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Thanks for getting back to me!
Remember that the sleep window isn’t intended to control sleep — it isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. It’s real goal is to help us move away from chasing after sleep by doing things like going to bed earlier or staying in bed later in an effort to make more sleep happen.
Adjusting your sleep window by 20 minutes or so might be useful if you find it hard to stay awake for the start — good problem solving there! Something else that might be worth experimenting with is to stop checking the time either 30 minutes or 1 hour before your sleep window begins and to allow yourself to go to bed whenever you feel sleepy enough for 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.
Thank you for sharing and for being so open — it can often be difficult to talk about things we did that, on reflection, we realize were not useful or helpful.
As you experienced, sometimes sleep doesn’t go according to plan — just as sometimes our days don’t go according to plan! And, when that happens, we can so easily get pulled back into the old struggle — because those actions are so familiar and feel so much safer, even though our experience might tell us they weren’t all that helpful.
The good news is, we can always pause and change direction. We can acknowledge that we’ve been pulled back into the struggle, be kind to ourselves (because all this means is that we are human!), and refocus on and commit to a different, more workable approach.
It sounds as though the unworkable approach for you involves putting effort into sleep and engaging in sleep-related rules and rituals. How might you change direction? How might the weekly action plans shared in the course 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.
Well done getting the practice in, Sriram! If you had succeeded, what would have been different?
—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!
What is the start and end time of your sleep window right now and how did you choose those times?
Around what time do you find yourself getting really sleepy and finding it hard to stay awake?
—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 appreciate the ongoing exploration here 🙂
From reading your post, it sounds as though at least some of your actions are intended to eliminate certain thoughts (“I tried to eliminate that thought”), to control how you feel (“thinking if I change the location, my arousal would diminish”), and to generate sleep through effort (“these things could help me get sleepy”).
How is trying to eliminate thoughts, trying to settle your mind, and trying to make sleep happen through effort working for you?
To get more of an idea of the bigger picture here, I’d also be curious to know your answer to this — if you were getting the exact amount and type of sleep you want to be getting, how would your life be different?
Revisiting Week 3 might be helpful since it focuses on exploring the arrival of difficult thoughts and feelings during the day. If you are finding those things difficult at night or finding yourself struggling a lot at night, it might be work revisiting Week 2 as well (as a reminder, there’s no need to get out of bed at night just because you are awake).
The course contains a lot of information and many (if not most) people find it helpful to revisit previous sections of the course more than once to help things “sink in”!
It’s great that you are putting so much of what you are learning from the course into action and your ongoing engagement and curiosity is going to help you on your ongoing journey!
—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 panic and the racing thoughts can be really difficult — especially in the middle of the night when it’s often harder to refocus our attention and to respond to them in a more workable way (if our current response doesn’t seem to be working for us).
What does “overcoming” racing thoughts mean to you? If you were to overcome them, what would be different?
Have you picked up any ideas from the course so far on how to respond to the panic and racing thoughts in a way that might help move you away from an ongoing struggle with those things?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, Rosanne! Many people experience sleep disruption when they have something planned the next day — so you aren’t alone there! What matters is that you still went ahead and did something important and meaningful. You went skiing, independently of how you slept.
What was it like to practice accepting, welcoming, and making space for difficult thoughts and feelings to show up at night? How is that different to what your approach might have been in the past and which approach feels more workable/useful (the approach you described or 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.
I’m sorry to hear about your struggles, Packer Fan. It’s clear that you are committed to what you are learning and your approach of absorbing each lesson slowly shows a thoughtful and dedicated mindset.
It’s quite normal for sleep patterns to fluctuate, especially with changes in environment like traveling. Remember, progress isn’t always linear, and it’s okay to have ups and downs. Difficult nights are a part of life, just like difficult days are a part of life. It’s how we respond that matters.
Your perseverance and willingness to explore a different approach to all this difficult stuff are key strengths that will help support you as you continue to move forward 🙂
Since struggle and additional difficulty can often come from our attempts to control things that our experience tells us cannot be controlled, I would invite you to answer the following questions:
1. When you switched to another bedroom, what was your goal?
2. When you try to think of good things and praise yourself as a good person, what is your goal?
3. When you get out of bed after tossing and turning in order to listen to a podcast or read, what is your goal?
4. Before sleep felt like a struggle or an issue, did you need to be on the other end of the bed and have a ceiling fan blow on you to make sleep happen? If not, what might that mean?Finally, what does your current “Action Plan” look like? As a reminder, the suggested Action Plan from the end of Week 3 was:
1. Practice the NOW exercise whenever you find your daytime thoughts and feelings pulling you away from the present moment in an unhelpful way.
2. Commit to doing one or two kind or enjoyable things whenever you are finding things difficult during the day.
3. Every evening, continue to reflect on three good things that happened that day and why they happened, if you’ve been finding that useful.
4. Consider implementing a buffer zone before your sleep window begins and use that time for activities you enjoy.
5. Continue with a sleep window if you feel that’s useful — give yourself an earliest possible bedtime, stop checking the time when it begins, only go to bed when sleepy enough for sleep, and get out of bed by the end of your sleep window each day.
6. Continue to practice the AWAKE exercise whenever you find yourself struggling with nighttime wakefulness.
Are you practicing any of those?
—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 are mostly recovered from COVID and that you’ve found it helpful to allot less time for sleep, Sheena!
Catching up on sleep is one of those things that can trip us up — because then we can start putting pressure on ourselves to sleep and put more effort into sleep. And, when we do that, sleep can start to become more difficult, more elusive, and create more struggle.
Thanks to your own curiosity and willingness to experiment with a new approach, it sounds as though you have started to move away from chasing after sleep and putting effort into sleep and you have started to reduce the power and influence sleep has over your life by committing to meaningful actions (such as going to work) independently of how you sleep.
You are off to a flying start and I wish you all the best 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.
That sounds a lot more appealing compared to tossing and turning, battling with wakefulness! Why do you leave the bedroom to read? Is that more appealing compared to reading in bed?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thank you for sharing! You clearly have strengths in self-reflection and awareness — powerful skills that will no doubt continue to support you on your journey.
Remember that waking during the night is a normal part of sleep — that can be something that’s easy to forget!
I have a few questions for you to explore your reflection in a bit more detail:
1. When you get out of bed to do a calming activity, what is your goal?
2. When you practice observing your thoughts without judgement, what is your goal?
3. If you were getting the exact amount and type of sleep you want to be getting, how would your life be different?—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 Andre and thank you so much for sharing! Getting off prescription sleep medication after more than five years is a huge achievement — you have now proven to yourself that you do not need medication in order to generate sleep!
I appreciate you sharing that your “tipping point” was to accept that you cannot control sleep — that’s something that can be difficult to accept.
It sounds as though medication was one way you tried to control sleep in the past — are there any other behaviors/habits/actions you once engaged in in an attempt to control sleep that you have now moved away from? If so, what were they and how is your life different as a result?
—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 difficult.
When difficult nights show up how do you respond to them? And, what problems does the return of difficult nights seem to create 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.
That’s a great question — and the answer might not be the same for everyone! How do you currently respond when you’re wide awake during your sleep window 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.
Sorry to hear that, Sheena — have you fully recovered from COVID now? How have you been getting on with the sleep window since you posted?
—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.
