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Hello Beth and welcome to the course!
You have a lot of experience to draw from as you chart a workable path forward.
As you shared, it’s so easy to get pulled back into a struggle when sleep doesn’t happen as you want it to. And, sleep isn’t always going to happen as you want it to!
The superpower at your disposal (in addition to your experience!) is awareness. You are able to notice when you are struggling and that means you have the opportunity to respond differently.
You know that feelings of panic and anxiety come and go. That doesn’t necessarily make them any easier to experience, though. And, as you pointed out, those thoughts and feelings aren’t always connected to sleep happening (or not happening). They seem to just show up when they choose. And that’s normal.
Your problem-solving brain is always working away to look out for you. And it’s always going to focus on worst possible outcomes and all the doom and gloom scenarios because the good stuff isn’t a potential threat.
It is far more important for your brain to prepare and protect you from a bad experience and be wrong, than filter out unlikely scenarios and be wrong!
As you reflect on your experience, what feels like a workable way to respond when your brain starts firing up to protect you? (This is also something we’ll be exploring in a lot more detail from Week 2 onward.)
—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.
Thanks for letting me know my last post wasn’t helpful. What specific guidance can I offer that would be of more help?
The sleep window is a minor part of everything covered in the course. Success isn’t determined by your ability to implement a certain kind of sleep window.
The sleep window is nothing more than a tool intended to help you move away from chasing after sleep. It’s not something that can make a certain amount or type of sleep happen.
Pacing around the room or sitting on the floor when awake sounds really unpleasant. What is your intention with that? What are you trying to achieve?
—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.
Starting a sleep window at 4:00 AM sounds challenging. I wouldn’t usually suggest a sleep window of much less than six hours — but you are the expert on you!
Normally, I suggest anchoring the out-of-bed time because that’s a strong cue for the body clock — we can get used to a consistent out-of-bed time and find ourselves naturally waking at that time after a while.
So, changing the time of the end of the sleep window over time can be a bit more difficult compared to shifting the start of the sleep window over time.
It’s not impossible — it’s just a bit more difficult. Your body might get used to waking up at 6:30 AM and then you want to change it to 8:00 AM.
So, you might want to just go for 8:00 AM now and combine that with a start time that feels a bit more realistic (ie not 4:00 AM)!
I’ll also add that gradually reducing the amount of time you allot for sleep rather than making a massive cut all at once can be more helpful compared to having a sleep window that seems totally unrealistic!
Does this help?
—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.
And sleep can still happen even when we think about it 😜
It can become a lot more elusive when we try to “not” think, though! And that’s why observing thoughts rather than resisting them can often be a strategy worth experimenting with — just as you shared, @hiker!
We’ll be exploring that (and a lot more) as the course progresses 🙂
—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 aboard!
A sleep window is usually handled the same because all insomnia is the same — it comes from trying to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. This can show itself as difficulty falling asleep and it can show itself as difficulty falling back to sleep.
One way we can try making a certain amount or type of sleep happen is allotting an excessive amount of time for sleep — way more than we usually spend asleep.
If you aren’t doing that, a sleep window might not be too important or relevant. If feel you might be doing that, keeping a sleep window — at least for a week or two — might offer a learning opportunity.
Is there anything useful here, @Cata?
—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.
Thanks for the great questions!
I would typically suggest coming up with a sleep window duration first (based on how much sleep you typically get on an average night) and then by choosing an out-of-bed time in the morning that feels right to you and works for the life you want to live.
Then, you’d use the duration to count back from your out-of-bed time to get the start of your sleep window.
The sleep window is a tool intended to help you move away from chasing after sleep. It cannot make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. It’s also a learning tool, so I would suggest sticking with a sleep window for at least a week or so before reflecting on what you learned and deciding whether or not you’d like to make any changes.
Feeling sleepy before the sleep window and then alert when you go to bed is extremely common. Before the sleep window begins there’s no pressure or effort to make sleep happen. So you notice it showing up.
Once the sleep window begins, the pressure and effort can kick in — and your brain can ramp up the alertness levels to protect you from what it predicts to be the battle that is about to begin.
If you decide not to commit to the sleep window (you are the expert on you, after all), what would you be doing instead — and, according to your experience, how useful is that?
—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.
Doing anything other than battling sounds like a more workable way of experiencing nighttime wakefulness!
As for whether activities are restful enough — if your experience tells you that you cannot make sleep or sleepiness happen through effort, perhaps that’s less relevant compared to simply giving yourself the opportunity to experience being awake without it drawing you into a battle.
And you can do something other than battle when you’re in bed and when you’re out of bed. The choice of location is yours!
—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.
Thanks for coming back with an update!
You committed to an approach of acceptance rather than resistance. That was not easy. In fact, it was really hard — especially the first night.
You learned from your experience and you stayed committed to an action that moved you in the direction you wanted to be heading even though it was hard and even though it came with lots of difficult thoughts and feelings.
With your commitment to action, you feel more confident that you are moving away from an endless struggle. And, with less of that active resistance and battling, you’ve noticed sleep is better able to take care of itself, too!
—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.
Thanks for sharing where you are, at this early stage of your journey!
A hospital environment makes it harder for you to follow your own kind of schedule and it also means you don’t have as much control over your environment. And, you are continuing regardless. You aren’t giving up. You are doing the best you can.
You shared that your goal is to get seven to eight hours of sleep. If that happened, what would you be doing differently with your life?
I’m also curious — if you’d like to be starting your day around 7:30 AM, what made you decide to end your sleep window at 6:30 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.
Your response is now more flexible. It’s not just resist at all costs (and you know where that gets you)!
It’s easy to get pulled back into a struggle and to notice yourself chasing after sleep. Simply being able to notice when that’s happening is a superpower because it gives you the opportunity to respond differently.
Thanks to your strengths of honesty and self-awareness, you have more clarity about the intention behind your actions. So, whenever you notice your actions are trying to control what you know from experience is out of your control, you can kindly bring your attention to that and decide how you want to respond.
You are continuing to learn and to practice. That’s what counts and that’s the truest reflection of progress 🙂
—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.
These teachings came into your life at just the right time. Perhaps without all your prior experience, you might not have been inclined to take the route shared in this course! Your experience helped guide you forward.
You’ve come a long way and that’s entirely down to your curiosity, your willingness to explore a different approach, and your commitment to experimenting with and practicing what is shared in the course.
You feel as though you’ve got your life back. You feel more resilient. As you reflect on your future, it feels like your experience with insomnia has actually contributed to your personal growth and development.
How easy it would have been to quit when you felt stuck. You didn’t quit, though. And look at where you are now (and where you might be 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.
Glad to hear it — you are doing better because you remained curious, continued to reflect and learn from your actions, and committed to practicing what is shared in the course 👍
—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 have clarity. You know that trying to control what is out of your control is the ultimate source of ongoing struggle.
As you shared, you have tools to draw from whenever you find yourself struggling or feel as though your actions are disconnected from your values.
You feel more confident about moving forward, toward the life you want to live.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
You finished working through the six weeks of the course and thanks to your ongoing commitment to practice, you have become better able to accept wakefulness (rather than battle with it). As a result, nights are calmer — not a bloody battleground!
As for what causes wakefulness — the answer is anything can cause it. The brain never shuts down during sleep. It’s still monitoring your surroundings for threats. Waking, therefore, is a completely normal part of sleep.
The more we resist those awakenings, the more noticeable and memorable they become (and the more of a struggle they can create) — as you know from experience!
You are able to acknowledge the thoughts your problem-solving brain is generating as it does its job of looking out for you — thoughts that usually lean toward “worst possible outcome” and all the other doom and gloom stuff (because good stuff isn’t a threat).
And you are responding in a workable way. Giving it space to exist. To come and go as it wishes. That doesn’t mean the vigilance ends (your brain still has a job to do) — it just means you aren’t engaged in an active and exhausting struggle through the night.
It sounds like you are heading in the direction you want to be heading. As the expert on yourself, what do you feel is the best way to continue moving forward?
—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.
Thanks for sharing!
You are continuing to work through the course materials and — most importantly — you are continuing to take action. You are continuing to practice and develop new skills. And you are continuing to learn from what you are doing.
Your actions are moving you closer to where you want to be. You are doing things (like taking a course) even though it means getting home later. You are better able to notice the good stuff around you — stuff that before, might have gone unnoticed.
You are getting better at refocusing your attention because of your commitment to ongoing practice of the AWAKE exercise. Your actions better reflect (and serve) your values.
You haven’t needed to get much practice in with the AWAKE exercise, but you know it’s a tool that’s available for you to use as needed.
Although you noticed a feeling of anxiety connected to moving away from medication, you took action anyway. And, you stayed committed even when that got hard.
You have noticed the change and growth that has happened since you got started working on all this. And, that change and growth is entirely to your credit — you did the work.
I wish you all the best as you continue to move forward 🙂
—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.
