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If your sleep is being disrupted exclusively because of the medication you are on, behavioral techniques such as stimulus control (getting out of bed when unable to sleep) may not be as helpful as we would otherwise expect.
When did you start taking the medication and how long are you expected to be taking it for? Is sleep disruption a known side-effect of the medication?
—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, Be2Slow — and I am really sorry to hear about your ongoing struggles with sleep.
First of all, if you are going to bed around 11:00 PM but not getting out of bed until around 8:00 AM, this is something you can address right away.
Ideally, the amount of time between when you go to bed at night and when you get out of bed in the morning should be very close to your typical nightly sleep duration. This helps build sleep drive and leads to more consolidated sleep — which can really help address those feelings of daytime fatigue.
Here’s a video about the “sleep window”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUO4bmoD5XI
Another technique is to either get out of bed when you can’t sleep and only go back to bed when you feel sleepy enough for sleep (stimulus control), or to sit up in bed when you can’t sleep and read a book until you feel sleepy again, then lie back down and repeat the process (countercontrol).
Here’s a video about stimulus control:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ndAEIjZ7IA
Here’s a video about countercontrol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G00ZESFVMDI
Have you tried 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.
Welcome to the forum, aiva. Did any of your sleep specialists or psychologists mention or suggest cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)?
CBT-I techniques are particularly helpful at combatting conditioned arousal — not just because of the behavioral techniques that are used, but also because of the sleep education you receive which can really help address any incorrect or inappropriate sleep-related thoughts and beliefs.
—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, michaelhuynh.
First of all, you can combat the problem of not being tired enough for sleep by only going to bed when you feel sleepy enough for sleep. This sounds like common sense, but it is very easy to confuse fatigue for sleepiness and, therefore, go to bed before you are ready for sleep.
More on the difference between fatigue and sleepiness in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KwrOcyUBt0
You would likely benefit from implementing a few CBT-I techniques — specifically, making sure you are allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep, always getting out of bed by the same time every day, and getting out of bed when unable to sleep.
Finally, remember that relaxation techniques (such as breathing exercises) are intended to help you relax. They aren’t intended to help you sleep. Also bear in mind that relaxation is a skill, that requires practice.
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 am so sorry to hear about your struggles with anxiety and sleep. It sounds as though you have a very high level of conditioned arousal and this is probably why your anxiety skyrockets as bedtime approaches.
Are you currently seeing a therapist for your 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.
Long flights will always disrupt sleep. Even good sleepers will struggle with sleep after crossing timezones.
It has been suggested that for every timezone we cross, it takes the body a day to adapt. The best advice is to simply expect your sleep to be disrupted (because this is normal).
You can help to minimize the disruption by staying awake until it’s nighttime if you land at your destination in the daytime, and going to bed as soon as you get to your accommodation if you land at your destination at night.
When you go to bed, set an alarm so you are up in the morning at your normal wake-up time, then try to continue with a somewhat regular sleep schedule from that point on.
Finally, focus on fun, rather than sleep!
I hope this helps. If you have any questions about CBT-I, feel free to contact me directly.
—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.
First of all, great to hear that you are taking time to unwind before bed. That’s important and something many people overlook.
The body jerks you feel could be hypnic jerks, which are harmless:
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/jerking-self-awake-when-falling-asleep/
They could also be a “hyperarousal response” to normal physiological changes that occur as we fall asleep:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owKbQJOHezs
If you’re typically going to bed between 11:00 PM and 12:00 AM and getting out of bed between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM, this means you are allotting between seven and 10 hours for sleep. This is a lot of time to be allotting for sleep, especially if you feel that you don’t usually manage more than six hours of sleep.
You would also likely benefit from making sure you get out of bed by the same time every day since this has a huge influence on sleep. Getting out of bed at different times can reduce sleep drive — meaning that sleep might be more difficult the following night — and it can leave us with all the symptoms of jet lag since our body clock cannot follow a regular, predictable rhythm.
Since one of the biggest complaints associated with insomnia is fatigue, and one of the biggest complaints associated with jet lag is fatigue, we can recognize that an inconsistent sleep schedule has a big influence on sleep quality and how we feel during the day.
I think you would benefit from keeping a basic sleep diary for a week, calculating your average nightly sleep duration and creating a sleep window based on this.
Here’s a basic sleep diary you can use:
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/insomnia-coach/Short+Sleep+Diary.pdf
Make sure you don’t go to bed before your new sleep window starts, and only go to bed once you feel sleepy. However, no matter what happens, make sure you are always out of bed by the end of your sleep window every day.
I hope this gives you a good starting point!
—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 jax1234, and I’m sorry to hear about your struggle with sleep. Can you describe a typical night for us? When do you normally go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed in the morning, and roughly how many hours of sleep do you feel 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.
Welcome to the forum, Jen. Can you tell us a bit more about your sleep? What is a typical night like for 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.
It’s impossible to answer this question, Steve, because everyone’s circumstances are different and everyone needs a different amount of sleep. In other words (and as an example) you aren’t going to learn much if you compare someone who has had insomnia for 40 years and only needs 6 hours of sleep with someone who has had insomnia for 40 weeks but needs 7 hours of sleep.
Comparing yourself to others isn’t helpful because you aren’t the same as others. This is not all that different to comparing your shoe size with that of others, and then being concerned by the size of your feet!
Furthermore, expecting or aiming to get a certain amount of sleep isn’t constructive because we have absolutely no control over sleep duration. It’s far better to evaluate your success based on sleep quality — and this is primarily determined by how you feel during the day.
Finally, please remember that fatigue is not the same as sleepiness.
—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, Nao!
Your concerns about the half hour-half hour rule (stimulus control) are understandable — however, implementing this technique doesn’t lead to you training yourself to be out of bed during the night or out of bed earlier than your sleep window ends.
What it does do is train you to associate the bed with sleep, and nothing else. The only way to do this is to make sure that all you do in bed is sleep, and nothing else. So, if you are in bed and not sleeping, you get out of bed until you feel sleepy again, then get back into bed and repeat the process.
This technique also helps build sleep drive in the short-term, making sleep more likely on subsequent nights. It also leads to far less mental fatigue because, instead of being in bed tossing and turning, worrying about sleep, you know exactly what to do — you get out of bed until you feel sleepy again.
This can actually be a very empowering technique — because when you get out of bed, it’s impossible for insomnia to win because you aren’t actively ‘trying’ to sleep.
Many people worry about the sleep window restricting sleep, but the fact of the matter is an appropriate sleep window is always longer than your average nightly sleep duration. So, it doesn’t restrict sleep (which is why ‘sleep restriction‘ is an awful term) — instead, it helps build sleep drive and consolidates sleep.
Consolidated sleep is far more restorative than fragmented sleep, and this is why a shorter chunk of good sleep is far more beneficial and helps you feel far more refreshed in the morning than a really long period of light and fragmented sleep.
The sleep window doesn’t hold you back from making progress, it helps you make progress. Keeping this in mind can help alleviate any concerns you have about the technique.
I find it hard to get people to contribute to the forum when their sleep starts to improve because most people see little reason to be involved in an insomnia forum when they no longer have insomnia! However, I can link to a few encouraging posts for you:
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/please-help-2/#post-28911
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/sleep-restriction-or-act-for-insomnia/page/15/#post-28703
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/sleep-restriction-or-act-for-insomnia/page/16/#post-28775
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/difficulty-falling-asleep/#post-28777
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/6-months-after-completing-martins-course/
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/cbt-insomnia/#post-28681
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/you-can-do-it/
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/martin-reeds-insomnia-course/#post-23706
I’ll also ‘tag’ some individual members in the hope they might be able to jump in and offer some tips and reassurance:
@karenp | @preeced | @s-flaherty | @IngridS | @craig50 | @elcidI hope this helps, and that others can chime in with their experiences, suggestions, and some support!
—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.
So glad to hear this, Monica — do keep in touch and keep us all updated!
—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, J.C. and I’m sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep. When you wake during the night (which is actually part of normal sleep), why do you think you are struggling to fall back to sleep?
At the current time, when do you go to bed at night and when do you get out of bed to start your day in the morning? On a typical night, how many hours of sleep would you say you get?
Thank you for the kind words and the recommendation, @richard!
—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.
Ultimately, you should be making time for nighttime sleep if at all possible. You say that you have too many lessons for this to happen — if that’s really the case, then you can try making up for lost sleep by taking naps during the day since it doesn’t sound as though insomnia is a problem for you (people with insomnia have enough time for sleep but struggle to sleep during that 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.
You mentioned that you have tried everything — but have you tried only going to bed when you feel sleepy enough for sleep (rather than going to bed just because that’s when you boyfriend goes to bed)? Have you tried not sleeping on the couch? Have you tried following a regular (and appropriate) sleep window? Have you tried implementing any cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques?
In your most recent reply, you mentioned that you work shifts — this is a big insight that was not mentioned in your opening post. Do your shifts regularly change? What kind of various shifts do you work? Shiftwork has a huge impact on sleep since it can prevent the body from following a regular sleep/wake cycle.
—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.
