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You are making progress, @Pam1129! To answer your question — no human being will sleep through the night without waking. Waking during the night for very short periods of time is natural and normal — it’s what keeps us alive and safe.
Waking as many as 10-20 times each hour of the night wouldn’t necessarily be unusual. It’s just that, for us to remember them, they need to last for at least five minutes.
Most awakenings don’t last that long so someone who pays very little attention to sleep can easily believe they slept right through the night. The reality is, they didn’t.
Often, the more we might try to fight, avoid, or get rid of those awakenings the greater our response to them — and that can mean they last longer. In turn, they become more memorable and more of a perceived problem.
—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 human body doesn’t require supplements to generate sleep and the action of trying to make sleep happen through the use of supplements (or anything else) might create more difficulty and more struggle.
I’m curious to know why you are investigating supplements as an alternative (or supplement to!) what you are learning 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.
It sounds like trying to make sleep happen (or trying to stop your brain thinking) is something that’s not really working for you. So, perhaps the time of day you are in bed isn’t the main issue here — perhaps it’s what the intention is behind your actions. What your goal is.
If your intention is to make sleep happen or stop your brain thinking then perhaps that’s creating more difficulty. If your intention is to rest, perhaps that’s more workable — as long as you aren’t spending your days resting rather than living your life!
We’ll be exploring all these issues in more detail as you work through the course. Hopefully this offers you something to consider in the meantime!
—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.
Alas, I am not a postpartum mom but I can tell you that many have been through the course and found it helpful! If you have any questions or would be kind enough to share any insights as you work through the course, feel free to post them in the client 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.
Welcome aboard! You are ready to take action and leave the struggle behind. What are all the things you need to get in your day and not miss?
—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 makes sense that you’d rather not wake so often during the night (on that subject, have you ruled out any medical explanation for the repeated awakenings?) — and your experience also tells you that the more you try to get rid of them or certain thoughts and feelings, the more difficult all those things become.
You have a strengthening realization that any actions intended to make sleep happen, any actions intended to change your thoughts or feelings, only leave you tangled up in a struggle. And, for as long as you are stuck in that struggle, it’s harder to move forward.
A workable way of responding to being awake, therefore, seems to be to do anything that helps you build skill in experiencing being awake and all the thoughts and feelings that come with that wakefulness with less struggle.
That might mean staying in bed and resting, it might mean going on the iPad, it might mean moving to the couch — it’s the intention behind your actions that determines how workable they are!
—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.
Although you haven’t needed to get any practice in with the AWAKE exercise because you aren’t struggling with nighttime wakefulness at the current time, you still have that tool in your pocket for the future!
You are practicing the NOW exercise as a way to help you refocus whenever difficult or distracting thoughts show up during the day — and that practice will no doubt also come in handy if you want to practice the AWAKE exercise at any point in the future.
Thanks for sharing and 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.
You are no longer trying to fight or avoid wakefulness or fear. As a result, they are losing their power and influence over you.
You are building skill in opening up and allowing fear and wakefulness to be present (even though you might not want them to be present) and that means you are no longer adding more difficulty on top when they show up.
You are giving yourself an alternative to engaging in an endless and exhausting battle with the things that are out of your direct control. You are practicing acknowledgement and acceptance. This is freeing up energy and attention, leaving you better rested and better able to do things that matter.
Thank you for sharing your experience and insights!
—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!
Your commitment to action has been a learning experience! As you withdraw from an endless and exhausting struggle with sleep, anxiety has started to lose its power and influence and grogginess is disappearing.
Over Week 1 you felt you were doing well because sleep was happening more as you’d like it to happen. As a result, your problem-solving brain didn’t need to generate much in the way of difficult thoughts and feelings such as anxiety and it was easier to do things that matter each day.
For Week 2, you added half-an-hour to the start of your sleep window, meaning it now starts 30 minutes earlier. Now, you are finding that you might wake around 4:30 AM and you lay in bed until the end of your sleep window.
To answer your questions:
1. There’s no need to get out of bed during your sleep window just because you are awake! Feel free to rest if that wakefulness feels comfortable!
2. Your experience tells you that you cannot directly control sleep (and the sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen). So, your body might settle on six hours of sleep or it might end up generating seven to eight hours consistently. It’s impossible to say, to know, or to make any of that happen. Trying only sets you up for a struggle!
If there’s no struggle or battle during those short periods of wakefulness, then you can feel free to keep your sleep window unchanged. If the time you spend awake is truly awful, you might think about shortening your sleep window again.
As a reminder, I wouldn’t suggest modifying the sleep window more often than once each week.
—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 and thanks for the great question!
First, it’s important to emphasize that the sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. So, I would usually caution against setting or modifying a sleep window based on what kind of sleep you might want to happen.
When it comes to choosing when your sleep window ends, I’d suggest considering your own experience (some people naturally wake earlier than others) and the kind of life you live (or want to live).
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.
Anxiety can be very difficult to deal with, no doubt about it.
You’ve been responding by watching TV, reading, and listening to meditations. If those things worked, what would be different?
Your awareness that you can function the next day with little or no sleep is a powerful insight that can be used to help you move away from putting pressure on yourself to “perform” sleep or put effort into making it happen (something your experience seems to tell you only makes it more difficult).
What does “getting over this hurdle” mean to you? How will you know when you have gotten over this hurdle?
—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.
Ultimately, you can do what you like with the sleep window — you are the expert on yourself! A consistent sleep window can create better conditions for more consistent sleep if that’s important to you — but it can’t make a certain amount or type of sleep happen.
As @sophiehummer mentioned, the sleep window is usually applied to every day of the week (including weekends).
If you choose to sleep in later on weekends, you will probably not need as much sleep on following nights and so you might get less sleep on following nights. Whether or not that’s a problem for you can only be answered by 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.
You fall asleep so easily when there is no effort to make sleep happen. When you go to bed, that changes. There’s effort. There’s pressure. And, as a result, it becomes more difficult.
It sounds like it’s not so much the sleep window that’s creating a problem for you — it’s the effort that’s going into trying to make sleep happen. The pressure to “perform” sleep even though your experience tells you that sleep is out of your direct control.
What’s the opportunity 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.
It feels good to be free of ongoing and endless sleep tracking — something that only puts more focus and attention on sleep!
As you guessed, there’s no need to pay attention to sleep efficiency. You can adjust the length of your sleep window based upon your own reflection of how the previous week or two has gone.
If there’s been a lot of ongoing wakefulness and a lot of struggle, you have the option to tighten the sleep window (allot less time for sleep). If there’s been little wakefulness and not much struggle, you have the option to extend the sleep window (allot more time for sleep). If you feel comfortable with your current sleep window, you also have the option to keep it as it is (make no changes at all)!
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.
You are giving yourself options!
When doing a body scan helps, what changes?
When you decide to get out of bed, what do you do instead and what is your 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.
