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“Sunday night insomnia” is quite common and is usually the result of weekend lie-ins and/or a stressful job.
Do you follow a consistent sleep schedule every day of the week?
—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.
What is it, specifically, about the sleep window that causes you anxiety? When you start to feel anxious, what is going through your mind?
Identifying the underlying thought that is triggering the anxiety is the first step towards addressing the anxiety.
—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 not sure it’s biologically possible to average one hour of sleep every night for nine weeks. I suspect you may be getting a little bit more sleep than you think you are — it might be worth considering whether you are experiencing paradoxical 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.
Great to hear that you’re no longer checking the clock when you wake! I think the fact you no longer worry about your nighttime awakenings is key to your recent improvement.
As you have also experienced, sleep restriction can really help build sleep drive and observing a regular (and appropriate) sleep window also helps the body clock follow a predictable rhythm. The result is less time awake during the night — and this means less time available for worrying about sleep, too!
Going to bed after the sleep window starts isn’t a big deal, and in fact it can be a good idea if you don’t feel sleepy enough for sleep when the sleep window begins. The real key is to try making sure you are always out of bed by the end of your sleep window so your body clock has a consistent morning anchor and you allow enough time for sleep drive to build during the day.
To answer your final question, you might find it harder to fall back to sleep when you wake between 4:30 AM and 5:20 AM because sleep drive is low by this point. When you combine a significantly reduced level of sleepiness with any remaining sleep-related worry or anxiety, it can be hard to fall back to sleep.
Finally, it’s important to bear in mind that it’s completely normal to wake during the night — it is our response to these awakenings that determine how easy (or hard) it will be to fall back to 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.
Hello Tracy and welcome to the forum! Sorry to hear about your 22-year history with insomnia and anxiety. As you have experienced for yourself, medication isn’t a long-term solution for insomnia!
Have you tried implementing cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques?
You might find it helpful (and reassuring) to listen to Episode 2 of the Insomnia Coach Podcast — in that episode, I talk to Ann who had insomnia for over 30 years and managed to get her sleep back on track using 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.
Sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep since you were prescribed BP medication (to clarify, are you referring to blood pressure medication)?
How long ago were you prescribed this medication and when did you stop taking it? Have you spoken to your prescribing physician about the insomnia you have been experiencing since they issued you the prescription?
—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.
My pleasure!
—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 Damien, and welcome to the forum.
I think you would find it really helpful to implement cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques because they specifically target the perpetuating factors behind insomnia that make it hard to get sleep back on track.
I see many examples of thoughts and behaviors that perpetuate insomnia in your post — these include worry about the effects of insufficient sleep, ruminating about sleep, experimenting with various sleep crutches (such as alcohol or supplements), sleeping somewhere other than your own bed, and sleep effort (in other words, “trying” to sleep).
It sounds as though your experience with insomnia has led to conditioned arousal/anxiety, too. In other words, you have learned to associate your own bed with wakefulness and worry rather than sleep and relaxation. CBT-I techniques are also helpful at addressing this conditioned arousal (just as you learned to see your bed as a place for wakefulness and worry, you can “unlearn” this, too).
You have managed to get your sleep back on track in the past, so I have little doubt that you will be able to do so again — and following a structured plan (or road map) such as the implementation of CBT-I techniques can be very helpful when it comes to improving 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.
Sorry to hear about your struggle with nighttime awakenings. When you wake during the night, what do you think is stopping you from falling back to sleep relatively quickly?
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 would you say 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.
In your case, Insoluble, this could still be a symptom of hyperarousal — you might be self-monitoring for sleep and, at the very moment you are about to (or do) fall asleep, your brain fires into action to tell you it was successful.
If you think I am missing the mark here, please describe your “mental hypnic jerks” in a bit more detail for me!
—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 Amanda, and welcome to the forum.
It would be extremely unusual to go for seven days and get absolutely no sleep at all. So, I suspect it’s quite likely that you are getting a bit more sleep than you think you are — especially when we consider that your partner has reported seeing you sleep!
So, at the very least, this should serve as some reassurance.
From what you’ve described, it sounds as though you may be experiencing paradoxical insomnia.
Here’s a good description of paradoxical insomnia from a patient’s perspective.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques can be helpful for paradoxical insomnia since they include sleep education — and this can really help address any incorrect and/or inappropriate thoughts and beliefs that surround sleep.
Furthermore, when you combine sleep education with other CBT-I techniques such as sleep restriction and stimulus control, sleep often becomes more consolidated and this improves sleep quality, helping you feel better during the day and this can often help you more accurately recognize/evaluate the amount (and quality) of sleep you are getting.
I hope this helps.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
I’m sorry to hear about your accident and your ongoing struggle with sleep. Have you discussed cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) with your doctor as an alternative (or addition) to sleep medication?
What time do you currently go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed to start your day, and roughly how many hours of sleep would you say you get on a typical night? When you wake during the night, do you find it hard to fall back to 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.
Sorry to hear about your sleep-related anxiety, ghost1951. This is very common among those of us with insomnia. It’s to be expected, too — after repeated nights of poor sleep, worry, frustration, and anxiety, we come to associate the entire process of going to bed with unpleasantness, and even the very thought of going to bed can lead to anxiety.
Have you looked into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) as a way to improve your sleep for the long term?
CBT-I techniques can be very helpful since they address the perpetuating factors behind insomnia that feed into our sleep-related worry and anxiety.
—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.
Very few people actually get eight hours of sleep — six hours is probably more common among the general population!
Most cases of insomnia begin in a way that’s similar to what you have described. A specific event leads to worry, stress, or anxiety — and sleep is (quite expectedly) disrupted. Usually, sleep recovers by itself but sometimes it doesn’t.
When the sleep disruption continues for the longer-term, it’s usually because of our response to the initial sleep disruption. For example, we can start to worry about our sleep, we can start to research sleep and put more effort and thought into sleep than we ever did before. We might also be tempted to compensate for lost sleep by conserving energy or canceling plans.
Unfortunately, all these responses perpetuate the problem and turn short-term sleep disruption into a longer-term problem.
The good news is, we never lose our ability to sleep — and we can use the core biological mechanisms behind sleep to override sleep-related worry and anxiety and help set the stage for sleep.
Have you tried implementing CBT-I techniques to get your sleep back on track?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
I think you will find it very helpful to allot less time for sleep — you mentioned that you go to bed at 2:00 AM and get out of bed at 2:00 PM. So, you are allotting 12 hours for sleep.
Let’s say your average nightly sleep duration is around five hours — by spending 12 hours in bed, all you are doing is guaranteeing yourself seven hours of wakefulness. This is not only unpleasant but it activates the arousal system and leads to all the symptoms of anxiety that you have described.
I would suggest that you read the page on sleep restriction and start to observe a regular and appropriate sleep window. This will help build sleep drive, give the body clock an appropriate morning anchor, reduce the amount of time you spend awake, consolidate your sleep, and reduce sleep-related worry and anxiety.
I hope this helps!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
