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It makes complete sense that you try to fall back to sleep when you wake during the night.
It also sounds as though your experience might be telling you that the more you try to make sleep happen, the more difficult being awake becomes. Would you say that’s accurate?
If so, perhaps moving away from trying so hard to make sleep happen might help reduce the level of suffering and struggle you are experiencing?
—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.
Absolutely — you are the expert on you!
So, I really encourage everyone to approach what is explored in this course with an open and a curious mind — there are no strict or universal rules here since everyone is different.
Thanks for sharing, BorgC!
—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 to the forum and thanks for sharing your experience! It sure sounds as though you are on a more workable path forward!
I took two key insights from your experience:
* You can still do things that matter (like run a half-marathon!), independently of sleep
* You can still achieve things that matter (like a job promotion!), independently of sleepAt the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that it can be harder to do things that matter and to live the life you want to live when you are struggling with insomnia and when difficult thoughts and feelings are present.
You will always think about things that are important (and, for that matter, not important!) because the human brain is a thought generating machine.
It’s when we try to fight certain thoughts (or feelings) that we can create a struggle that makes things more difficult since that can consume so much of our energy and attention and pull us away from doing things that matter (and, in turn, the life we want to live).
Reading your post, what seems to be particularly encouraging is the fact you are moving toward the life you want to live. We never reach the destination — we never truly achieve the life we want to live, right? If we did, what would be the point in living? The life we want to live is something we are always working toward. When one goal is achieved, we find other goals.
So, perhaps what matters most is not necessarily how your life feels right now — but the direction in which you are heading. That’s also something you can control — as you’ve shared. You can respond to this difficult stuff by moving away from the life you want to live, or by continuing to move toward the life you want to live.
Waking is a normal part of sleep — so the fact you are waking is not unusual or mysterious! What matters is how you respond. You can try to fight or avoid being awake (where does that get you) or you can practice responding in a way that might not create so much struggle and might free up energy and attention to keep doing what matters.
In short, it sounds as though you are on the right track — perhaps it’s a case of continuing to move forward, if you feel your current approach is proving to be more workable that the approach you took in the past?
—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.
Glad to hear you’re finding the course helpful — I’ve moved your post from the public forum into the client forum so it might be more visible to others who are also going through the course
As you may remember from earlier in the course, waking during the night is a normal part of sleep. So, waking after 90 minutes or so (even every 90 minutes or so) is not unusual — especially when we consider that an “average” sleep cycle is about 90 minutes long.
What can make these awakenings more difficult (and more noticeable!) is trying to figure them out, trying to fight them, or trying to avoid them.
As far as sleep is concerned, it doesn’t care if it’s being tracked or not — it’ll do what it’s going to do regardless.
With that being said:
Many people have found that the more they track sleep, the more focus and attention they place on sleep. That heightened focus and attention can consume more energy and attention, has the potential to create a struggle, and can make it harder to do things that matter and live the life we want to live.
You might want to ask yourself this — how is tracking sleep (or awakenings!) helping you? What is it teaching you that you don’t already know? How is it helping you live the life you want to live?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
That sounds really difficult, Kiki. I appreciate you sharing your experience with us.
It sounds as though your sleep is really inconsistent and that your experience tells you that even though you might think you are going to die when you’re caught up in the middle of this struggle, you still get through it — and sleep always happens in the end.
Difficult nights happen from time to time, just as difficult days happen from time to time. What can make them hard to shake off is trying to shake them off — in other words, the more we try to fight or avoid insomnia, the more oxygen we give insomnia. It’s a bit like a playground bully.
Your body will always generate — at the very least — the minimum amount of sleep it needs. That’s why you’re still with us today. And, there’s no evidence that chronic insomnia causes dementia or any other health problem for that matter.
Ultimately, the key to moving away from insomnia is to explore (and practice) ways of moving away from struggling with insomnia. You might find it helpful to dip into some episodes of the Insomnia Coach podcast — if nothing else, that might offer you some comfort that you are not alone.
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.
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.
