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Welcome to the forum, Barb — and I am sorry to hear about your struggles with sleep. Chronic insomnia normally has an identifiable trigger, but once that trigger is no longer relevant, sometimes sleep issues can continue to be a problem. This is usually because we start to worry about sleep and compensate for lost sleep.
The strategies we then implement in an attempt to improve sleep can often backfire and make sleep more difficult. Some examples include going to bed earlier than normal, spending more time in bed, taking morning lie-ins, napping during the day, calling in sick to work, trying to conserve energy during the day, etc, etc, etc!
CBT-I techniques such as sleep restriction and stimulus control only work when implemented strictly and consistently. Did your doctor suggest a sleep window for you to follow?
We’ve all got your back and we are all here to support you, Barb. You are not alone.
—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 great question — and the answer is, we still don’t know for sure what causes these hypnic jerks.
Sleep starts/hypnic jerks are thought to affect more than half of the population — so, in themselves, they are not something to be concerned about. Sleep studies in people with sleep starts do not show any abnormality (although the movements can sometimes cause awakenings). They are often associated with the transition from wakefulness to the first stage of sleep (N1 sleep).
As you suggested, building sleep drive may help reduce their frequency. Sometimes, they can be associated with falling asleep in a certain position. So, if you normally sleep on your back when they occur, try shifting your sleeping position and see if that helps.
Finally, sometimes these jerks/twitches can occur when the body isn’t adequately supported or when we try to sleep in an unusual/uncomfortable environment. So there is another avenue to explore/experiment with.
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.
Sorry to hear that you are struggling with sleep, Marie. Can you tell us a bit more? What is a typical night like? When do you go to bed, get out of bed, and roughly how many hours of sleep do you get on an average 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.
Great to hear that you aren’t experiencing all-nighters anymore — that’s a great achievement and evidence that you are making progress!
So your current sleep window is 11.40 PM to 6 AM (am I right)? You mentioned that you regularly find it hard to stay awake until your sleep window begins. Is this still the case on nights when you find it hard to fall asleep? In other words, do you feel really sleepy before the sleep window begins but when you get into bed you suddenly feel awake and alert?
A couple more questions for you:
1. Are you combining ‘sleep restriction’ with stimulus control?
2. Are you more of an evening person (night owl) or are you more of a morning person (a lark)?
—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 also worth bearing in mind that good sleepers have bad nights every now and again. So, aiming for flawless sleep is not really an achievable 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.
Hello again, @frozensun. I am not asking you to prove anything to me. I know how awful insomnia can be and I am sorry that you are going through all these issues with sleep. All I am trying to do is reassure you that there is no evidence chronic insomnia causes any of the health issues you are concerned about. I only mentioned Wikipedia because that is the source you gave me.
@Davy — Can you post a link to the study that found chronic insomnia causes a reduction in white blood cells? I’d love to see it.Hi @Daf! You’re right, one person started the course reporting six-and-a-half hours of sleep (but they spent three hours awake at night) and another reported five hours. Someone else managed only three-and-a-half hours. Remember that sleep durations are averages — they are not what someone managed on every single night.
When it comes to reporting no sleep, there’s a difficulty. That’s because nobody gets NO sleep. It’s impossible! We may get a few nights of no sleep, but we all get some sleep. So, how do you quantify NIL sleep? I prefer to average nightly sleep duration over at least a week to get a better idea of someone’s average nightly sleep duration. If we only focus and record nights of NIL sleep, we easily reach the wrong conclusion and collect skewed data.
—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 again, Frozensun. The link to Wikipedia lists associations between some health issues and “sleep deprivation”. When you look at the studies in question, many of them take healthy sleepers then deliberately deprive them of sleep and draw conclusions from there.
Others will find associations between chronic insomnia and health issues — but not one study has found that chronic insomnia causes any health problem.
If you read the Wikipedia article carefully you will see lots of statements such as “It has been suggested” or “researchers interpreted this result as” or “may be linked”.
I could easily conduct a study on a link between people living in a house with ashtrays and premature death, then conclude that ashtrays lead to premature death. Of course, this is ludicrous — the association is there, but it’s far more likely that the homeowners smoke and this is leading to premature death.
When considering research, it’s essential to bear in mind that an association is not a cause.
Finally, please bear in mind that this is an insomnia support forum — so almost all of the posts you read will be from people struggling with insomnia. People who sleep well rarely contribute. You can read a number of CBT-I success stories here:
https://insomniacoach.com/success/
Suicide is not a solution. If you are having suicidal thoughts, please speak to someone immediately. I am not sure what resources are available to you, but I did find this and I hope it may help:
https://www.centarsrce.org/emotivna_podrska.php
—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.
What you say that what you are doing right now is working, Davy? If not, then why not implement techniques that work for over 80% of people with chronic insomnia (CBT-I) and see how you get on? What have you got to lose?
—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 again, Mac! The fact you have noticed that you can have a bad day after a good night of sleep is evidence that the quality of your day isn’t always reliant on the quality of your sleep.
I completely appreciate that you would like to get more than six or six-and-a-half hours of sleep, but if your body is not currently capable of getting that much sleep on a consistent basis, there is nothing you can do to force a longer sleep duration.
What you can do is set the stage for sleep and give yourself the best chance of sleep and create optimal conditions for sleep. Not going to bed before you are sleepy is very important — and for the best results, this needs to be combined with always getting out of bed by the same time every single morning (which it sounds as though you are doing).
It is also very important to note that you should also be following an ‘earliest possible bedtime’. Otherwise, if you go to bed at varying times each night, it is going to be very difficult for you to get the consistent sleep duration you want.
Think of it this way, we can’t really expect consistent sleep if we don’t have consistent wakefulness.
If you regularly wake naturally before the end of your sleep window and regularly find yourself very sleepy before the start of your sleep window, you may want to shift your window forward so it starts slightly earlier in the evening.
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 absolutely do read, exactly as you suspected! Do you consider yourself to have chronic insomnia? If so, I can say again, with 100% confidence, that no credible studies have concluded that chronic insomnia causes immune system problems or any other type of illness.
I am not saying that sleep is not important — because it absolutely is! What I am saying, is that there is no evidence that chronic insomnia causes health problems.
Unfortunately, as I previously mentioned, it is going to be far more challenging for you to get your sleep back on track when you work rotating shifts.
—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 fascinated to follow this discussion and to see how ACT helps each of you over the long-term. Since I am a huge proponent of CBT-I, some of the components being discussed do concern me (such as going to bed before you are sleepy and staying in bed when you aren’t sleeping), but I think that ACT has more in common with CBT-I techniques than differences since it’s primarily about abandoning sleep effort.
Deb, you mentioned that when you were implementing CBT-I techniques you would typically have two bad nights of sleep each week. Since you started practicing ACT, has this changed?
I also want to add that ‘trying’ to keep fear and worries out of your mind is NOT a CBT-I technique. Additionally, I strongly believe that getting out of bed when unable to sleep (rather than staying in bed awake) can actually help reduce fear and worry-related ruminations at night — because when we are in bed awake, resting, and not sleeping, we are far more likely to ‘try’ to sleep and we are far more likely to ruminate and worry compared to when we just get out of bed until we feel sleepy again.
—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 Mac. As requested, I’ll chime in.
First, let me address your opening post. It sounds as though you experienced sleep disruption because you went to bed before you were sleepy and/or before your earliest bedtime (are you observing a sleep window?).
First of all, it’s great to hear that your anxiety has fallen since implementing CBT-I techniques.
You do seem to be very concerned about being unable to sleep for longer than six to six-and-a-half hours. Am I right?
If so, why are you so concerned about this and so determined to get more than six to six-and-a-half hours of sleep? Have you considered that perhaps this is your individual sleep need?
You mentioned that if you get less than six hours of sleep, your day is shot. Let me ask you this — have you ever had a great night of sleep, but had a bad day? Or, does a great night of sleep guarantee you a fantastic day, 100% of the 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.
Good to hear from you again, Rod! How do you determine when you go to bed at night? Do you get out of bed at the same time every single morning? What do you do when you are in bed and unable to fall asleep?
—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 frozensun and I am sorry to hear about your ongoing struggles with sleep.
Let me first reassure you that there is no evidence that chronic insomnia causes health issues such as lung problems, psychosis, brain damage, loss of immunity or a nervous breakdown.
Unfortunately, if you are working shifts it is going to be difficult for you to make the changes necessary to improve your sleep over the long-term. Do your shifts regularly change? Do you alternate between night shifts and day shifts?
Do you remember what kind of CBT techniques you attempted with your therapist?
—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 Davy. I’m really sorry to hear about your current situation with sleep. Can you clarify what you mean by sleep cursus? With the high levels of stress you are experiencing, it’s little surprise that you are struggling with sleep. My gut instinct is that you do still get sleepy — but your levels of arousal and stress are so high that it has become difficult for you to recognize these cues. Are you able to see a medical professional face-to-face where you live?
—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.
