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Many people experience what you’ve described — so you’re definitely not alone!
After a really difficult night (or two … or more!) sleep pressure is going to be really high and that means sleep is more likely to happen.
After that sleep pressure is relieved (ie we get a good night of sleep) things can get more difficult again since sleep pressure is lower.
When sleep pressure is lower, sleep is more likely to be disrupted by all our efforts to make it happen — as we struggle, it’s harder for sleep to happen since we are engaged in a battle with an invisible enemy. Our struggle temporarily overpowers sleep pressure.
Perhaps the two key insights here are:
1. Sleep always happens in the end, no matter what.
2. The less we struggle with sleep, the less we need to rely on sleep pressure to overpower our efforts to make sleep happen.We’ll be exploring these concepts in a lot more detail as the course progresses. I wish you all the best with it and please let me know if this helps or if you have any other questions!
—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 — you’ve raised an important (and often confusing) topic here!
As we get older, we typically generate less sleep. And we also typically generate less deep sleep and are likely to find our body clocks shift so we might feel sleepier earlier in the night and wake, ready to start the day, earlier in the morning.
This doesn’t mean that we should expect to live with progressively worse sleep or that we are all doomed to insomnia as we get older. It simply means that it’s normal for sleep to change as we get older.
Difficulties can arise when we try to take control of sleep — when we try to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen or put pressure on ourselves to make sleep happen.
That’s because, ultimately, we cannot directly or permanently control sleep — just as we cannot directly or permanently control our breathing or our heartbeat. So, all our attempts to control something that cannot be controlled can end up making things more difficult.
As we explored in Week 1, waking during the night is a normal part of sleep. Quite often, it’s how we might respond to waking that determines our level of struggle and how likely we are to fall back to sleep.
I hope there’s something useful 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.
Hello Claudette and welcome to the forum. Anger and exhaustion are pretty common among people with chronic insomnia — so you are not alone.
If your experience tells you that sleep is something you cannot directly or permanently control, perhaps you might be being a bit hard on yourself when you wake and find it hard to fall back to sleep. Is there any way you might be able to be a bit kinder to yourself, do you think? After all, what you are going through is not your fault.
We’ll be exploring the workability of our response to waking during the night (which is a normal part of sleep) in Week 2 onward. In the meantime, when you wake during the night, what do you normally do next and how effective or helpful is that proving to be?
—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, Sonja — and thank you for introducing yourself! I hope to see you share more of your journey — your ups, your downs, and any questions that might pop up — as you continue to work through 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.
Way to go! It sounds as though you are noticing some big changes already — and that’s all down to your willingness (and effort!) to practice a new approach (something that’s not always easy)! Keep it up 🙂
—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.
Correct — there’s no time restriction with the AWAKE exercise and you can use it any time you find yourself struggling at night (falling asleep at the start of the night or falling back to sleep after waking later in the night)!
There’s no guided implementation of stimulus control in this course and I explain the reasons for that in the lesson “What About Stimulus Control for Insomnia?”
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.
Thanks for sharing an update with us!
In terms of if or when to change the sleep window, that’s completely up to you — a sleep window cannot make a certain amount or type of sleep happen; it’s simply one tool that can help us move away from chasing after sleep. And, as a bonus, when we allot an amount of time for sleep that’s more aligned with the amount of sleep we are currently generating, we aren’t setting ourselves up for long periods of struggle with nighttime wakefulness.
If you feel comfortable with spending some time awake in bed during your sleep window and/or you are finding it really hard to stay awake for the start of your sleep window, you might want to start it a little earlier.
What time does your current sleep window end and how did you choose that end time?
—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.
Fantastic — thank you for sharing! It sounds as though you’ve come up with a great technique that helps you separate yourself from your thoughts and be more of an observer of them.
It’s great that you were able to play around, experiment, and come up with something you’re finding useful — and, even better, you shared it here in the 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.
As you mentioned, it’s totally natural and normal (and human) to get pulled back into a struggle every now and again, GenieB — so, please try to be kind to yourself! The fact that you are noticing when you are getting pulled into a struggle is evidence of your growing skillset 🙂
No matter how often or how deeply we find ourselves in a struggle, we can always change direction and respond in a different way in order to start freeing ourselves from the struggle.
In other words, we can always control our actions and practice responding in a workable way whenever we notice we’re getting jerked around by things out of our control or whenever we notice we’re trying to fight or avoid difficult things that are out of our control.
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.
Hello GenieB!
Anxiety will always come back. It’s a natural and normal human emotion.
For as long as our goal is to delete anxiety, we might be more likely to find ourselves struggling with it.
The appearance of anxiety isn’t your fault and it doesn’t mean anything more than you have a normal human brain that’s doing its job of looking out for you.
What does accepting nighttime wakefulness mean to you? When you are able to accept nighttime wakefulness, what do you differently compared to when you are not able to accept nighttime wakefulness?
What is your goal when you practice AWAKE, read, journal all you did during the day, and listen to guided meditation? When those things “work”, what happens?
—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 love the support and insights shared here!
Anxiety can be really difficult to experience. So can fear. It makes complete sense that we don’t want to experience those feelings (even though they help to protect us and keep us alive)!
And, as we all know from experience, we cannot permanently delete them. They will always show up from time to time. So, for as long as we continue to try to fight or avoid them, for as long as our intent is to get rid of them, we might be setting ourselves up for an ongoing struggle.
After two really difficult nights, I think most people (if not everyone) would feel terrified (or at least very worried) about the possibility of a third difficult night.
As you shared, Elkie, you get to decide how to respond to this difficult stuff. And, it sounds as though you’ve been finding it helpful to remind yourself that this is difficult and that you are still able to do things that matter. You are still able to do things (even though that can be a lot more difficult) that move you toward the life you want to live — even in the presence of fear, worry, and anxiety.
The alternative approach is to engage in a battle with your mind (and sleep) — and where does that get you?
Most of us can reflect on our experience and acknowledge that the battle only makes things more difficult and consumes more of our energy and attention. And, doing less of what matters when this stuff shows up tends to pull us away from the life we want to live and gives all those thoughts and feelings more power and influence — not less.
For as long as we try to control, edit, or replace our thoughts and feelings we might be setting ourselves up for a struggle — just as we can set ourselves up for a struggle for as long as we try to control sleep.
An alternative approach can involve practicing acknowledging the presence of fear and anxiety (and anything else that might be going on inside your mind), allowing those thoughts and feelings to come and go as they choose, and being kind to yourself when things feel difficult.
When this stuff shows up at night and you find yourself struggling, you always have the opportunity to do something that will help you practice experiencing being awake with a bit less struggle.
When it shows up during the day, you have the opportunity to practice refocusing your attention on where you are, what you are doing, and perhaps also what you could be doing so you can continue to do things that matter and continue to move toward the life you want to live, even in their presence. At least then, all this difficult stuff is serving some kind of purpose.
It sounds as though you are already finding some benefits to practicing allowing difficult thoughts and feelings to flow — when there’s less resistance they might be less likely to stick around (just like butter sliding off a hot pan).
This does take ongoing practice and difficult thoughts and feelings will still show up from time to time. The difference is that, without the struggle, they can lose their power and influence and you are less likely to get jerked around quite so violently by them!
—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 Lozelise and welcome to the forum. Thank you for sharing your experience and your thoughts.
Worry is a natural human emotion. It will show up for as long as you are a living, breathing human being. And, as a human being, your mind will experience countless thoughts and feelings — whenever it chooses!
Some will feel good. Some won’t. Some will be helpful. Some won’t. Some will be accurate. Some won’t. You can’t stop them — just as you can’t stop the flow of a river with your bare hands.
Thoughts and feelings do not prevent sleep from happening (although they sure can make it more difficult). We can still sleep when we are worried, when we are anxious, or when our minds are doing anything else they choose to do!
What can make sleep even more difficult is trying to fight or avoid difficult thoughts and feelings. Our attempts to do that can give them more power and influence than they might require or deserve. This is when we can get pulled into an endless, exhausting, and distracting struggle that makes them (and sleep!) even more difficult.
It’s natural and normal, as you acknowledged, to experience some difficult nights from time to time — just as it’s natural and normal to experience some difficult days from time to time. They cannot be eliminated through effort.
It can also feel confusing — and yet, there’s no mystery. It all comes down to the struggle. The more we struggle (which is caused by trying to control sleep or what we think or what we feel) the more difficult sleep, our thoughts, and our feelings, can become.
Your friends and coworkers all have issues with sleep from time to time — I guarantee it! It’s just that they might respond in a different way and so they don’t accidentally end up giving insomnia the fuel it needs to survive (attention, energy, and effort).
Sleeping pills can work until they don’t work — and that’s because nothing can make sleep happen other than being awake for long enough (and sedation is not the same as sleep).
So, with all this in mind, I encourage you to be kind to yourself. None of this is your fault. What you are experiencing is hard. And it’s not unusual. The more you can practice moving away from trying to fight or avoid insomnia and the thoughts and feelings associated with it, the better able you might be to free yourself from an endless struggle.
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.
Hello @RoadWorn and welcome to the forum!
From reading your post, it sounds as though you might be getting a bit tangled up in trying to control your sleep. This is something that trips a lot of people up.
If we implement sleep restriction with the intent of making a certain amount or type of sleep happen, we can end up struggling as we “chase the numbers” or otherwise put pressure on ourselves to make sleep happen.
Ultimately, we cannot make a certain amount or type of sleep happen through effort. The more we try, the more we can struggle.
It might be helpful to think of sleep restriction as a single tool that is intended to help you move away from chasing after sleep — from doing things like going to bed earlier or staying in bed later in an effort to make more sleep happen.
If it’s used in an attempt to achieve a specific sleep efficiency or a certain amount of sleep, it has the potential to create more struggle — not less.
Have you discussed your concerns with your therapist? Perhaps it might be time to explore or practice some additional tools that might help you respond to wakefulness and difficult nights in a different way if you find they’re currently creating a lot of struggle?
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.
I admire your tenacity, sticking with it for six weeks — that’s not easy!
You might want to look through the insomnia success stories here in the forum and on the Insomnia Coach podcast — the general theme among them seems to be that sleep improves when there’s less effort to make sleep happen.
In other words, as we move away from trying to fight or avoid insomnia (and the difficult thoughts and feelings associated with insomnia) things start to get a bit better.
Can you remember a time when sleep wasn’t an issue or a concern? If so, was your approach to sleep back then different to your approach now? Are there any insights there?
—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 are not alone, Sig.
As I respond to your post, I notice that I have a slight headache, my back is aching, and — earlier in the day — I also noticed some muscle twitches. And yet, I do not have insomnia. Perhaps those things sometimes come with being a human being? Of course, we’d rather they weren’t present, but they show up from time to time anyway. Perhaps because of how we slept and perhaps for any other number of reasons.
Waking during the night is a normal part of sleep and the average adult gets closer to six hours of sleep than eight hours. What is your goal? When you wake after five to six hours of sleep, why do you feel that you can’t get any more sleep? When you wake after five to six hours of sleep, what do you do next?
—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.
