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It’s little wonder that you are losing your zest for life and focus when living with the sleep issues you are describing. Do you find that your biggest difficulty is falling asleep at the start of the night, or is your problem related more to waking during the night and finding it hard to fall back to sleep?
Right now you are allotting roughly seven hours for sleep each night. How many hours of sleep do you think you get on a typical night?
To answer your other questions — simply reply to a forum topic to reply to a post (there is no ability to send private messages through the forum). I use CBT-I techniques to overcome sleep issues — and I believe I covered jerks when trying to sleep in a previous forum topic.
—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.
Sleep restriction uses your average nightly sleep duration taken over one or two weeks. So, I suggest keeping a sleep diary for at least one week (ideally two). Each morning, write down how much sleep you got the previous night. After one or two weeks, calculate your average nightly sleep duration.
Once you know your average nightly sleep duration, add half an hour to this time and you will have a suggested amount of time to allot for sleep (if this is less than five-and-a-half hours, stick to allotting five-and-a-half hours for sleep).
Here’s a more detailed overview of sleep restriction.
I would suggest speaking with your doctor before practicing sleep restriction due to your medical history. Sleep compression may be a better alternative for you — this involves reducing the amount of time you allot for sleep by 20 minutes or so each week until the amount of time you allot for sleep more closely matches your average nightly sleep duration.
—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, Eva. What time do you usually go to bed? What do you think is stopping you from falling back to sleep when you wake at 3:00 AM or 4:00 AM?
—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 know it feels very frustrating to experience a night of poor sleep after a night of good sleep. Such a cycle is actually not uncommon among those with sleep issues — but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating!
Do you have a regular sleep schedule, Pam? You mentioned that you usually go to sleep at 11:00 PM. Are you also making sure you get out of bed by the same time every day? If so, what is that time?
It’s important to note that having a regular out of bedtime in the morning is probably more important than having a regular bedtime because strictly observing a regular bedtime might lead to you going to bed before you are sleepy and ready for sleep. As soon as you do that, you are setting yourself up for being awake in bed — and this can trigger sleep-related worry, making sleep more difficult.
—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 current sleep issues, praymore — they must be very concerning for you. Can you tell me a bit more about your current sleep patterns? What time do you normally go to bed, when do you normally get out of bed, 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, Healthyliving. When we suddenly experience sleep issues after sleeping well for as long as we can remember, it can be worrying. When we go through a long stretch of poor sleep it can lead to further worry and anxiety — and this can then trigger a vicious cycle of ever-increasing anxiety and ever-worse sleep.
As suggested by kobalap, you definitely didn’t exhibit good sleep hygiene in the past — but this is unlikely to be a major contributor to your current sleep issues.
As soon as we start to pay more attention to sleep, we make sleep more difficult. That’s because sleep is an involuntary process — we can’t actually control sleep. We can’t make ourselves fall asleep within a certain amount of time, and we can’t make ourselves sleep for a certain amount of time.
When we start to worry about sleep, we often do things in a bid to improve our sleep that actually make sleep more difficult (such as going to bed earlier, staying in bed longer, taking daytime naps, calling in sick to work, canceling plans with friends, etc).
The few bad nights you had shivering in bed may have triggered your current sleep issues — because all cases of insomnia start with one bad night of sleep. I have no idea why shivering is leading to vomiting — you should discuss that with your doctor.
Experiencing jerks when falling asleep are common and aren’t typically something to worry about. They could be hypnic jerks, or they could be caused by self-monitoring behavior whereby your mind keeps checking to see if you are asleep and when it notices you are, it abruptly wakes you up to tell you. You might find this forum thread helpful:
You mentioned a belief that people need eight hours of sleep each night — but this is not true and is actually a common belief that is completely inaccurate. We all need different amounts of sleep. One person may only ‘need’ six hours of sleep, while another may ‘need’ seven. There is no universal sleep requirement — so try to avoid putting any pressure or expectation on yourself to get a certain amount of sleep.
Sleep hypnosis doesn’t have much in the way of clinical evidence to support its use as a treatment option for insomnia. A far better option is CBT for insomnia (CBT-I). CBT-I is recommended as the first-line treatment option for insomnia by the National Institutes of Health, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and the British Association for Psychopharmacology.
Sleep deprivation will never reach the point of death because at a certain point your body will take over and force you to sleep. Right now, your mind (specifically, your arousal system) is overriding your body’s natural urge to sleep. Eventually, the urge to sleep becomes so strong that it overpowers your arousal system and leads to sleep. At this time, the arousal system can once again take over — and this explains why some people find they go with very little sleep for most of the week, have one or two days of great sleep, then go back to consecutive nights of poor sleep.
CBT-I techniques will help reduce the power of your arousal system and strengthen your natural propensity to sleep and this is why it’s such an effective long-term option for improving 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.
Way to go! As you rightly identified, your body knows how to sleep and it never loses the ability to sleep. Learning to accept this (which can be challenging and take time) often leads to less anxiety and better sleep.
—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, impendia and thank you for the great questions!
First of all, it’s important to bear in mind that sleep restriction is just one component of CBT for insomnia and so, for the best results, it should be combined with other components (such as stimulus control).
Short awakenings during the night are actually quite normal and tend to occur when we emerge from one sleep cycle in order to begin another one. I wouldn’t pay much heed to your Fitbit claiming insufficient deep sleep because the only way to determine if you are in deep sleep is by measuring brainwaves (to my knowledge, a Fitbit is unable to do this!).
Consumer sleep trackers aren’t always accurate, and relying on the data they produce can increase sleep-related anxiety and further harm sleep for those with long-term sleep issues. For this reason, I urge people with chronic insomnia not to use such devices.
If you are sleeping for a number of hours before waking, it’s far more likely than not that you are getting adequate deep sleep because the body gets the vast majority of deep sleep early in the night. So, early morning awakenings are unlikely to be having a dramatic effect on the amount of deep sleep you are getting.
Do you snore (or have you ever been told that you snore) loudly during the night? Do you ever wake, gasping for breath, or with a headache or dry mouth? If so, these may be symptoms of sleep apnea and you should ask your doctor about getting a sleep study to confirm or rule this out.
How do you feel during the day? Do you feel you struggle to get through each day? Do you randomly fall asleep or feel as though you might fall asleep during the day? Do you take daytime naps?
Finally, you mentioned that your set bedtime is 10:30 PM and that you never go to bed earlier than this. That’s a good strategy, but here are a couple of extra details. First, when 10:30 PM comes around, if you don’t feel sleepy and ready for sleep then you shouldn’t go to bed until you do feel sleepy. See 10:30 PM as your earliest possible bedtime and not necessarily your regular evening bedtime.
Second, you should also have a regular out of bed time in the morning, based on your average nightly sleep duration. So, let’s say your average nightly sleep duration is six hours. Add half an hour onto this time (to provide some time for falling asleep and short nighttime awakenings), and you have a sleep window of six-and-a-half hours. With this example, your sleep window would end at 5:00 AM each day and so you should be getting out of bed by 5:00 AM every day, including weekends.
Edgar — You mentioned that you fall asleep around 10:00 PM and wake between 4:30 AM and 5:30 AM. This suggests that you normally get between six-and-a-half hours and seven-and-a-half hours of sleep each night. Since this is within the normal range, I wonder if something else could be at play that could explain why you find it hard to feel well through the day. Perhaps you might benefit from a bit more sleep, but perhaps sleep isn’t the only influence on how you feel during the day — maybe your work or other daytime stressors are a bigger influence? Have you tried shifting your bedtime to start slightly earlier?
—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 Pam and welcome to the forum. It is completely normal to be concerned by the experience you have described. Do these sudden awakenings only occur just as you are about to fall asleep, or do they happen at random times during the night?
If they only occur as you are about to fall asleep, they may be a symptom of self-monitoring. By this, I mean that because sleep has become such a big issue in your life, when you go to bed you set yourself the task (probably unconsciously) to keep checking if or when you are asleep. Not only does this make it harder to fall asleep, when you do fall asleep and your mind notices this, it will suddenly wake you up to inform you of this victory!
Of course, it goes without saying that this is not constructive! So, how do you stop this self-monitoring? After all, telling yourself not to check whether you are asleep or telling yourself not to worry about sleep is easier said than done! You would probably find CBT-I techniques helpful since they will naturally strengthen your sleep while reducing sleep-related worry.
First of all, make sure you have a regular (and appropriate) sleep schedule. Next, make sure that you get out of bed whenever you can’t sleep. Finally, take steps to unwind before going to bed. Reserve the hour before bed as a buffer zone during which time you engage only in relaxing activities that you enjoy.
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.
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with others in the forum. I have no doubt that they will take a lot of comfort in what you have shared and be reassured that CBT-I is a powerful ally when it comes to improving sleep.
You mentioned that you have the occasional relapse — this is completely normal! Even the best sleepers in the world have a bad night every now and again, so it’s only to be expected that you will have a bad night every now and again, too.
If this ‘relapse’ comes from not implementing techniques you know to be helpful and effective, I would suggest that this is more of a ‘lapse’ than a relapse since you know that reimplementing the right techniques should, once again, lead to improved sleep. So, as I suspect you are aware, you shouldn’t be unduly hard on yourself when bad nights happen — because they are normal and to be expected.
Instead of focussing on the fact a bad night happened, try to focus your efforts on the cause of the bad night and see if you can address that cause (for example, not implementing a certain CBT-I technique, too much stress at work, etc). Since we can’t control sleep, tackling an identifiable source of disturbed sleep is usually a better strategy.
When it comes to implementing stimulus control, I suggest giving yourself roughly half an hour in bed before getting up. Don’t clock watch this period of time — just use your best estimate. So, if you go to bed and don’t fall asleep within about half an hour (or if you wake during the night and don’t fall back to sleep within about half an hour), get out of bed. Then, when out of bed, give yourself roughly half an hour (or wait until you feel sleepy) before getting back into bed and repeating the process.
As for activities to try when out of bed, I simply suggest anything that is relaxing and enjoyable. A book or relaxing music can be good options.
I’m happy to hear that you’ve been finding imagery helpful. You might find progressive muscle relaxation beneficial, too — but I would encourage you to practice this during the day for a couple of weeks before trying it when in bed. Relaxation is a skill and takes time to learn, so getting a couple of weeks of daytime practice in before trying it at night is often a good idea.
Dartmouth College offers a number of free relaxation downloads, including a progressive muscle relaxation download.
Finally, remember that the ultimate goal of relaxation is relaxation — not sleep! So, don’t practice relaxation with the expectation that it will immediately lead to sleep.
I hope this helps, and thanks again for your contribution. I hope to read more of your posts in the future!
—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 still possible to practice sleep restriction even if you don’t sleep for several nights in a row because sleep restriction simply means observing a more appropriate overall sleep schedule.
With that being said, you really should direct your questions to a physician or other licensed healthcare provider due to your history and your particular circumstances.
—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. Can you tell us a bit more about your sleep? How do you want it to improve? What are your sleep goals?
—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! You are absolutely correct when you say that acceptance (or simply “letting go”) is easier said than done! Cognitive and behavioral techniques can help change the way many of us with insomnia think about sleep so we have more constructive thoughts and behaviors towards sleep.
First, unless you are finding that you sleep at random times during the day, it’s unlikely that you are living with narcolepsy.
The body actually prioritizes the deepest, most restorative levels of sleep over REM sleep and that’s why deep sleep occurs in the earlier part of the night.
What makes you concerned about your dreams? As you know, dreams are normal — so are you concerned that your dreams are leading to less restorative sleep?
If so, what evidence do you have to support this, and what evidence do you have to refute this? Thinking it through like this can help you determine if the idea that your dreams are reducing your sleep quality is accurate, or if the idea is more likely to be an automatic thought that might not be entirely accurate.
Have you spoken to your doctor or a sleep specialist about your concerns in the past six months? If you are worried about your sleep architecture, an overnight sleep study may be helpful.
—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, Andy. I’m glad you found us and took the time to introduce yourself.
The past six months must have felt very challenging, exhausting, and frustrating and this period has no doubt increased the amount of anxiety you are living with.
My first recommendation would be to make sure you are allotting an appropriate amount of time for sleep based on your average nightly sleep duration.
Next, make sure you are using your bed for sleep only. If you are lying in bed and unable to sleep, it’s a good idea to get out of bed for half an hour or so (or until you feel sleepy) before getting back into bed and repeating the process.
Over time, the combination of following a regular and appropriate sleep schedule, and getting out of bed when unable to sleep, will make the bed a much stronger trigger for sleep. As soon as your sleep begins to improve, anxiety levels will naturally fall — and this will lead to further sleep improvements.
I hope this gives you an initial strategy. Have you considered taking a course of CBT for insomnia?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Those issues definitely sound as though they’d be a good starting point — what is stopping you from tackling them?
—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.
