakefulness your brain sees it as a threat that it needs to be alert to protect you from (thanks, brain!).
Since your experience tells you that you cannot directly or permanently control what your brain chooses to do (just as you cannot directly or permanently control sleep itself), we know that’s not going to be a workable strategy.
So, let’s consider what can be controlled — actions. Through our actions, how can we struggle less with being awake when we want to be asleep. Through our actions, how can we train the brain that being awake isn’t a threat it needs to protect us from?
We’ll explore this in a lot more detail in Week 2 but in the meantime, perhaps engaging in another activity as an alternative to struggle (you can do this in bed if you like!) might help you build some skill in experiencing wakefulness with a little bit less struggle and also help train your brain that being awake isn’t a danger.
There’s no need to pretend you aren’t upset or even terrified — all those feelings are valid and fighting difficult thoughts and feelings typically makes them more difficult and gives them more power and influence. An alternative might be to acknowledge them, allow them to come and go as they choose, and be kind to yourself.
Again, this will all be explored in a lot more detail from Week 2 onward, but I hope there’s something useful here in the meantime!
—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.
Speed bumps might be a more accurate way to describe difficult nights versus “relapse” since “relapse” might suggest that we are back to where we began and that’s never the case!
At this point, everyone here has tools available (and hopefully some practice under their belts) that will help them respond in a different, more workable way, compared to the past.
As you pointed out @paulasim5, it’s hard to shut the problem-solving mind off — in fact, I’d suggest it’s impossible. And, thank goodness for that because if we could shut the problem-solving mind off or stop it from monitoring, none of us would be alive today!
The more we try to control our minds (or sleep) the more likely we are to find ourselves struggling — and that struggle consumes so much energy and attention, makes things more difficult, and makes it harder for us to live the life we want to live.
It’s great that you are continuing to do things that matter to you, independently of sleep. You are drawing on your strengths of tenacity, commitment, and resilience. Perhaps the final pieces of the jigsaw might involve continuing to practice moving away from trying to control your mind (or sleep) and continuing to build skill in self-kindness and self-compassion.
Difficult nights are difficult and they are not your fault. They can also be an opportunity to practice building skill in responding in a more workable way and proving to yourself that you can continue to move toward the life you want to live, independently of sleep (even though that’s not always easy to do).
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.
Thank you so much for sharing! You are experiencing change due to your willingness and commitment to make change happen through ongoing practice. That’s not easy!
It sounds as though insomnia is losing its power and influence over your life and that you are better able to live the life you want to live, independently of sleep.
Your actions now serve you — rather than the invisible insomnia gremlin
—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 Chantal!
Your recognition that “good” and “bad” are labels that can so easily change our relationship and interpretation of things is a huge insight — for example, we often label anxiety as “bad”. Is anxiety “bad” when it stops us from jumping off the viewing platform of a skyscraper? Is it “bad” when it makes us double-check that the batteries in our smoke alarms are still working?
To answer your question about looking at insomnia in a loving way — that might not be straightforward! If I gave you a million dollars to fall in love with the next person you saw in the street, would you be able to fall in love with them? What if they were an axe murderer, a bigot, or a racist? Would you be able to fall in love with them then, for a million dollars?
If not, perhaps this suggests that feelings cannot always be controlled. We can choose how we label things but we might not be able to choose whether we like them or not. Perhaps what matters most is how we respond to difficult things that are out of our control.
Do we respond by trying to fight or avoid them and, in consequence, struggle more and get distracted from where we are, what we are doing, what we want to do, and actions that matter to us?
Or, do we respond by acknowledging them, being kind to ourselves, allowing them to come and go as they choose, and refocusing our attention on where we are and committing to actions that keep us moving toward the life we want to live?
Finally, perhaps there’s some “good stuff” that comes with insomnia(!) — what does it teach you about yourself, how you see yourself, what you can accomplish, your resilience; what opportunities for personal growth and development does it offer?
Is there anything useful here, Chantal?
—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.
Glad you loved Week 1!
I admire your enthusiasm to keep moving through the course — however, it’s not possible for that to happen.
That’s because consuming information is one thing. Putting it into action and making change happen is where the magic is. Actually using the information and putting it into practice is what matters and is how we make progress.
Therefore, there’s an intentional gap between each section of the course to give you the chance to practice what you are learning.
—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 know we have communicated privately but for the benefit of anyone in a similar situation, here are a few things to consider:
1. Difficult nights (especially after a long stretch of better nights) can be frustrating and disappointing and can generate lots of difficult thoughts and feelings. It can be helpful to acknowledge that this feels difficult because it is difficult.
2. Since sleep cannot be controlled, it might not be helpful to measure progress based on how we sleep from night to night. A more useful measure of progress might involve things we can control — our actions. How are we acting toward sleep and in response to difficult nights? Are we engaged in actions and building skills that help us deal with this difficult stuff in a workable way? If so, that’s progress!
3. Acknowledgement isn’t supposed to change our thoughts or feelings. Instead, it’s supposed to help us build skill in experiencing them with less struggle. When there’s less struggle, they consume less of our attention, lose their power and influence, and we are better able to engage in the world around us regardless of whether they are present or not. If our goal is to change or eliminate our thoughts and feelings, we’re going to continue to struggle.
4. Please never forget or gloss over the importance of self-kindness. Be kind to yourself when things are hard — and try to acknowledge the presence of any bright spots or insights. When things are particularly difficult, there’s often a lot we can learn — and we can use what we learn to keep moving forward.
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.
Thank you so much for sharing, Rosa! It sounds as though you have found it particularly helpful to be kinder to yourself and to put less pressure on yourself to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen.
As you pointed out, you now have tools and skills that will be with you forever — so you always know how you can respond to difficult nights and the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with (and after!) them in a workable way any time in the future
—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 the ulcer, @dorsalis_pedis — many people can trace the start of their insomnia struggle to a medical issue since they often come with lots of difficult thoughts and feelings and sleep disruption.
Those things can then pull us into efforts to fight or avoid and, before we know it, we are in the vicious cycle of struggle.
Any questions about medication should be answered by your prescribing doctor. Is trying to sleep without Ambien and then taking it when sleep doesn’t happen a strategy that seems to be helping 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.
Hello @Saralili and thanks for the great question!
The content of the course is the same, regardless of whether you choose the self-coaching or the 1-on-1 email coaching access option.
The difference is that with the 1-on-1 option, you get eight weeks of unlimited email access to me so you can reach out any time you have a question or a concern, any time you think you might benefit from some additional coaching or support, any time you want to explore a specific challenge or issue.
In other words, with the 1-on-1 option you get to work through the course with me by your side.
Does this answer your question?
—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 appreciate your ongoing openness and willingness to continue exploring this! Your honest communication is a reflection of your growth mindset
If your goal with the AWAKE exercise is to calm your mind down a bit, or to make relaxation or sleep happen, that might be where you are getting a bit tangled up — as you know from experience, you cannot directly or permanently control your mind (or your sleep). The more you try, the more you can set yourself up for a struggle.
The goal of the AWAKE exercise is to practice building skill in experiencing wakefulness and all the thoughts and feelings that can come with being awake with less struggle. Being more of a curious observer rather than an opponent. If you use the exercise in an effort to change your thoughts or feelings or to make sleep happen, you probably aren’t going to get much from it.
It sure is hard to do things that are aligned with your values and goals after difficult nights and when difficult thoughts and feelings show up during the day — no doubt about it! And yet, you did it! What strengths did you draw upon to make that happen and what did you learn from continuing to do things that matter to 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.
There’s so much great stuff here!
The big insight that seems to have emerged from this discussion is control. When we stop trying to control what cannot be controlled — when we acknowledge and observe instead of battle — things might start to get a bit easier
And yes, every night IS a fresh start!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing, @edlung — and good on you for continuing to practice the tools shared in the course. You mentioned you are getting better and better and accepting wakefulness at night — can you share a bit more about that? When you are accepting wakefulness, what are you doing and how is that different to what you were doing before? How is acceptance benefitting you?
As you know from experience, sleep cannot be controlled. What makes sleep more difficult is trying. Putting effort into it. Putting pressure on ourselves to make it happen. Having goals related to sleep (such as falling asleep within x amount of time, getting x amount of sleep, not waking during the night, etc).
For as long as our focus remains on trying to achieve a certain amount or type of sleep, things might continue to be difficult — even as we practice acceptance of wakefulness. And, that’s because, deep down, we are still trying to control sleep.
Finally, I will add that many people find their relationship with sleep changes before their actual sleep changes. They become more comfortable with being awake before they notice sleep itself changing.
I hope there might be something useful here and I appreciate your openness and curiosity!
PS: Thanks, Dan, for sharing your thoughts on sleepiness vs fatigue! That’s a great point since it’s so easy to go to bed when we are fatigued rather than sleepy and that can set us up for frustration and struggle
—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.
Struggle doesn’t magically disappear — we’re going to get drawn into the struggle from time to time. It’s a well-trodden path and can often feel almost automatic — difficult thoughts/feelings show up, we are awake when we don’t want to be, and we respond by battling. It feels like battling is action. I guess it is, in a way — but it’s not really workable action because it’s a battle we’re always going to lose.
So, what matters is ongoing practice. Accepting that we’re going to get drawn back into the struggle (sometimes over and over again) and, when that happens, being kind to ourselves and kindly bringing ourselves back to being an observer rather than an opponent.
As we become more accepting of our thoughts and feelings, we might notice more thoughts and feelings show up because we aren’t trying to dam the river of thoughts any more — we’re letting that river flow without resistance!
Ultimately, thoughts and feelings themselves aren’t really the problem — it’s how we respond to them that can make them a problem!
I hope this helps, and appreciate the supportive words and experience shared by @SCTwo and @Packer-Fan!
—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.
Since sleep is completely out of your control and since we cannot predict the future, there’s no answer to your question.
What matters is how you respond to being awake, how you respond to the difficult thoughts and feelings that show up, and what you do each day. All those things are in your control and all of those things determine whether you move toward the life you want to live or away from the life you want to live.
If wakefulness isn’t a struggle, if thoughts and feelings don’t pull you away from where you are or what you want to do, if you do things that are aligned with your values and move you toward the life you want to live each day, perhaps it doesn’t matter all that much how “good” or “bad” your sleep is from night to night?
And, if your goal is to fall back to sleep when you wake, perhaps that might be something that’s setting you up for a bit of a struggle and creating a bit of an obstacle?
—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.
