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If anyone masters the ability to make relaxation (or sleep) happen upon command, please let me know first so I can be your agent. We’ll make trillions of dollars together and solve all the world’s problems in one fell swoop!
In all seriousness, @ktMD, if you are seeing somewhere in this course that says a body scan should be making relaxation happen, please let me know so I can make an urgent correction.
In this course I don’t believe I use the terminology of “body scan”. Although something akin to a body scan is described in the W of the AWAKE exercise, the intended outcome is simply to notice and acknowledge what is showing up in your body. Nothing more, nothing less. If you are trying to control what you think or feel, you are going to struggle.
Ultimately, progress cannot be controlled (unfortunately!) — all that is within our control is action. What might matter most here (other than ongoing, workable action) is this:
What are you learning on this journey and how will you take what you are learning and use that experience to keep you moving closer to where you want 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.
You are definitely not broken and you are definitely not alone!
It’s obvious that you have been very committed to maintaining a sleep window. What is your goal with that ongoing commitment? How will you know when the sleep window is “working”?
I’m also curious to know what your goal is when you move to the couch during the night. What problem is that solving for you?
As you wrap up Week 5 of the course you have a number of additional tools available to practice. These include:
* The Three Good Things Exercise
* Implementing a buffer zone
* Practicing the AWAKE exercise whenever you are struggling at night
* Practicing the NOW exercise when daytime thoughts try to pull you away from the present moment
* Doing kind or enjoyable things during difficult days
* Deliberately adding one or two values to each day and noticing what that feels like
* Replacing away moves with toward moves
What, if any, of those are you practicing alongside the sleep window and what have you been learning from your practice of 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.
You were recently reminded that you have not lost your ability to sleep. That your body is able to generate sleep without effort.
You’ve also learned that when you aren’t putting effort into sleep or focused on trying to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen, it’s a lot easier for you to live the kind of life you want to live.
Since you are a human being, difficult thoughts and feelings have shown up again and nights where sleep doesn’t happen as you want it to happen have shown up again.
It’s impossible to avoid difficult thoughts and feelings (and you wouldn’t be alive today without them) and it’s impossible to avoid all potential triggers for sleep disruption. All that stuff comes with living life (especially a rich and meaningful one).
What matters are your actions. How you choose to respond.
You’ve learned a lot. As you reflect on your experience, what is the most workable way to respond so you can continue to move closer to where you want 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.
Sleep during the day will reduce your sleep “need” — and that can mean less sleep at night. Whether or not that’s OK is up to you, since you are the expert on yourself!
The bigger picture in your experience seems to be not a lack of sleep pressure but a heightened level of effort to make sleep happen as you want it to happen which, in turn, makes things more difficult.
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.
Welcome to the course — it’s good to have you here 🙂
Falling asleep isn’t a problem for you. When you wake during the night you notice the presence of anxiety and other difficult thoughts and feelings and your response to them seems to be making things more difficult.
Thanks to your superpowers of curiosity and self-reflection, you’ve identified that your problem-solving brain is just doing its job of looking out for you — and trying to fight or avoid the actions of your brain and the thoughts and feelings it generates only consumes more energy and attention, gives them more power and influence, and creates more struggle.
You asked about what to do when you wake up and can’t stay in bed. What is stopping you from staying in bed when you wake during the night?
—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’re welcome 🙂
Fear is natural and normal! The only way you can go “backwards” is if you go back to trying to control what you know cannot be controlled — and, even then, when you are aware of that happening you have the opportunity to respond differently.
So, perhaps there’s never any moving backwards — only more learning opportunities!
—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 course, @agrieser!
Jet lag comes with international travel — I am not sure it can be avoided completely (I’ve heard it said that it can take the body a day to adjust to every hour of change created by crossing timezones but I’m not sure of the source of that claim)!
With this in mind, it can be helpful to acknowledge that some sleep disruption is likely to come with travel. And, most (if not all) rich and meaningful experiences come with some difficult or uncomfortable stuff, too.
What might matter most here is the fact you are traveling and doing stuff that matters — even though sleep might not happen as you want and even though difficult thoughts and feelings might come along for the ride!
You are acting in a way that moves you toward the life you want to live. You are maintaining control (and power) over your actions and your life.
Your body’s natural sleep mechanisms can be used to help reduce ongoing disruption from jet lag — and perhaps the most helpful way to do this would be to immediately adopt the local time as soon as you arrive at your destination.
So, if you arrive at your destination during the day, you might want to try staying awake until around your usual bedtime in your new destination (in other words, if you usually go to bed around 10:00 PM at home then see if you can delay going to bed until around 10:00 PM — local time — wherever you are in the world, too).
If you reach your destination at a time when you’d normally be sleeping, you might want to grab a bit of sleep and then try to get up at your normal time — or you can try to plough through until your normal bed time. The accumulated sleep drive will help create good conditions for sleep the following night and might help you adapt to the new timezone a bit quicker.
In a more general sense, it can be helpful to only go to bed when truly sleepy enough for sleep, maintain a reasonably consistent out of bed time in the morning, make any unpleasant nighttime wakefulness more pleasant (by doing something more enjoyable whenever being awake doesn’t feel good), and continue to do things each day (no matter how small) that are aligned with your values and help you continue moving toward the kind of life you want to live.
Quite often, the more we focus on trying to protect sleep or make a certain amount or type of sleep happen, the more difficult it becomes!
With all this being said what might be most important here is the fact you are going to Europe. You are going on an adventure. You are doing what matters. And, I’m going to guess than 50 years from now, what you did on that trip will be far more memorable than how you slept 🙂
I hope there’s something useful here and I wish you safe travels!
—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 Rudy! You are taking action by observing a sleep window and getting some practice in with the AWAKE exercise. You also have a rule in place that states that if you are still awake at 2:00 AM you will then take a prescribed sleep medicine.
What kind of strategies or suggestions are you looking for? In other words, what are you trying to achieve?
—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 that interesting observation @Pam1129! When you don’t want sleep to happen — when there’s no pressure or effort to make it happen — it seems to show up all by itself!
—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 AWAKE exercise, like all skills, is often difficult before it gets easier/more intuitive — so you definitely aren’t alone!
Remember that your goal is not to relax or remove tension or change any feeling. It’s simply to notice. To acknowledge. To observe. That’s all there is to it — and that, in itself, can be extremely challenging and often requires ongoing practice!
—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.
Acceptance, acknowledgement, and self-kindness are three ways to deal with difficult thoughts and feelings — and perhaps they might be more useful compared to trying to control, fight, or avoid. You clearly have a growth mindset and are harnessing your superpowers of self-reflection and curiosity as you 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.
Thanks for sharing your reflections as you take the opportunity to apply what is shared in the course to your own experience!
Some people have found that if they go to bed with the expectation (and acceptance) that sleep won’t happen, they are less likely to put pressure on themselves to make sleep happen, less likely to put effort into sleep, and — as a consequence — conditions for sleep become a lot better.
So, perhaps this might be less about expectations (which can only have a neutral outcome, at best) and more about taking pressure of ourselves to try to control something that is beyond our control?
—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 can stay in bed for as long as you choose — if you are implementing a sleep window you would just aim to be out of bed by the end of the sleep window.
I usually suggest sticking with the same sleep window for at least a week or two before making changes. If you modify it too frequently you might be less likely to notice any benefit from it!
Does this answer your question? We’ll be exploring how to respond to being awake during the night in a lot more detail from Week 2 onward 🙂
—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.
Choosing an out of bed time that fits into the life you live (or want to live) can be really helpful as it gets you moving in the direction you want to be heading!
Your superpower of self-reflection helped you identify that you were spending too much time in bed. By responding to that insight with a commitment to reduce the amount of time you allot for sleep, you are also starting to reclaim your life from insomnia.
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.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with crying. It just proves you are human.
—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.
