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If you are waking during the night 2-3 times and these awakenings tend to last for less than 1 minute, it is likely that you could just be emerging from a sleep cycle, as suggested by your neurologist.
—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 are waking up roughly every 2 hours you could simply be waking as you emerge from a sleep cycle — and this is completely normal. However, it can be difficult to fall back to sleep if you become concerned about these awakenings.
A few suggestions:
- Make sure that you aren’t allotting too much time for sleep at night (this reduces sleep pressure and increases wakefulness)
- Try to get out of bed when you can’t fall back to sleep (more on this on the page about stimulus control)
- Try practicing relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation when you find it hard to sleep because of an active mind
It’s worth bearing in mind that relaxation is actually a skill — it rarely works as soon as you start trying it! So, you may want to practice during the day for a week or two before trying it at 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.
Hello Gelly. I appreciate that sleep deprivation can make it hard to focus, but it’s difficult to help you without knowing more about your sleep!
Tell me more about your sleep — describe a typical night. When do you go to bed, when do you get out of bed, what happens between bedtime and when you get out of bed? 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.
Hello Katy and welcome to the forum. Are you still using the CPAP machine? When you wake at night, why do you think you find it hard to fall back to 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.
First of all, let me tell you that there is help for you and there is hope for you! I have worked with people who lived with insomnia for decades and managed to turn things around and improve their sleep in just 2 months.
I would suggest that you keep a note of your bedtime at night and out of bed time in the morning, along with your estimated sleep duration (estimate this — don’t clock watch) for at least 1 week. Then, calculate your average nightly sleep duration.
Make sure you aren’t allotting more than half an hour in addition to your nightly sleep duration for sleep at night. The only exception to this rule would be if your average nightly sleep duration is less than 5 hours. In this case, you will want to allot 5.5 hours for sleep at night. More information on calculating an appropriate sleep window can be found on the page about sleep restriction.
Next, make sure you are not using your bed for anything other than sleep or sex. If you can’t sleep, make sure you get out of bed. I would suggest getting out of bed if you can’t fall asleep (or wake during the night and can’t fall back to sleep) within about half an hour (again, just estimate the time — you don’t want to be watching the clock at night). Get out of bed and do something else for roughly half an hour or until you feel sleepy, then get back into bed and repeat the process. More information about this can be found on the page about stimulus control.
These techniques need to be practiced throughout the night, every single night if they are going to work. They will not work if you only practice them every now and then, or give yourself a ‘break’ on some nights. They are tough to commit to, but they do work.
Good luck!
—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.
Perhaps unsurpisingly there is a strong link between pain and poor sleep. Not only does pain disrupt sleep, but sleep deprivation is thought to lower our pain threshold, making pain feel more severe. This, of course, then creates a vicious cycle of an increasing perception of pain and decreasing sleep quality.
Although I can’t help address the pain caused by your hip, achilles and bone spur, I can suggest that you do all you can to take steps to improve your sleep that are unrelated to the pain you live with on a daily basis. Of course, you can’t just magic your pain away, but you can give yourself the best chance for sleep each night by doing things like:
* Sticking to a regular (and appropriate) sleep schedule
* Only using the bed for sleep
* Getting out of bed when you can’t sleep
* Practicing relaxation and/or meditationHas your doctor given you any suggestions for improving sleep while living with chronic pain?
—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 do you think is stopping you from falling back to sleep when you wake during the night, Becks?
—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, Rag. Insomnia is normally triggered by an event or period of stress but continues after the initial cause has passed. That’s because when our sleep gets disrupted, it is very easy to begin paying too much attention to sleep and to worry about sleep — and this makes sleep more difficult. When our sleep doesn’t recover, we become even more worried about sleep, and this makes sleep increasingly difficult.
The good news is this: the quicker you address this, the quicker (and easier it will be) to resolve your sleep issues. If you do not take action, the thoughts and behaviors that are creating your insomnia will become more firmly entrenched, and harder to resolve. Have you looked into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or tried some of the techniques used in 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.
RLS tends to be treated with iron supplements or dopamine agonsts such as pramipexole and ropinirole.
There are some lifestyle changes you can make to reduce the frequency of symptoms, too. For example, smoking and obesity have been linked to RLS. A clinical review also found the following alternative and complementary therapies as being helpful for reducing symptom severity:
Exercise training,
Transcutaneous spinal direct current stimulation,
Pneumatic compression devices,
Near infra-red light treatment to the lower legs,
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation,
AcupunctureI 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.
Waking during the night is completely normal and usually happens as we emerge from one sleep cycle in order to start a new sleep cycle. Those without sleep issues pay such little attention to these nighttime awakenings that they rarely remember them, and the awakenings themselves are very short. These awakenings only become a problem when we worry about them — because then we find that as soon as we awaken, we begin to worry. As soon as we worry, we make it harder to fall back to sleep.
How do you feel during the day? Are you very tired during the day? Do you find that you snore at 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.
As you figured out, trying to sleep doesn’t work (in fact, it actually makes sleep more difficult). The fact that you found it possible to sleep in a different location to normal is evidence that you have learned to associate your normal sleeping environment with non-sleep activities, thoughts, and/or behaviors. These are often things like worry, anxiety, and stress, or activities such as watching TV, reading, surfing the internet, etc.
Fortunately, it is possible to ‘unlearn’ this association, and once again create an association between the bed and sleep. One way to do this is to make sure that the only thing you do in bed is sleep. To help make this happen, it’s important to get out of bed when you can’t sleep and to give yourself the best chance of sleep by creating (and sticking to) a regular, and appropriate, sleep schedule.
—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 to let you know, Michael is the program director for the clinical sleep health program at the Oregon Institute of Technology. He is also a registered and licensed sleep technologist and he is certified in clinical sleep health.
We are lucky to have him here, sharing his expert opinion.
Thank you, Michael — and I hope his suggestions are proving helpful, njf520!
—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.
When do you normally work out? What kind of sleep issues are you currently experiencing? Are you finding it hard to fall asleep, stay asleep, or both? When you are in bed at night, what do you think is stopping you from falling asleep?
I look forward to hearing back from you!
—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 I ever write a book about how insomnia develops, I could use your post above as the perfect example of a ‘typical case’. Almost all cases of insomnia stem from a one-off event or period of stress (in your case, the equivalent of a nervous breakdown). However, when the issue that triggered our sleep problems is resolved (or improves), sleep problems can continue to linger — and that’s because we end up obsessing about sleep and giving it far more attention than we ever did before.
When we obsess about sleep, we end up worrying about sleep. When we worry about sleep, we make it harder to sleep. When we find it hard to sleep, we do things to try to make it easier to sleep (such as going to bed earlier, not going out with friends, calling in sick to work, napping during the day, spending more time in bed) — and all these things actually make it harder to sleep!
This then creates a negative cycle of ever-increasing worry, anxiety, fear, and stress about sleep — and ever-worsening sleep!
Fortunately, cognitive and behavioral techniques such as those I use in my insomnia coaching course are designed to fix this negative cycle by changing the way you think about sleep and by identifying and changing the behaviors that are making it more difficult for you to sleep.
Have you ever looked into cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)? I think you would find it 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 Santos. I hear you when it comes to the sleep disruption we put ourselves through to watch soccer/football! I’m a British expat living in Oregon, so when I want to watch my team (Tottenham Hotspur) play live on TV, I sometimes have to be up at around 4-5am!
Fortunately, if you’ve only been struggling with sleep for a few nights, your sleep is very likely to get better all by itself as you return to a normal sleep schedule and your sleep debt builds sleep pressure. Try not to change your pre-World Cup sleep routine to compensate for the sleep disruption you are currently going through. Go back to whatever you did before and it’s very likely that your sleep will soon return to normal.
—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.
