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Welcome to the forum! If you follow a sleep schedule of bed at 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM and get out of bed between 11:00 AM and 12:00 PM, do you have any issues with sleep?
If not, you may be experiencing delayed sleep phase syndrome — this is a circadian rhythm issue rather than insomnia. Someone who specializes in circadian rhythm disorders may be able to help you adapt your sleep schedule to more socially acceptable hours.
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.
Good to hear from you again, Phil. So, right now, it sounds as though you are allotting roughly nine hours for sleep (you go to bed at 9:00 PM and get out of bed around 6:00 AM) any you typically manage around four hours of sleep (on a good night).
With this in mind, we can see that you’re likely allotting too much time for sleep compared to your current sleep “capability”.
In other words, right now you are able to generate roughly four hours of sleep (we want this to increase, but right now this is what you are capable of). Spending nine hours in bed is, therefore, only going to lead to five hours of guaranteed wakefulness.
This wakefulness increases sleep-related worry and frustration, leads to lighter and more fragmented sleep, and makes it very hard for you to improve your sleep.
You would likely find it helpful to reduce the amount of time you allot to more closely match the amount of sleep you currently get on a typical night (I’d suggest starting with a sleep window of around five-and-a-half hours).
This will lead to less time awake, more consolidated sleep, and better sleep quality. As sleep quality improves, you will feel better during the day, sleep drive will become stronger, and — over time — you will start to get more sleep.
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.
If you are feeling calm, sleepy, and relaxed, then it might be worth giving yourself some more time to fall back to sleep when you wake during the night. Most “good sleepers” take anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes to fall asleep, and waking during the night is actually quite normal.
—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, Pat. When do you normally go to bed at night? Do you get out of bed at a consistent time each day? When you wake during the night, what do you think is stopping you from falling back to sleep relatively quickly?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Can you tell us a bit more about your sleep, anbapa? 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 get each 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. Overthinking and an overactive mind at night is a common symptom of chronic insomnia. Usually, when you feel alert and wide awake during the night the best thing to do is get out of bed and only return when you feel relaxed and sleepy again. Unfortunately, using your phone during the night is probably not going to be very helpful since this can keep the mind active at a time when you want it to be relaxing!
—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, Phil. Can you tell us a bit more about your current sleep pattern? When do you normally go to bed and when do you normally get out of bed to start your day? When you wake during the night, why do you think you find it hard to fall back to sleep.
As you may be aware, I help people with chronic insomnia improve their sleep and would love to help you if you are looking for some one-on-one guidance, coaching, and support. You can read some success stories and case studies 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.
Welcome to the forum, Felines! When you wake during the night, does it take you a long time to fall back to sleep, or do you tend to fall back to sleep relatively quickly?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
This is actually an important distinction to make because many people with chronic insomnia confuse fatigue with sleepiness. As a result, we are more likely to go to bed before we are sufficiently sleepy (instead, we are very fatigued) and this leads to more time awake in bed, and further strengthening of the negative association between the bed and wakefulness (rather than sleep). This perpetuates insomnia.
One reason why CBT-I techniques are so effective is that they help build short-term sleepiness, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep — and retrain us to recognize the difference between sleepiness and fatigue.
—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 struggles with sleep, Lilli23. The good news is, the way you described how your insomnia developed is in no way unusual.
Sleep becomes disrupted usually due to a recognizable event (in your case, it was probably moving house and work stress). However, instead of sleep recovering when the initial event is no longer an issue, sometimes the sleep problems become entrenched. This usually happens when we start to spend a lot more time thinking (and worrying) about sleep and trying to compensate for poor sleep.
Typical behaviors we implement to improve our sleep include spending more time in bed, trying to conserve energy during the day, canceling plans, calling in sick to work, napping during the day, going to bed earlier, staying in bed later, spending time researching sleep and thinking about sleep, and trying endless supplements or over-the-counter pills.
Unfortunately, all of these behaviors actually make sleep worse — and this perpetuates the problem.
More good news for you — cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques are specifically designed to address all the perpetuating factors of insomnia. I am, therefore, quite confident that you will find CBT-I very helpful and that the techniques will allow you to get your sleep back on track.
I hope this helps!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Welcome to the forum, Jocorro and I am sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep. As I think you are realizing, sleeping pills are not a long-term solution for insomnia since they don’t address the root cause of insomnia.
If you are keen to get off the sleeping pills, I would suggest looking into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and, as you regain confidence in your ability to sleep, you might want to talk to your doctor about a tapering-off plan for the pills.
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, nypit1. The symptoms you describe as you are falling asleep could be down to hyperarousal. You could be monitoring for sleep so, as it’s about to happen, the brain kicks into gear to wake you up to tell you sleep is happening (which, obviously, isn’t helpful!).
You could also be experiencing some conditioned arousal — in other words, due to your repeated experiences of poor sleep, you have learned to associate sleep with worry, wakefulness, frustration, etc. So, your brain keeps you alert to protect you from this just as you are about to fall asleep.
If you tend to wake and have no trouble falling back to sleep, then your awakenings could be down to your sleep apnea. If you find it hard to fall back to sleep, then your difficulties may be associated with a high level of arousal and are more likely to be related to insomnia. It is also quite possible that both are disrupting your sleep.
Have you asked your sleep doctor or sleep center if an alternative to CPAP may be appropriate for you? For example, an oral appliance may be helpful (or even some positional therapy).
—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 agree that sleep restriction is a terrible phrase because we aren’t restricting sleep, we are restricting time spent in bed. A better (and more accurate) phrase would be bedtime restriction, sleep scheduling, or something along the lines of “creating a sleep window”. I like “sleep restructuring”, too!
—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 Huj and welcome to the forum. Nothing you have described sounds unusual, in that you experienced sleep disruption due to an external event (a bad dream followed by a panic attack and anxiety) and this led to worry about sleep, thinking a lot about sleep, trying remedies for sleep, and perhaps introducing other compensatory behaviors.
Unfortunately, sleep-related thoughts and behaviors are the drivers of insomnia and perpetuate the problem. Usually, for short-term sleep disruption the best thing to do is continue with your day and your routine as though nothing is wrong with your sleep — leave sleep to recover by itself and it will usually do so. The more involved we become, the harder it is for sleep to get back on track.
When do you currently 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 are you currently getting 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.
This is so good to hear — I really appreciate you taking the time to share this with us!
—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.
