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Welcome to the forum!
Sleep efficiency probably doesn’t matter all that much.
We can live a rich and meaningful life whether our sleep efficiency is 20%, 50%, 80%, or 90%. When we focus a lot on sleep we can get a bit distracted from life, the world around us, and doing what matters — and we can also set ourselves up for a bit of a struggle since sleep itself cannot be directly or permanently controlled.
Sleep restriction is intended to help us move away from the struggle that’s created by chasing after sleep. If it’s used in an attempt to create a certain amount (or type) of sleep, it can actually backfire and create more struggle!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It makes complete sense that you’d feel scared of getting sick and not being able to sleep then dying — that’s your brain doing its job of looking out for you. It’s always going to generate the “worst possible outcome” stories in order to get your attention!
You might very well get sick while dealing with insomnia — you might get a cold, for example. However, there’s no evidence that insomnia causes any sickness or any health problem whatsoever.
Furthermore, as you have experienced for yourself, sleep always happens in the end. The longer we are awake, the more likely sleep is to happen.
And, it’s also possible to still be a good parent — even with insomnia and even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings. So, please try to be kind to yourself, too.
—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.
Five years of struggle is really tough. It sounds as though your experience might be telling you that trying to distract your brain or trying to fight/avoid certain thoughts isn’t proving to be an effective strategy. If that’s the case, how is that strategy currently helping you?
How might things be different if you didn’t put quite so much energy and effort into trying to control your 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.
I’m glad to know you found the free sleep training for insomnia emails helpful!
I’m interested to know how you define difficult days that show up after you’ve had a run of good days. Do you call those difficult days relapses, too? If not, why not?
If you slept right through until your alarm went off, what would you then be able to do that you are unable to do when you wake before your alarm goes off? Perhaps by figuring out why minimizing that time awake feels important to you, some insights as to why there might be a bit of a struggle could reveal themselves!
—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 so glad to know you’re finding this stuff helpful, Gemini!
If you felt refreshed, what would you then be able to do that you are unable to do when do don’t feel refreshed?
Do you feel there’s any possibility that focusing on trying to eliminate the feeling of fatigue or attracting the feeling of “refreshed” (hmmm is that grammatically correct?) might be setting you up for a bit of a struggle?
I am yet to meet someone who has direct or permanent control over their feelings — yet everyone I’ve met can control their actions 😉
—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.
Yes. It is tough.
I admire your commitment and tenacity, sticking with sleep restriction for five weeks! What time does your sleep window begin, when does it end, and how did you choose those times?
Sleep restriction is just one tool that can help us move away from chasing after sleep — by itself it might not address the struggle that often keeps insomnia alive.
Are you implementing any other changes other than sleep restriction? Are you continuing to do things (no matter how small) that matter to you, regardless of how you sleep? Are you practicing responding to nighttime wakefulness not by battling with it, but by building skill in experiencing it with less struggle?
—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 can be frustrating! Luckily, you can still do the nice things you have planned, even if you don’t sleep the night before (even though it might be more difficult to do that).
And the more you continue to do the things that matter, independently of sleep, perhaps the less pressure you might put on yourself to get a certain amount or type of sleep. And, with less pressure, perhaps there might be less effort and less struggle.
With an absence of effort and struggle, how might things 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.
The body will always generate “adequate” sleep 😉
What’s probably most important with a sleep window is going to bed when you feel ready to go to bed (not because you’re chasing after sleep) and keeping a relatively consistent out of bed time in the morning.
If you start putting a lot of focus on the sleep window, it has the potential to be another “thing” that can end up creating more of a struggle!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It sounds as though you learned that Somulin cannot generate sleep — if it could, you would have slept after taking it, right? With that in mind, perhaps even the difficult nights can bring valuable insights and, therefore, have some value!
—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 Ginte — sleep always happens once we’ve been awake for long enough, no matter how anxious we might feel. And, there’s no evidence that chronic insomnia causes any health problem whatsoever.
As @Time4sumaction shared, often the real struggle comes from all our attempts to fight or avoid insomnia (and the anxiety that can often come with it). The more we try, the more difficult it becomes.
When there’s less struggle, when we aren’t trying quite so hard to fight or avoid wakefulness or certain thoughts and feelings, they can start to lose their power and influence over us. And, when we aren’t going to war with invisible “enemies” at night, sleep might — as a bonus — be more likely to show up, too.
—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 you’ve been struggling for so long — that sounds really hard.
It sounds as though you might be really close, but not quite there, when it comes to acceptance! Acceptance isn’t intended to be used as a strategy to control things that cannot be controlled (such as sleep, what we think, how we feel). It’s intended to be used as a strategy to help us respond to all that difficult stuff with less struggle.
Of course, when we struggle less we can find that insomnia or difficult thoughts and feelings can lose their power and influence over us or even temporarily disappear. However, those things will always come back from time to time since they’re part of the human experience.
What matters is how we respond — because our response is something we can control. We can start trying to fight/avoid (where does that get us and how much additional energy does that consume?) or we can practice acknowledging that stuff, making space for it to come and go as it chooses, being kind to ourselves when things feel difficult, and continuing to do things that matter even in the presence of it all.
It sounds as though you are doing things that matter when all this difficult stuff shows up, which is great! Often, it takes ongoing practice to ensure we aren’t getting pulled into a battle and a struggle with something that’s invisible and out of our control too (such as sleep, what we think, how we feel).
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.
That anxiety can be really difficult, right? And, because it doesn’t usually feel too good and because we might recognize it as an obstacle to sleep we might start trying to fight or avoid it — and, when we do that, we can get drawn into a battle.
Not only is that battle exhausting (and endless, if your experience tells you that anxiety cannot be permanently deleted through effort), sleep is probably less likely to happen if you are engaged in a war, night after night.
What might things be like without that struggle? If anxiety was allowed to show up and to come and go without any resistance?
Thoughts don’t stop sleep from happening — but going to war with our thoughts can often make sleep a lot more difficult.
—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 Christina (and Cranky) and welcome to the forum!
Waking during the night is a normal part of sleep — so nothing unusual there. When we wake, if we (perhaps quite understandably!) start putting effort into trying to fall back to sleep, things can often start to get a bit more difficult.
In other words, perhaps it might be all the trying to sleep that might be making sleep seem all the more elusive?
—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 suggested, I know of no evidence to suggest that is true, Magnus!
—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!
Your experience sounds really difficult and it sounds very similar to the experience of everyone else who finds themselves struggling with insomnia.
If you’ve got any sleep since 2019 then we have evidence that your body is capable of generating sleep pressure.
Fortunately, our minds can override sleep pressure (but not forever!) in order to protect us from a threat. If it couldn’t, none of us would be alive today. Our ancestors would have fallen asleep while being attacked by sabertooth tigers.
If we’ve struggled with sleep (and the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with insomnia) for a while, our minds can believe that wakefulness at night is a threat — that it’s no different to a sabertooth tiger prowling around wanting to eat us. And so, it fires up to keep us safe. When it does this we can experience lots of difficult thoughts and feelings.
Of course, that’s not too helpful, right? And so, most of us will try to address this — most often through effort. We start — completely understandably — trying to fight or avoid wakefulness. We start trying harder than ever before to make sleep happen. We start trying to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings that our mind is generating as it’s doing its job of looking out for us.
This is how we can end up stuck. The mind cannot be directly or permanently overruled through effort (again, because none of us would be alive today if we could switch it off at will).
The more we try, the harder it pushes back. The more energy we spend. The more exhausted we get. The more of a focus this becomes. The harder it gets. And the more the brain believes that being awake at night really is a serious threat — after all, if it wasn’t, why would we be trying so hard to fight or avoid it?
So the approach we explore in this course offers another direction. A direction that doesn’t involve so much fighting, battling, and struggling. Where we can start to move away from trying to control what our experience tells us cannot be directly or permanently controlled. Where we redirect our energy and attention away from battling with all this stuff and toward doing things that matter.
And, as a bonus, the less we try to control what we think, what we feel, and how we sleep, the less power and influence all this stuff might start to have over us and the more likely we might be to enjoy effortless sleep (after all, sleep is perhaps less likely to happen when we’re engaged in an intense battle at night).
I hope there’s something useful here and I wish you all the best with 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.
