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Hello Borgesbi
Congratulations on the progress you have been making! Your six-week commitment is starting to pay dividends! It is completely normal to continue to experience bad nights of sleep from time to time — because everyone has a bad night of sleep from time to time!
In my experience, when clients go through a course of CBT-I they will typically begin to enjoy more nights of good sleep but one or two “holdout” nights will remain for quite some time. It’s so important to focus your attention on all the good nights rather than the infrequent bad nights and to remain consistent with the techniques that you know are effective.
The more consistent you are with CBT-I techniques, the more consistent your sleep will become. I recorded a short video about these “holdout” nights here: What to do when you still have some bad nights of sleep during/after a course of CBT for insomnia.
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 think you will find CBT-I very helpful since your experience sounds very similar to a typical case of chronic insomnia. Typically, sleep is initially disrupted due to an identifiable issue (such as a thyroid problem) but once the trigger is no longer relevant, sleep doesn’t return to normal.
This usually happens because the sleep disruption we experience leads us to worry about sleep, think more about sleep than we ever used to, and even implement compensatory behaviors or efforts to improve our sleep that can actually make the problem worse and further entrench our insomnia. CBT-I is so effective because it addresses all these issues.
How are you getting on with the self-help books?
—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.
Struggling to stay awake in the few hours before your sleep window then feeling awake when the sleep window arrives is a classic symptom of conditioned arousal. In other words, because of repeated negative experiences when in bed, you have learned that the bed is a place for wakefulness and worry rather than sleep and relaxation.
Here’s a short video I recorded about this: Why you feel so sleepy before the sleep window begins, but feel wide awake as it gets closer.
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 and I am sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep. If it’s not too late I strongly encourage you not to quit your job. I have not worked with one person who quit their job because of insomnia who reflected back on the decision and thought it was a good idea. Most people regret doing this and — in my experience — quitting your job only makes insomnia worse.
That’s because, without a job and the distraction (and structure) it provides, you can end up spending the entire day thinking about sleep, researching sleep, and perhaps even implementing compensatory behaviors that make insomnia worse (such as being inactive, napping during the day, going to bed earlier, and staying in bed later).
The more we adapt our lives to accommodate our insomnia, the stronger we make our insomnia. In other words, the more we give, the more it takes (and the more it demands).
I recorded a short video about this here: Rearranging your life around sleep only feeds your insomnia and makes the problem worse
It would be very unusual for someone with chronic insomnia to fall asleep at the wheel because people with insomnia do not tend to experience excessive daytime sleepiness. People with insomnia are usually described as being “tired but wired”. If you are excessively sleepy during the day (in other words, you sometimes fall asleep without warning) then this suggests you may have a different sleep disorder — such as sleep apnea — or another health condition.
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.
CBT-I can help with early-morning awakenings if you wake during the night and find it hard to fall back to sleep due to high levels of worry/anxiety or just a racing mind.
CBT-I can also be helpful since it helps you allot an appropriate amount of time for sleep at night — if you are allotting too much time for sleep (or not following a regular sleep window) you may have insufficient sleep drive to help you fall back to sleep when you wake during the night.
Lightboxes can be helpful for circadian rhythm sleep disorders but, by themselves, aren’t really a solution for insomnia. A lightbox can be used in the evening as a strategy for delaying sleep if you struggle with microsleeps.
—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.
We can’t control when we fall asleep or how long we sleep each night. One thing we can do is implement a regular (and appropriate) sleep window to make sleep more consolidated. This leads to better sleep quality and more predictable sleep. Once this occurs, we can extend the sleep window to allow for more sleep.
Right now, your best goal is probably to observe an appropriate amount of time for sleep based on your current average nightly sleep duration and go from there.
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.
How are you getting on now? If you are still struggling, please let us know when you normally go to bed at night, when you get out of bed to start your day in the morning, and roughly how many hours of sleep you get on a typical night. We can then start to troubleshoot!
—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. Billions of people are able to sleep without sleep aids — what makes you think you are unable to sleep without them? With this knowledge, we can begin to formulate a plan!
—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 Chris and welcome to the forum. I’m sorry to hear about your ongoing struggle with sleep.
First of all, let me reassure you that falling asleep in five to 15 minutes isn’t actually all that normal! Most good sleepers will fall asleep anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes at the start of the night. I feel this is important to point out because many people with insomnia put undue pressure on themselves to fall asleep within a certain amount of time and this just isn’t helpful!
I actually recorded a short video about this:
Falling asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow and not waking during the night isn’t normal!
You mention that you have tried everything — have you tried cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)?
—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, Patricia. Why do you think you find it hard to fall asleep and fall back to sleep when you wake during 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 Becca. I’m sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep and I know how disappointing and frustrating it can be to go through a good patch of sleep only for sleep issues to return.
The first thing I’d like to remind you of is all the positive progress you’ve made. For four months you slept well — so there’s no reason why you can’t get back to that point again.
Everyone experiences a bad night of sleep again — so we should expect “relapses” rather than become concerned and worried about them. As I suspect you know, as soon as we worry about sleep we make sleep more difficult.
Do you know what triggered your most recent bout of sleep issues? How are you getting on now?
—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, Chris?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
If you feel relaxed and sleepy, then it’s OK to stay in bed since you are likely relaxed and sleepy enough for sleep. If you feel alert, anxious, worried, or frustrated then you should get out of bed. The key is to spend the majority of time in bed asleep rather than awake.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
If you fall asleep immediately but then wake five hours later and find it hard to fall back to sleep, you might benefit from advancing your sleep window so it starts and ends earlier.
Unfortunately, without consistent implementation, CBT-I techniques aren’t going to be very helpful. If you do decide to go all-in and commit to the techniques, you will likely find it helpful to observe a consistent sleep window, get out of bed when unable to sleep, always get out of bed by the same time every day, and not taking a sleeping pill contingently.
—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, Pam. Can you tell us a bit more about your sleep? How are you currently struggling? What is your biggest challenge when it comes 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.
