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Your honest introspection, awareness, and desire and willingness to learn are all strengths that will serve you well as you continue to work through the course and practice what you’ll be exploring 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.
It seems that naps might influence your sleep at night and they might not. Of course, daytime sleep can reduce sleep drive and that will be less of an issue the earlier a nap is taken and the shorter it is in length. So, with all this in mind, perhaps in connection to sleep at night, daytime naps might be “neutral”.
What about when it comes to living the life you want to live? Do you have to say “no” to things that move you toward the life you want to live in order to say “yes” to a nap? In other words, does napping move you closer to the life you want to live or further away from the life you want to live?
As you might be realizing, there’s no clear and universal answer to whether naps are “good” or “bad” here. What matters most is your intent — what you are trying to achieve and how workable that is as a goal.
—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.
Thanks for sharing, @Gdurity — I hope you are able to give yourself credit for continuing to do things that matter, even after a really rough night and even in the presence of frustration and anxiety.
Your commitment to engage in actions that serve YOU (rather than the insomnia gremlin) enabled you to keep moving toward your goals. It sure sounds as though going on the hike was more life enriching than the alternative of staying home and, as you shared, you have proven to yourself that you can act independently of whatever your problem-solving mind might be saying (so there’s no need to fight those thoughts or stories).
You definitely are not alone and you definitely are not broken. You are a human being and you are reclaiming your life from 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.
That’s an interesting idea, @Rozey — I think that could be a helpful way to practice making space for thoughts and feelings to be present with less resistance and help you identify (and be more comfortable with) certain thoughts and feelings. You are playing around with — and allowing yourself to experience — the full range of natural and normal human thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
@lizzyc — for as long as your (understandable!) intent is to get the buzz to dissipate, get rid of frustration, get rid of anxiety, or make sleep happen you will probably continue to find things difficult since (as your experience tells you) those things cannot be controlled through effort.Making space means reducing resistance, moving away from battling, moving away from fighting, dropping that “tug of war” rope, being more of a curious observer, giving permission for thoughts and feelings to come and go (especially since they’ll do that as they choose anyway).
The less space we give our thoughts and feelings, the more likely they are to get stuck. Has that been your experience?
—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.
Thanks for the great questions!
Waking during the night is a normal part of sleep. It’s perfectly OK to stay in bed until your sleep window ends — especially if you are finding that to be relaxing and comfortable!
If you were to shorten your sleep window, what would your goal or intent be? If it’s to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen you might be using the sleep window as a sleep effort — and, typically, the more effort we put into sleep (the more we try to control it) the more we are going to struggle with it. Has that been your experience?
A desire for 6.5 hours of sleep is understandable — and you aren’t feeling tired during the day and you are consistently getting around 5.5 hours of sleep and you cannot control sleep duration. So, what’s the best way to respond to that desire do you think?
Thoughts don’t really wake us up — they are a constant presence. They typically become difficult when we are trying to fight or avoid them. If you aren’t trying to fight or avoid your thoughts then there might not be any need to practice the AWAKE exercise, since there’s no struggle.
There’s no problem with spending time awake in bed — what we really want to do here is move away from trying to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen (or trying to control our minds) because that’s what creates (and fuels) an ongoing struggle. Sleep works best when we allow it to do whatever it chooses.
I hope there’s something useful 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.
It’s a good question. Alcohol can definitely disrupt sleep as can perhaps billions or even trillions of other things.
So we have two choices here.
We can spend our lives trying to identify and avoid all the things that might disrupt our sleep, get pulled away from doing things that matter to us, and maybe enjoy some nights of better sleep as a result (and maybe not).
Or, we can spend our lives doing things that matter to us, independently of sleep, and acknowledge that we might experience some sleep disruption from time to time (and maybe not).
I’d suggest choosing the option you think is most workable and will better help you live the life you want to live. The choice, as always, is yours!
—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 very common and not unusual at all!
Let me ask you this: Is there a difference in your intent before your sleep window begins compared to after it begins and you are in bed?
In other words, before the sleep window begins is your goal different compared to after the sleep window begins? If so, is there an insight there that might help explain why sleepiness seems to disappear?
On a separate note, when you get up to avoid the mind racing and anxiety, does that mean that getting up guarantees that your mind never races and you never experience 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.
Sounds like it might be worth an experiment, @GC1500!
—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.
Ups and downs are all part of the journey.
If you struggle with visualization, you aren’t alone — this lesson might be helpful: If Visualization Is Difficult.
You aren’t looking to find comfort in what you are thinking and feeling or even change what you are thinking or feeling at night. When that’s our intent we can get pulled into a struggle since that’s like trying to turn the moon into cheese — we have a complete absence of control over that and trying to control what cannot be controlled only creates struggle, which makes things even more difficult.
The goal of the AWAKE exercise is to practice building skill in experiencing wakefulness and all the thoughts and feelings that can come with it with less struggle. You aren’t trying to fool yourself into wanting these thoughts and feelings, you aren’t trying to think positive, you are just practicing not going to war with them — since going to war consumes all your energy, creates more struggle, and makes everything even more difficult (and perhaps more scary, too).
As for Experiencing wakefulness, it doesn’t matter if watching TV or reading makes you wide awake because you aren’t trying to make sleep happen! What matters is this: is watching TV or reading more appealing than battling with all these invisible enemies? If so, it’s probably a more workable way of responding compared to donning the suit of armor and going to war.
Sleep doesn’t care what the time is — you can look at the time or not look at the time. What matters more is your intent and your experience on the usefulness of looking at the time. What does checking the time (or not checking the time) do for you? How does that action serve you? Many people find that checking the clock throughout the night only makes things more difficult — but everyone is different and you are the expert on you!
You might want to revisit this lesson from Week 2, specifically the first question: “Do I really need to avoid checking the time when my sleep window begins?”.
It can feel as though a return of difficult nights is going to lead to a downward spiral but the fact is, with every difficult night you are building more sleep pressure — so better nights become more likely. And, with every difficult night you have the opportunity to practice (and build skill in) responding to this difficult stuff in a more workable way.
I hope there’s something useful 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.
That’s great to hear — thanks for sharing! You are discovering that there’s no need to go to war with anxiety (as much as you’d like to get rid of it) and that giving it some space to exist helps it come and go, rather than stick around and become more powerful and more difficult. Good on you for getting stuck in with an open and curious mind!
—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.
Many people have experienced multiple nights of no sleep. They’re hard. No doubt about it.
Each night of no sleep increases the likelihood of sleep on subsequent nights thanks to the accumulation of sleep pressure. What suppresses that sleep pressure (and therefore generates a requirement of more wakefulness) are all our efforts to make sleep happen.
The thing about anxiety and hyperarousal is that we can still sleep in their presence. When we go to war with anxiety and hyperarousal, things get more difficult and sleep moves further away. After all, human beings wouldn’t be around today if they fell asleep in the middle of a battle, right?
It’s interesting that you’ve found yourself experiencing a lot of sleepiness during the day when you don’t want sleep to happen and might not be trying to make sleep happen or putting pressure on yourself to make sleep happen. Is there an insight there, perhaps?
—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.
Our own experience can often be a very valuable guide. Have you napped in the past? What did you learn from that?
—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 @Bsue and welcome aboard — it’s good to have you here and it’s great to know that you are excited to explore a new approach. That’s concrete evidence of your tenacity and growth mindset!
I think @cr.burgman gave some great tips — and we’ll be exploring how to respond to nighttime wakefulness in a lot of detail in Week 2.
In the meantime, what might be useful is getting in some practice with acknowledging what you are thinking or feeling when you are awake at night, being kind to yourself, and — instead of battling with wakefulness and those thoughts and feelings — engaging in an alternative activity (in bed or out of bed, your choice) whenever you find yourself struggling.
The goal of the alternative activity isn’t to change your thoughts and feelings or to make sleep happen — it’s to give you a more constructive and more appealing way of responding to that wakefulness (especially if you know from experience that battling and struggle tends not to be a workable approach).
I hope this helps!
PS: You are having a hard time turning off your brain because that only happens when we are dead!
—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 Nicki_23! Why does it feel important to you to move away from sleeping pills?
In terms of how to approach this, in my experience the approach or strategy itself doesn’t matter a whole lot. What matters is discussing this with your doctor and then coming up with a realistic plan that you feel you can stick to — and then sticking to it each night, regardless of how sleep goes.
With a good plan, there should be no ambiguity about what the medication usage is going to be each night — this should be known in advance. Taking medication based on “how the night goes” is often a surefire way to create more difficulty since your mind is going to be more active to monitor/evaluate/troubleshoot/brainstorm/debate etc.
Your plan might involve a really slow taper, it might involve a faster taper, it might involve going cold turkey. Sticking to the plan as best you can is really all that matters.
Is this something you’ve spoken to your doctor about?
—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.
Excessive heat can definitely make things more difficult — and perhaps what makes that heat even more difficult are our attempts to fight the wakefulness and the thoughts and feelings that show up with it?
—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.
