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Ups and downs are normal — and the nights of good sleep prove that your sleep system is working as it should and is generating sleep when sleep is needed.
It’s a lot harder to practice acknowledging and making space for difficult thoughts and feelings to exist at night — there’s fewer opportunities to shift our attention! So, you aren’t alone in finding that difficult! Having a clear plan in place for what to do when you find yourself struggling at night can be helpful.
In terms of dealing with wakefulness and anxiety in a workable way, if sleep meditations, the audiobook on the power of the subconscious mind, and buying books about unwinding the mind had worked, what would have happened?
If your goal with those actions was to get rid of wakefulness or anxiety, perhaps you are still tangled up in the struggle that comes from trying to control what your experience tells you cannot be controlled?
Imagine if the appearance of anxiety didn’t create a struggle. If its appearance was more like water off a duck’s back rather than something that pulled you in to an endless and exhausting tug of war. How might things be different? Does that sound more appealing and more workable? If so, how might you practice building skill in experiencing anxiety and wakefulness with less struggle?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It sounds as though you are acknowledging that the approach you shared isn’t working for you. Does that mean that changes are needed if you want things to change? If so, are you ready to make those changes — even though change can be difficult? What might those changes look like?
—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 Tara!
If your goal with the AWAKE exercise is to practice acknowledging your thoughts and feelings and build skill in experiencing them with less struggle, you are on the right track!
If your goal is to practice acknowledging your thoughts and feelings so that sleep happens, you might be setting yourself up for more struggle since your own experience tells you that you cannot control sleep through effort, right?
Anxiety can definitely make sleep more difficult but it’s still possible to sleep, even in the presence of anxiety. What makes things even more difficult is battling with anxiety — because, after all, how likely is sleep to happen if we are at war with our minds? The brain is probably less likely to allow sleep to happen if it’s engaged in a battle.
If one of your goals is to not allow sleep to consume you, how are the ongoing attempts to control sleep helping you move closer to that goal?
—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.
The example you gave in your first post is correct — if you are averaging less than six hours of sleep at the current time, a six hour sleep window would be 1:00 AM to 7:00 AM. And, the idea is that no matter how you sleep at night, you will still be out of bed at 7:00 AM.
A sleep window is usually based on how you are sleeping now, rather than how you want to be sleeping.
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.
Does the knot itself stop sleep from happening or might the desire — or effort — to get rid of the knot be making sleep more difficult?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Good on you for being willing to experiment with a new approach — this is clear evidence of your growth mindset and understanding that change is possible!
The presence of anxiety can be really difficult. There can be no doubt about it. When it shows up you have a choice — fight and battle and struggle, or acknowledge and observe and be kind to yourself. Only you know which option might be best for you since you are the expert on you.
Congratulations on your pregnancy — that can definitely make things feel more complicated (and exciting)!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thank you for sharing! It’s great to read how your relationship with sleep, anxiety, and hyperarousal has changed — and that’s all down to your own efforts to explore and practice new skills that help you respond in a way that doesn’t require an ongoing battle and struggle!
—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 bkw and thanks for sharing your experience.
You mentioned that eight hours of continual reading at night led to daytime distress. What was the alternative to eight hours of reading at night (in other words what did you do before you read for eight hours) and did that create less daytime distress?
Many people find that when there’s an anticipated stressor, sleep becomes a lot more difficult — and that’s often (but not always) because we can put more pressure on ourselves to sleep. Quite often, the more we try to make sleep happen the more elusive it becomes.
To answer your questions:
(1) Has anyone else seen or experienced this kind of sudden-onset trauma-induced insomnia?
I am not a doctor, but I have heard of many people describing their onset of insomnia as coming from a specific trauma or a specific event in their lives.
It can sometimes feel as though sleep is impossible without sedation (and is sedation the same as sleep?) — and yet, the human body will ALWAYS sleep once it has been awake for long enough, just as it will always generate a breath when enough time has passed since the last breath.
Typically, we need to stay awake for longer and generate more sleep drive the more we are trying to make sleep happen and/or the more we are trying to control what we are thinking or feeling, because that can make our brain think there’s some kind of threat to wakefulness and so stays alert to protect us from that threat. This temporarily overrides sleepiness (and sleep) — we’d all be dead without that safety mechanism — but sleep will still win out in the end.
(2) Now that I’m a bit more regulated, could CBTi work given the clear traumatic origins of my sleep issues, or do I have to figure out how to address this trauma first?
I would suggest discussing that with a CBT-I therapist to get their opinion.
(3) Assuming that CBTi might be effective, how important is it to get off the mirtazapine?
It’s possible to engage in CBT-I while taking medication — again, that is a question best directed toward a CBT-I therapist.
I hope this helps and I wish you all the best.
—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 Cloudy and welcome to the forum. First, let me say that what you are experiencing sounds really difficult. I also do not see anything unique or unusual in your experience — it sounds as though you are a bit stuck and tangled up in the insomnia struggle.
Many people find that leaving their jobs or doing less with their lives doesn’t get rid of their insomnia. In fact, I know lots of people who slept really well until they retired — and that was when their insomnia showed up! With that being said, your job sounded really difficult and leaving that environment, regardless of how you were sleeping, was probably the right choice to make!
Ultimately, insomnia is kept alive from the focus and attention we give it. And that’s why it’s so easy to get stuck — we are naturally going to give a problem more of our focus and attention, right?
And yet, the more we try to fix it, the more we try to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen, the more difficult it all becomes. If we stop working or engage in fewer activities, the influence of sleep can become more concentrated as all the other stuff that makes up our lives and once diluted it a little gets removed.
With this in mind, going out for a walk each morning might be a helpful way to add an action to your life that gives you the opportunity to expand your focus a little. Some form of movement might also help shake of some of that early morning exhaustion and fogginess, too. It’s not going to magically delete insomnia from your life, but it might just start to dilute its power and influence a little.
We can’t control sleep but we can control our actions — and, ultimately, it’s our actions that determine the level of power and influence sleep, insomnia, and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with insomnia, have over our lives.
I hope there’s something useful here and I wish you all the best.
—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.
How long have you been implementing a sleep window, @bat97? What do you think you should do when you wake an hour before your alarm?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It sounds as though you are waking before you want to be waking (and waking during the night is a normal part of sleep) and then you can sometimes find it hard to fall back to sleep afterwards — am I understanding you correctly?
If so, there isn’t anything you can do to make sleep happen after waking during the night since there’s no magic sleep switch for the brain, unfortunately. The only thing you can control are your actions — in other words, you get to decide how to respond to waking during the night.
Your response might involve tossing and turning, trying to make sleep happen, or it might involve doing something else if tossing and turning is unpleasant. Sometimes all the struggle involved in trying to make more sleep happen can be more exhausting than the missing sleep itself.
What time do you usually go to bed at night and what time do you usually get out of bed in the morning to start your day? Do you usually fall asleep at the start of the night relatively quickly (within half-hour or so)?
—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 think you posed an interesting question there — if the point is to be less obsessed with sleep, for it to be less of a focus of your attention, how does the ongoing consumption of content related to sleep help with that? What’s your answer to that question, Bennett?
—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.
Are you still working shifts? This page might help you figure out an initial sleep window, but if you still have questions, please feel free to respond here
—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.
That anxiety can be really difficult — how do you currently respond to it when it shows up?
It sounds as though your experience is telling you that the more you try to control sleep and the more you try to fight or avoid anxiety, the more difficult those things become. Am I right? Does this suggest that this stuff might be beyond your direct control? If so, how is trying to control what cannot be controlled helping you?
I don’t see anything unique or unusual in your posts. It sounds as though you are tangled up in the struggle that often comes with insomnia (and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can show up with it).
You are not alone and there are no hopeless cases. It’s just so easy to get stuck — and when we get stuck, we usually need to take a different approach if we want to get unstuck. I hope the course will be able to offer you some ideas on a different approach that might be possible for 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.
It’s hard to know for sure what’s going on — really all dreams mean are that we are asleep (although we can daydream, too). Sometimes we remember our dreams, sometimes we don’t.
When it comes to sleep architecture, such as amounts of deep sleep, this is something the body takes care of by itself. It knows how much deep sleep to generate and it makes up for any lost deep sleep on later nights (not necessarily by creating more sleep but by modifying sleep architecture).
It’s like how the body regulates breathing by itself. Yes, we can make breathing more difficult and we can interrupt it by trying to control it — but, in the end, the body takes care of things and makes sure we get the number of breaths we need.
When it comes to sleep, all the difficulties and struggles often arise the more we try to intervene. The more we try to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. The more we focus on sleep. The more power and influence it has over our lives the more difficult it becomes.
It sounds as though staying in bed later isn’t an action that’s working for you — so perhaps a change there might be worth exploring. As you said, it’s hard to get out of bed around the same time each day — and, from reading your posts, the alternative doesn’t sound easier.
When you think about sleep during the day (which is normal!) maybe you might allow those thoughts to happen, make space for them to exist, be kind to yourself, and then practice refocusing your attention on where you are, what you are doing, and what you could be doing in addition to thinking. Things that are aligned with your values, things that matter to you, things that will keep you moving toward the life you want to live even when this difficult stuff is present.
If you ever have thoughts of suicide please talk to someone immediately. I am not sure where you are in the world, but resources that will connect you to someone right away can be found here: https://blog.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines/
I wish you all the best.
—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.
