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If your goal is to get out of bed, then getting out of bed means you meet your goal, right?!
Is that truly your intent, though — simply to get out of bed (and, if so, why)? Or is there something else at play here?
Are you getting out of bed in an attempt to fight or avoid certain thoughts or feelings? If so, how is that working for you?
If getting out of bed worked, what would happen?
—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.
Waking during the night is a normal part of sleep — so not much you can do about that. And, a sleep window cannot make a certain amount or type of sleep happen since, as you know from experience, sleep cannot be directly or permanently controlled.
What you can do is figure out whether your approach or your response to all this stuff is workable, or not — based on your own experience.
To help with that, you might want to consider these questions:
1. Is allotting eight hours for sleep appropriate, based on the amount of sleep you are currently getting? If you aren’t sure, you might consider this instead — how is allotting eight hours for sleep working for you?
2. How is your current response to waking during the night working for you? Did you pick up any ideas on this in the course content for Week 2?
—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 use your own experience as a guide here — how do you currently respond to that tossing and turning and how is that working 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.
You are the expert on you, Hyhan — so if you don’t feel a sleep window is helpful or appropriate, then it’s not something you should feel obligated to implement! Thanks for sharing that you like the AWAKE exercise in Week 2
—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, Rosanne and Hyhan! Thank you for sharing those insights with us, Rosanne — and thanks for sticking around and offering others your support and the benefits of your experience, GenieB!
—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 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.
