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Tell us more, Hols! What is a typical night like? How long have you been struggling with 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.
My apologies — when you wrote that you’d undergone sleep studies I didn’t know that they were to investigate your insomnia. In that case, you’re right — sleep studies don’t really tell us much about insomnia. However, they can tell us if we are living with another sleep disorder that could be contributing to insomnia.
Pain and sleep are definitely related. Studies are finding that sleep deprivation can increase pain sensitivity and reduce pain tolerance, while pain (perhaps unsurprisingly) can disrupt sleep.
There are ways to modify CBT-I techniques to accommodate your situation. For example, instead of getting out of bed when unable to sleep you could try sitting up in bed and reading. Although not ideal, you could continue to watch TV in bed for a short period of time before bed — again, I’d suggest sitting up while watching TV and limiting the amount of TV you watch before bed (a timer is a good idea).
Falling asleep with the TV on can be disruptive to overall sleep since the changes in volume throughout the night can disturb sleep (even if you don’t notice yourself waking in response).
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.
Here’s a link to something I put together for HealthCentral:
“What Insomnia Sufferers Are Tired of Hearing”
Recognize any of these?! What did I miss?
—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. Waking during the night is actually normal and tends to happen as we emerge from one sleep cycle and start the next. What do you think is making it hard for you to fall back to sleep when you wake during 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.
Welcome to the forum, Lauren. Questions about medication are best directed to your doctor. Nobody here is qualified to give you medical advice.
Can you tell us a bit more about your sleep? What is an average night like? When do you go to bed, when do you get out of bed, and 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, Gina. Wow, five days with no sleep must have been tough. Did you really get absolutely no sleep for five days straight? Not even a few minutes here and there? Has your doctor given you any options or suggestions other than medication?
—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 the sleep issues you are facing.
Since you’ve undergone numerous sleep studies, it looks as though we can rule out a medical cause of your insomnia. Therefore, it’s likely that your sleep issues may be related to the way you think about sleep and/or your sleep-related behaviors.
Typically, short-term sleep issues develop into longer-term issues as a result of the anxiety, worry, and compensatory behaviors we adopt in response to the initial sleep problem.
For example, we may experience a stressful event and our sleep suffers. This is completely normal! However, after the event has passed we then begin to worry about our sleep and think about it more than we ever did before. We might go to bed worrying that because our sleep has been so bad the past few nights, it will probably be bad again. This worry alone is enough to disrupt sleep.
After a period of poor sleep, we may then decide to try to adjust our routine to improve our sleep and make life a bit more bearable. For example, we may go to bed earlier than normal, stay in bed later than normal in the mornings, nap during the day, call in sick to work or cancel plans with friends. Unfortunately, all of these behaviors can make our sleep issues worse.
The end result is, our sleep becomes progressively worse, and this makes us worry about sleep even more, which makes our sleep even worse. It’s a classic vicious cycle.
The reason why CBT-I is so effective is that it helps to change the way we think (and behave) when it comes to sleep. You mentioned that you have tried all of the techniques offered, but they didn’t work. Can you tell me a bit more?
Did you try sleep restriction? If so, how long did you try this technique and did you try it every single night (without fail) before determining that it didn’t work for you?
Did you try stimulus control? If so, how long did you try this technique and did you try it every single night (without fail) before determining that it didn’t work for you?
CBT-I techniques don’t work overnight and they are challenging to implement. They require consistent implementation over the course of a number of weeks before consistent improvements in sleep may be noticed.
Although I completely understand your opinion that the results of CBT-I studies may not be as good as the data appears, it’s worth bearing in mind that studies have been finding CBT-I techniques to be an effective option for insomnia sufferers since at least the 1980s.
In addition, I know that CBT-I is effective for the vast majority of individuals with insomnia because I see the way sleep improves in my clients as they progress through my course.
I truly doubt that subjects wanting to please the person doing the testing is skewing overall results since this would imply consistent response bias in hundreds of studies that are all peer-reviewed in order to ensure valid research.
Some studies may be weak, but I would argue that the vast majority are not — and this is why organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and the British Association for Psychopharmacology all recommend CBT-I as the first-line treatment 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.
You need to click that title — I’ll try to force it to remain as a link instead of changing to the post title.
—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 glad to hear that you are finding Seroquel to be helpful. It is worth mentioning that although you are finding this medication to help, it’s probably not a good idea to be reliant on it for the long-term.
Have you talked to your doctor about a long-term solution for your sleep issues (such as CBT-I)?
—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.
Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone here is qualified to give you an opinion on chest tightness. This should be discussed with your doctor — and, if you are unhappy with what he or she says, you may want to seek a second opinion.
What I can say is that insomnia is very rarely dangerous. Perhaps the biggest risk associated with insomnia is accidents related to falling asleep and overall drowsiness (for example, falling asleep at the wheel when driving).
Despite all the sensational media reports, there is actually very little in the way of solid evidence to support the idea that insomnia is a risk to our overall health. This is probably because, after a certain amount of sleep deprivation, we will sleep.
In this sense, sleep is a similar biological function to breathing — we can hold our breath for a while, but eventually, the body will take over and force us to breathe.
—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.
Hi Heather. Unfortunately, most of the active users of the Insomnia Coach forum aren’t clients. I need to do a better job of getting clients to share their successes and offer more support to others here in the forum.
In the meantime, here’s a post that should offer some comfort:
https://insomniacoach.com/forums/topic/you-can-do-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.
Welcome to the forum, Russ. Have you spoken to your doctor about CBT for insomnia (or tried any of the techniques)? You mention that when you drink alcohol you find it easy to fall asleep but find your sleep is disrupted during the night. This is actually a normal response to alcohol.
Although alcohol can make it easier to fall asleep, it makes it harder for us to stay asleep during the night. That’s because, as the body processes alcohol, it actually creates a stimulant effect. The result is, we wake more often during the night, and we can find it much harder to fall back to sleep when we wake.
Although I can’t say whether your insomnia is caused by a medical problem (only a doctor can make such a diagnosis), it is far more likely that your insomnia is being perpetuated by your thoughts and behaviors — and these can usually be successfully addressed using 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, Chezzy. Your story sounds very familiar and I am sure many people reading your post can relate.
Chronic insomnia tends to be triggered by a one-off event that leads to poor sleep (or simply by a random night of poor sleep). Bad nights are entirely normal and happen to even the best sleepers. Unfortunately, when we have a bad night of sleep it’s all too easy to then start worrying about our sleep.
This worry immediately makes sleep more difficult and makes it more likely that we will implement compensatory behaviors in a bid to improve our sleep (examples include going to bed earlier, staying in bed later, napping during the day, calling in sick to work, canceling plans, etc).
These compensatory behaviors then combine with the worry we have about sleep and make it even more difficult to sleep. As we continue to struggle with sleep, we then trigger a vicious cycle of ever-increasing worry and anxiety and ever-worse sleep.
Have you looked into any of the techniques that make up a typical course of CBT for insomnia? CBT-I is particularly effective at improving sleep in this situation since it addresses and corrects the thoughts and behaviors that are making sleep 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.
Welcome to the forum, Chari. First of all, let me state that there is currently insufficient evidence that melatonin supplements are an effective method for treating or managing insomnia. More evidence exists to suggest that melatonin can help reduce the symptoms of jet lag — particularly when traveling in an easterly direction and when crossing more than five time zones. You can read more about melatonin supplements here:
https://www.healthcentral.com/article/melatonin-the-natural-sleeping-pill
https://www.healthcentral.com/article/understanding-melatonin-supplements
There is a very close relationship between insomnia and anxiety, with both feeding off one another. As sleep becomes worse, anxiety can increase — and, as anxiety increases, sleep tends to get progressively worse.
Has your doctor talked to you about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia? From what you’ve shared, it sounds as though you may be a good candidate.
—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 wish I could answer your question in a simple forum post! First, I suggest reading more about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia.
As a general overview, learn more about what ‘normal’ sleep is, how the sleep system works, and what disrupts the sleep system. Next, make sure you have an appropriate sleep schedule. Then, make sure you get out of bed when unable to sleep. Finally, practice relaxation techniques. Sleep hygiene can be helpful but it’s unlikely to fix insomnia. All these techniques take time (and often require a lot of support to help you stick with them).
I cover all these steps in a lot of detail in my insomnia coaching course (which also includes personalized, one-on-one feedback, advice, and support). As you know, sleeping pills are not a long-term solution 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.
