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Hello Hyhan! Your mind will always generate thoughts and stories like, “insomnia can cause high blood pressure” as it does its job of looking out for you. Instead of trying to argue with your mind or trying to correct it, have you tried simply thanking it for looking out for you?
Of course, they’ll still show up — and you can still respond in the same way; “Thanks, brain!”.
—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.
Congratulations on going to bed from the start of your sleep window!
When you woke (which is a normal part of sleep) and when you felt angry and agitated (which are normal human emotions) how did you respond?
Does your experience tell you that, through effort, you can directly and permanently get rid of emotions such as anger and agitation?
If not, what might be a more workable way of responding to those difficult feelings?
—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, way to go sticking with the sleep window for four nights — even though you found it so difficult. And, even after difficult nights, you continued to go on with your full schedule — you continued to do things that matter and continued to move toward the life you want to live. All those actions are measures of your grit, determination, and personal fortitude.
Feeling sleeping before the sleep window begins and then apparently losing that sense of sleepiness when it begins is very common and comes from your brain looking out for you, trying to protect you.
Before 12:00 AM you know you aren’t about to go to bed. There’s no performance anxiety. There’s no pressure. Your brain isn’t trying to protect you from being awake at night. So, you feel really sleepy.
Then, the sleep window begins. Now your mind fires up and braces you for the struggle that is about to happen (because so many nights have created a struggle up to this point). You perhaps start trying really hard to sleep. You put pressure on yourself to sleep. You might even start trying to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings. And, *poof* — there goes that sleepiness (which perhaps makes sense in this context).
So, what we’re looking to do here is not make a certain amount or type of sleep happen with the sleep window. We’re simply getting started on the journey away from chasing after sleep — from doing things like going to bed earlier than we’d normally go to bed or staying in bed later than we’d normally stay in bed in an attempt to make sleep happen. Because, as your experience might be telling you, the more you chase after sleep — the more you try to make it happen — the more you can end up struggling with it, and the more your brain learns that being awake is a threat that it needs to be more alert to protect you from at night.
Is there anything helpful here? If you’d like to explore your chosen sleep window some more, feel free to share how you chose the original start and end times of 12:00 AM and 7:00 AM and what you are hoping to achieve by modifying them to 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM instead. Are you trying to chase after 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.
Thanks for sharing, @BorgC! It’s good to hear you are enjoying the approach shared so far — plenty more to come!
@Hyhan — there’s no way to fail here, especially when it comes to things that cannot be controlled (such as sleep itself). We simply learn and gain information. And, many people find that sleep becomes more disrupted in the early days as they adjust to a new sleep schedule.Creating a sleep window is probably the closest we’ll get on this course to exploring a behavior change that’s closely aligned with CBT-I. I’ll post more in the topic you created in the week 1 forum.
—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 question and well done with implementing a sleep window!
Is getting out of bed in the middle of the night to sit on a chair in the dark something that helps you experience being awake with less struggle? What’s your goal when you get out of bed and sit in the chair in the dark?
—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 question! The AWAKE exercise (or anything else!) can easily become a sleep effort if our intent with it is to make sleep happen or to control what we are thinking or how we are feeling.
In your situation, it sounds as though you are practicing experiencing wakefulness with less struggle —great! — and then find yourself getting bored. Boredom is one of those things that can set us up for a bit of a struggle — it’s a feeling many of us don’t like too much and so we might want to start trying to get rid of that boredom and before we know it we are tangled up in a struggle with our minds!
So, what might be helpful here is refocusing on a workable way of responding to being awake at night — and, for many of us, that will involve practicing being awake with less struggle. So, anything that can help you with that can be useful!
That might involve practicing the AWAKE exercise — you might become an observer of that boredom. Does it have a name? Can you feel it in your body? Does it look like something? Does it sound like something?
It might involve reading a book. It might involve some trampolining!
Since the goal isn’t to make sleep happen or to control your thoughts and feelings, it doesn’t matter too much what you do when awake — as long as what you do is helping you experience being awake (and all the thoughts and feelings that might be showing up) with less struggle.
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.
It’s great to hear you are practicing the three good things exercise, Packer Fan! What have you been learning from that?
It’s also great to hear that you’ve been practicing allowing your mind to wander during the night and to do what it’s going to do anyway!
You mentioned going down to the living room during your sleep window — why are you doing that? Also, have you given any though to the suggestion that allotting eight hours for sleep each night might be setting you up for a certain amount of nighttime wakefulness (unless, of course, you are currently averaging over seven hours of sleep each night)?
Are you still napping during the day? If so, how often do you nap, for how long, and at what times of the day?
—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 question!
It can be helpful to reflect on your own experience here. Does your experience tell you that going to bed as soon as you feel sleepy, even if that’s earlier than you might normally want to go to bed, creates a great night of sleep and helps you live the kind of life you want to live? If so, that is likely the best approach to take.
If your experience tells you that going to bed as soon as you feel sleepy, even if that’s earlier than you might normally want to go to bed, doesn’t seem to generate a great night of sleep and might be pulling you away from the kind of life you want to live, perhaps that’s not the right approach to take.
What might be useful is making the start of your sleep window the last time you check the time until the end of your sleep window and allowing yourself to go to bed from that point on whenever you feel sleepiness show up. If, on the other hand, you find that you can often fall asleep without a strong sense of sleepiness being present, you might just allow yourself to go to bed whenever your sleep window begins.
Now, it can sound as though there’s no real clarity here — and that’s partly intentional because a sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. It’s not a rule or a ritual that can control sleep. It’s simply one tool that is intended to help us move away from chasing after sleep — from doing things like going to bed earlier or staying in bed later in an effort to make sleep happen.
As long as you aren’t chasing after sleep, as long as you are going to bed because you feel ready to go to bed, and as long as you have a reasonably consistent out of bed time in the morning, that’s all that really matters.
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.
Getting more comfortable with experiencing wakefulness with less struggle, less resistance, and more acceptance and self-kindness is a huge sign of progress, @panfan1956! Thank you for sharing!
—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 real starting line — finishing the course and practicing what you’ve been learning independently 😉
Many people find it helpful to really take their time with the course; as I like to say, there are no prizes for finishing in the quickest time possible! What matters most is absorbing the information and practicing what you are learning. That often takes time!
A lot of people find that their sense of wellbeing — their perspective on sleep, their quality of life — improves before their sleep does. The more we can practice moving away from trying to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen and the more we can practice doing things that help us move toward the life we want to live, the more sleep seems to fade into the background and become just a “normal” part of our lives, perhaps like breathing.
Sometimes a new sleep schedule can create some temporary sleep disruption as we adjust — just remember that the goal with a sleep window isn’t to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. It’s simply one tool that can help us move away from chasing after sleep — because the more we chase after sleep the more elusive it can become (and the more energy we consume)!
—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 so much for checking in and for sharing!
It sounds as though you’ve found that it can be harder for insomnia to take up as much space when you are living a rich and meaningful life and doing lots of things that matter.
If our lives are a circle and there’s not much more than insomnia in that circle it can be the focus of our lives and feel very influential and powerful. If that circle contains lots of other things, insomnia can get a bit crowded out or “diluted” and starved of the oxygen it needs to survive!
And yet, difficult nights will still show up from time to time — just as difficult days will still show up from time to time. They come with being a human being. What matters is how we respond to them.
It also sounds as though you’ve started being a lot kinder to yourself when difficult nights show up and that ongoing practice of experiencing wakefulness with less struggle has been helpful. I’d agree that the concepts explored in this course can apply to many other struggles in life!
Thanks again for sharing, and I wish you all the best for 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.
Thank you so much for sharing, Sonja!
It’s good to hear that you found it so helpful to have a better understanding of how sleep drive works and that you’ve found it particularly helpful to maintain a consistent out of bed time (regardless of how you sleep from night to night) and to practice the three good things exercise!
What did you learn from practicing the three good things exercise? How do you feel that was helpful?
As you shared, practicing a new approach is often difficult — good on you for being curious and being willing to explore (and practice) a new approach!
—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.
Sorry to hear you got sick, Packer Fan — I hope you are feeling better now.
In terms of how to move forward, you might want to review the content of previous weeks to “freshen” up your understanding of things, and then finish up Week 3 and start implementing an action plan.
In other words, refresh your knowledge and then continue to move forward.
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.
Thanks for sharing, Gary. Do you usually feel sleepy enough for sleep at 10:00 PM?
A sleep window of 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM means that you are allotting eight hours for sleep each night.
If you typically get less than, say, seven hours of sleep at night, do you feel that sleep window might be setting you up for a certain amount of nighttime wakefulness? What does your experience tell 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.
Great question, Packer Fan! I think the answer comes down to your intent — why would you choose to listen to a sound machine or sleep music? Is it because you enjoy those things, or are they efforts to make sleep happen or to control your thoughts and feelings?
If it’s the latter, what does your experience tell you in terms of the workability of trying to control sleep or your thoughts and feelings? Can they be directly and permanently controlled through effort, according to your own experience?
The “golden rule” of sleep and sex in bed is based on the CBT-I approach of stimulus control. If being awake in bed was the real problem, how do we explain the fact that so many people sleep great even though they watch TV in bed, work in bed, scroll on their phones in bed, read in bed, do crosswords in bed…
I talk about this a bit more in the lesson, “What About Stimulus Control for Insomnia?”.
As mentioned by @hiker, you can definitely get out of bed if you want — but it’s not required! The goal is to practice experiencing wakefulness with less struggle.
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.
