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Welcome to the forum, LLMarks and I am sorry to read about your struggle with sleep. To be honest, if you are splitting the Ambien in this way and taking half of it halfway through the night, it is not surprising that you are feeling somewhat groggy/cloudy/fatigued during the day.
Have you looked into an alternative to the sleeping pills, particularly CBT for insomnia (CBT-I)? This treatment has been proven to be far more effective than sleeping pills and is recognized as the best first-line treatment for chronic insomnia.
In fact, in the United States, CBT-I is supposed to be offered as the initial treatment for chronic insomnia (before sleeping pills).
—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 are as many triggers for insomnia as there are people in the world — however, there are only three ongoing causes of chronic insomnia:
1. Homeostatic disruption (in other words, you are not sufficiently sleepy for sleep)
2. Circadian disruption (usually caused by an inappropriate or irregular sleep schedule)
3. High levels of arousal (this includes cognitive arousal, physiological arousal, and conditioned arousal)I talk more about this in the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fEOA9BTzDs
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, Lam123.
First of all, I would suggest keeping a sleep diary for at least one week. Here’s a basic sleep diary you can use:
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/insomnia-coach/Short+Sleep+Diary.pdf
In one week, figure out what your average nightly sleep duration is. Add half an hour to this and you have a sleep window (make sure your sleep window is not less than five-and-a-half hours).
When you have the duration of your sleep window, figure out when you want your sleep window to start and end. So, let’s say you have a six-hour sleep window and you need to be out of bed at 6:00 AM every day, you would start your sleep window at midnight.
Next, make sure you don’t go to bed before your sleep window begins. When it does begin, only go to bed if you feel sleepy. However, no matter what happens during the night, make sure you are out of bed by the end of your sleep window every single day.
Keep doing this for at least two weeks, while continuing to keep a sleep diary. For best results, combine this with stimulus control techniques — if you can’t fall asleep, get out of bed until you feel sleepy, then go back to bed and repeat the process.
In the meantime, please be reassured that there is no evidence that chronic insomnia causes any health problem whatsoever. More on that in these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoX04HJihNI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnVHQpVmFLwI 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, robrtstar! It’s so good to hear that you are starting an exercise program — I am sure that it will make you feel better. At the very least it will likely help reduce the effects of fatigue.
Can you tell us a bit more about your current sleep pattern? When do you 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 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, katielisaaa — and I am really sorry to read about your struggles with sleep. You mentioned that you have received CBT for insomnia and you recognize that your symptoms are caused by conditioned arousal.
The best way to address this conditioned arousal is with stimulus control — so, when you are in bed and highly alert, unable to sleep, you get out of bed until you feel sleepy and then get back into bed and repeat the process.
This technique won’t improve your sleep on the night you implement it. Instead, it is a long-term strategy to train the mind to see the bed as a place for sleep and nothing else. So, when you are in bed and not sleeping, you get out of bed.
For best results, stimulus control should be combined with sleep restriction — observing a regular and appropriate sleep window.
If you commit to this, you should notice improvements within a few weeks — just like Zoe described (thank you so much for your contribution, @zoe).
—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 Lala and welcome to the forum. If you are tired and falling asleep at 5:00 PM, it’s not very surprising that you wake between 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM (after between six and eight hours of sleep) and can’t fall back to sleep — because you have got all the sleep you need!
So, it seems as though your issue isn’t really to do with sleep drive, it’s more of a sleep scheduling (ie circadian rhythm) issue. In other words, right now you have an advanced sleep schedule (you are going to bed early, and waking from sleep early).
You should be able to get your sleep back on a more appropriate schedule by gradually delaying your bedtime from 5:00 PM.
So, for example, tomorrow you would try to stay awake until around 5:30 PM. The day after, you’d try to stay awake until around 6:00 PM. Then, around 6:30 PM, and so on until you reach an appropriate bedtime.
Have you tried something like this?
—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, Cocosa! You should have picked up all the good advice you need to get your sleep back on track in the online CBT course you took — if it was specifically CBT for insomnia.
Was it a CBT-I course? If so, did you try implementing CBT-I techniques such as sleep restriction and stimulus control?
—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 insomnia, Duke. Can you tell us a bit more about your current sleep pattern? When do you normally go to bed at night, when do you get out of bed in the morning, and how many hours of sleep do you get on a typical night?
Do you tend to have more trouble falling asleep at the start of the night, or is your challenge more to do with staying asleep throughout 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.
This is a classic symptom of conditioned arousal, shaner37. You may also be hypervigilant and highly reactive to the normal physiological changes that happen as we fall asleep.
You may find these videos helpful:
Why you feel a sense of panic when you drift off to sleep (or when you wake during the night): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owKbQJOHezs
Why you feel so sleepy before the sleep window begins, but feel wide awake as it gets closer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxx5aET1CgA
—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, Phyl — and I am so sorry to read about your long-term struggles with sleep.
You mentioned that you were diagnosed with insomnia in 1976. Before this diagnosis, what was your sleep like? Were you struggling with sleep before 1976?
You mentioned that you feel very tired and fatigued but rarely feel sleepy. At the present time, what is your cue for going to bed? Do you go to bed at a certain time, or do you try to wait until you have a sensation of sleepiness?
Can you tell us a bit more about your current sleep pattern or habits? When do you normally go to bed at night, when do you normally get out of bed to start the day, and roughly how many hours of sleep would you say you get on a “typical” night?
I know you have sought a lot of advice about insomnia over the years, but I think it would be prudent to ask this anyway — have you tried implementing any cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (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.
Welcome to the forum, sleepwell. As mentioned by Sleepless in SSB, you can’t set a time for sleep — you should only go to bed when you feel sleepy enough for sleep. Going to bed before you are sleepy only leads to more time in bed awake, makes sleep more of a struggle, and can create/perpetuate sleep problems.
—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.
Here are a few ideas on things to do in the evening, before your sleep window, that might help keep you awake:
* Choose clothes that you can wear the next day
* Make your lunch
* Marinate or start to prepare food for dinner the following day and store it in the refrigerator
* Gather old bills and statements and shred them
* Organize collections: photos, old letters, wine, books, or other items
* Catch up on laundry or folding clothes
* Polish your shoes
* Iron or mend clothing
* Do some stretches
* Go for a walk
* Give yourself a pedicure, manicure, or facial
* Sweep or mop the kitchen floor while no one else is there to walk on it!
* Sort out junk mail
* Play solitaire (with cards)
* Call friends who live in other time zones
* Clean out the refrigerator
* Make a grocery shopping list for the week
* Create a detailed menu for dinners
* De-clutter your coffee table, dining room table, kitchen countertops or desk
* Create a list of activities that you’d enjoy doing on weekends and vacations
* Work on photo albums or scrapbooks
* Choose one or two drawers to clean out (in your desk, kitchen, bathroom)
* Organize collections of CDs or DVDs and choose some to donate or sell if you no longer enjoy themI hope this gives you some ideas!
—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, shaner37. Since your insomnia began relatively recently, as long as you don’t try to compensate for lost sleep by doing things like going to bed early, napping during the day, staying in bed later than normal, canceling plans or calling in sick to work, your sleep should get back on track by itself.
How are you getting on at the current time? Any improvements yet?
—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, knackeredagain. First of all, can you tell us more about what you mean when you say you never feel sleepy? Does this mean that if you didn’t get even one minute of sleep for the next 30 days straight, you would still not feel sleepy?
If you can describe a typical night, I may be able to offer some suggestions/guidance. What time do you usually 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?
—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 ceedceed. Can you tell us a bit more about your sleep, or lack of it? What is a typical night like for you? When do you go to bed, when do you get out of bed, and roughly how much sleep do 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.
