Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Welcome to the forum, erilsch. I have actually worked with quite a few mothers with babies. It certainly makes things a bit more difficult, but it is still absolutely possible to improve your sleep without relying on sleeping pills.
Although we can’t prevent you from waking up when your baby wakes during the night (although there are some baby sleep management techniques you can try), you can still practice all the components of CBT-I — including sleep restriction and stimulus control.
One quick question — you mentioned that you go to bed as early as possible in a bid to get as much sleep as you can. Do you feel sleepy when you go to bed early? If not, you may be setting yourself up for a bad night. That’s because if you go to bed before you feel sleepy you will likely spend more time awake in bed and the more time you spend awake in bed, the more time you will probably spend worrying about sleep. This makes sleep more difficult.
Try to make sure you only go to bed when you feel sleepy and ready for sleep. When looking at the sleep restriction protocol, consider your nightly sleep duration averaged out over at least one week before determining what the best amount of time you allot for sleep should be. You can always add time onto this to accommodate the time it takes you to soothe your baby.
So, let’s say that averaged out over a week, you get five hours of sleep each night. And, averaged out over a week, your baby needs you for about half an hour during each night. In this case, I would suggest allotting six hours for sleep (the minimum five-and-a-half hours plus half an hour to attend to your baby).
You are capable of sleep without pills. You just need to train your mind to reassociate the bed with sleep so that when you wake during the night you can settle back to sleep. This takes a lot of practice and commitment.
—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 Hppositve and let me say first of all, that the cause of your insomnia is not particularly unusual. Many cases of insomnia are triggered by a specific event or series of events (in your case, the mistaken resignation). Sleep disruption at times like this is completely normal and happens to most people.
Unfortunately, what can then happen, is once the stressful event passes — in your case, getting the new job — sleep problems remain. This normally happens because as soon as we are affected by sleep issues, we begin to pay more attention to our sleep than ever before.
This increased level of attention activates the body’s arousal system, which makes sleep more difficult. As sleep becomes even more difficult, we become even more worried about sleep. We then try new behaviors such as spending more time in bed or canceling plans due to sleep. This combination of worries and behaviors related to sleep continue to make sleep worse — and this creates a vicious cycle of ever-worsening sleep and ever-increasing sleep-related worries.
Fortunately, these can all be addressed using a combination of cognitive and behavioral techniques. There’s more good news, too — since you have only been experiencing sleep issues for less than three months, you will find it easier to improve your sleep using CBT-I (and results will occur more quickly) compared to someone who has been living with insomnia for longer.
I am sure you will find the CBT course to be helpful. Is it a CBT course specifically designed for insomnia? It’s important to make sure you are taking a CBT-I course because it contains components specific to sleep that a generalized course of CBT may not include.
Finally, I would encourage you to try going in to work. I have outlined the reasons why in this post.
I hope this is 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.
Hello Chris and welcome to the forum. You certainly seem to be keeping a very close track of the number of hours you spend awake and asleep. I would suggest that most people don’t keep such a close eye on the number of hours they have been awake over such a long period of time. Paying less attention to this may be helpful since it will likely lead to lower levels of anxiety towards your extended periods of wakefulness.
Did you talk to your doctor about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia? Please note that some components (such as sleep restriction and stimulus control) should only be pursued with your doctor’s approval due to your epilepsy.
You may also want to take a look at this article I wrote for HealthCentral.com: The Relationship Between Epilepsy and Sleep Disorders
—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.
Which specific parasomnia are you referring to, Pooja? Or, did you mean to say that you are suffering 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.
As a client, you do not need to. Please contact me directly.
—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.
Please contact me directly so we don’t derail this discussion topic. There are no calculations required in the new Insomnia Coach course (I do them all for you) — and I am certainly not mad at you (or anyone else, for that matter)!
—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.
Ah, I see you were a client of my previous course that was available before it was relaunched as Insomnia Coach. I believe you had difficulty filling out the sleep diary because you don’t have Word installed on your computer. As a result, it looks as though you stopped following the course after Week 2.
As I mentioned, you do not need to use the template files to progress through the course — all you need to do is write down the information that I ask to be recorded. You can then manually type the information in through the client area (or simply take a photo of the information and upload it).
I want to get you back on track, so please contact me directly and we’ll get this figured out.
—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.
If you enroll as a client, I will help you create a sleep window and modify it as you progress (no calculations needed!). In the meantime, there are calculators you can use on the sleep restriction resource page.
—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.
Just thought I’d chime in on how to judge when you’ve been awake for 30 minutes. Simply use your best estimate! You may not be 100%, but you’ll likely be close, and that’s good enough.
—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.
One point it’s important to emphasize here is that reducing the amount of time allotted for sleep down to just 5.5 hours is only temporary and will be increased as sleep improves. Yes, it’s a really tough slog to get through but this will not be a permanent situation.
—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 give us a better idea of a typical night? When do you go to bed, when do you 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.
I have never heard of dream journaling as a component of evidence-based CBT-I. Please be careful about online resources — make sure they are from qualified sources so you don’t try something that could make your sleep worse.
Sleep restriction needs to be followed correctly and consistently in order for it to work. However, it does work. Relaxation techniques should be included in any legitimate course that uses CBT-I techniques (like my own insomnia coaching course).
I think you should talk to your GP about CBT-I. Perhaps he or she can refer you to a CBT-I practitioner.
—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 should base the amount of time you allot for sleep on your nightly sleep duration averaged over the course of at least one week.
I’m glad to hear you are seeing a lot of improvement — you should be encouraged by your progress. Of course, it will take time for improvements to become more consistent. As long as you keep up the effort, that will happen.
—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, jazzcat22. I hear you when you mention how frustrating (and sometimes amusing) it is to hear people complain about sleep when they only miss an hour here or there! I’m also glad to hear that your husband’s tumor was benign and that he’ll be OK. That must be a huge relief.
If you want to give sleep restriction a try (and you are averaging less than five hours of sleep each night), you should try allotting five-and-a-half hours for sleep.
When you have decided upon a ‘sleep window’, here are a couple of things to bear in mind:
1. The start of your sleep window is the earliest time you can go to bed. If you don’t feel sleepy when your sleep window begins, you shouldn’t go to bed until you do feel sleepy.
2. No matter how good (or how badly) you sleep, you should always be out of bed by the end of your sleep window every single day.
If you find that you always get sleepy at the same time each night (for example, around 11.30pm) then you should think about using that time as the start of your regular sleep window.
I hope this helps!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Welcome to the forum, Joyadnil. Here’s the thing about ‘sleep hygiene‘ — it’s not an effective treatment for insomnia! Although observing good sleep hygiene is always a good idea, it’s unlikely to fix long-term, chronic insomnia.
What kind of CBT are you currently taking? Is it online or in-person? Is it general CBT, or are you taking CBT-I (which uses techniques specifically designed to address insomnia and improve 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.
