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If you are going to bed around 9:30 – 10:00 PM and get out of bed to start your day at 5:00 AM, then you are allotting 7-7.5 hours for sleep. If you usually get less than 7-7.5 hours of sleep, you might be setting yourself up for some periods of wakefulness during the night.
If you are comfortable with that, there’s no need to change anything! If you want to reduce the amount of time available for wakefulness, I’d suggest figuring out how much sleep you typically get on an average night, then add about 30 minutes onto that to get an initial sleep window duration.
If you are comfortable with getting out of bed at 5:00 AM, you’d count back the duration of the sleep window from there to get your earliest possible bedtime.
As a reminder, waking during the night is a normal part of sleep and we want to base a sleep window on how we are currently sleeping rather than how we want to be sleeping (because a sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen — it’s intended to help us move away from chasing after sleep).
Does this help?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello @PHILOMINAJOSEPH!
What you’ve described can often happen when our brain has learned to associate the bed with a lot of struggle and difficulty — it becomes a bit like a battleground and the brain isn’t about to let you feel sleepy and it doesn’t want you to fall asleep if it thinks you are heading into battle. It wants to make you alert, keep you awake, and protect you!
Of course, this isn’t too helpful for sleep but there’s an insight here. How might we be able to train the brain that the bed isn’t a battleground? That it’s not a place for struggle? That it’s not a danger or a threat?
Now, to answer your question, the sleep window is based on how much sleep you are getting at the current time. So, you’d want to base it on how much sleep you’ve typically averaged over the past week or two — regardless of how long it takes you to fall asleep or how much time you spend awake at night. Once you have the duration, you choose an out of bed time that is aligned with the life you live (or want to live) and count back the duration to get your earliest bedtime.
These lessons might be particularly helpful when it comes to setting a sleep window:
Does this help?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Philo! It makes complete sense that you experience frustration and anxiety in connection to not getting any (or much) sleep. That’s totally natural and normal.
You mentioned that you try not to think about it when you go to bed — how is that strategy working for you? Have you found that you are able to “not think” about certain things, through effort, so certain thoughts never show up?
If not, perhaps that approach — although understandable — might be making things more difficult? If that’s the case, what might a different approach look like, do you think?
PS: We’ll be exploring this in a lot more detail as the course continues (especially 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.
Hello David and thanks for the great question!
I’d suggest trying to at least get to within an hour or so of the start of your sleep window before going to bed (or falling asleep).
Often, any form of physical movement can help prevent sleep from happening too early. Do you have any hobbies or other interests that might involve some form of physical movement?
—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 think DARE is a great book — thanks for mentioning it, @StefV!
Anxiety is a natural and normal human feeling. Everyone experiences it. It’s when we try to fight or avoid it that we are more likely to struggle with it — and the more we struggle with it, the more power and influence it can end up having over our actions (and our lives).
Remember that what you are learning in this course isn’t intended to eliminate anxiety. You know from experience that anxiety is going to show up and stick around whenever it wants for as long as it wants. So, fighting it is futile and only makes things more difficult.
For as long as you try to reduce hyperarousal, you might be giving it more power and influence over you. You are likely also consuming a lot of energy as you engage in that struggle and all that endless and exhausting effort of resistance.
The real aim here is to practice building skill in experiencing it with less struggle. Acknowledging it. Making space for it to come and go as it chooses. Being more of an observer of it, rather than an opponent. Giving it the opportunity to be more like water off a duck’s back. Something that comes and goes without derailing you and jerking you around.
As you start to practice this new approach, it can sometimes be like dismantling a dam — as the resistance lowers, more anxiety shows up. That’s natural and normal. And, it’s an opportunity to continue getting in the practice of acknowledgement and making space for it to exist.
Of course, this is easier said than done. And all skills take time (and ongoing practice) to develop. Developing new skills isn’t easy!
—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 back to the course, Molly! I trust you had a rewarding Christmas break!
Let me start by saying this — no form of acceptance can make sleep happen or permanently delete difficult thoughts and feelings like anxiety.
For as long as your intent is to control those things, acceptance (or any other approach) is not going to do anything for you and might even create more struggle and more difficulty.
Acceptance is an ongoing practice of accepting the presence of things that are out of our control. This helps us move away battling away with them (something that only makes them more difficult) and it helps us refocus our attention on actions that will keep us moving toward the life we want to live, even when they are present.
The more skilled we can become in experiencing difficulties that are out of our control and the less power and influence they have over our lives, the less of a problem they become. And, when they are less of a problem, they are less likely to be an ongoing concern or obstacle.
As a bonus, when sleep is given the opportunity to take care of itself, it’s far more likely to do just that (ask anyone and they’ll tell you sleep is “effortless”, right?) — although there’s still no guarantees because sleep cannot be controlled.
Remember, too, that a sleep window cannot make a certain amount or type of sleep happen because sleep cannot be controlled. The true intent of a sleep window is to ensure we aren’t chasing after sleep by going to bed earlier or staying in bed later. It also has the benefits of strengthening our body clock, ensuring sufficient sleep drive builds during the day, and gives us the opportunity to be more engaged in life (rather than spending it all in bed, trying to make sleep happen).
Your brain is always going to focus on the difficult nights, all the things that might imply failure, all the potential obstacles, etc. It is hard wired to focus on the doom and gloom — that’s why we are alive today. It’s a survival mechanism.
What matters is how you respond, because you always have control over your actions.
Is there anything 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.
Of course @vanessaclark— you are the expert on 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.
It sounds like you’ve come a long way since you enrolled in the course — and that’s entirely down to your own willingness to explore a different approach and to commit to change. That’s not easy to do!
As you pointed out, there have been ups and downs — there always will be, on any journey we take! What matters is how you respond to the “downs”. And it sounds as though you are responding in ways that reflect who you are, who you want to be, and the life you want to live. Responding in that way ensures you are always moving closer to where you want to be, independently of sleep.
This journey is hard (most journeys that matter are). Thanks to your own commitment to meaningful and workable actions, you are giving yourself the opportunity to continue to move forward. To continue to learn. To continue to grow.
I wish you all the best as you continue on this journey
PS: The 3 Good Things exercise is one of those things that can feel superficial — until we actually practice it! When we do that it can be really powerful and help us notice more of the good stuff around us when things are difficult, and the role our actions play in experiencing that good stuff!
—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.
Ups and downs are a normal part of any journey — especially when the journey really matters to us! The only way you can go backwards is if you go back to all the old behaviors that you know don’t help, that only create more struggle, more difficulty, and pull you away from the life you want to live.
You’ve clearly made a lot of progress as you are continuing to acknowledge and make space for all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can show up with (and after) difficult nights.
Remember that this approach isn’t intended to make sleep happen (because sleep cannot be made to happen through effort). The intent is to move you away from creating more struggle and more difficulty — which comes from resistance or otherwise trying to fight or avoid what is outside your control.
It’s also great to hear that you are practicing being kind to yourself. As you know, that doesn’t magically make everything better — but it’s often more helpful compared to being mean and hard on yourself!
This feels hard because it is hard. There can be no doubt that remaining committed to actions that matter to you (such as hanging out with friends, working out, cooking) is more difficult — and yet, would withdrawing from those activities make things better?
Remember that you cannot directly or permanently control how you feel — but you can control your actions. So, if hanging out with friends and working out is important to you, committing to those actions is truly what matters, even if you don’t feel the same when you do them in the presence of difficulty.
You are not alone, as @StefV can attest to! What matters is moving forward in a workable way. To keep moving closer to where you want to be, even when things are difficult. This is the time to reflect on what you’ve been learning and to draw on your strengths and superpowers!
—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 Louise! It can be really difficult to experience the thoughts and feelings (including panic attacks) our brain generates as it does its job of looking out for us — and these difficult thoughts and feelings are particularly likely to show up whenever we make a change (especially a change that really matters).
So, it’s not too surprising that you’ve experienced some difficulties since you weaned off the antidepressant. Why was it important for you to move away from medication?
As you know from experience, there’s nothing you can do to permanently delete difficult thoughts and feelings just as there’s nothing you can do to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. The more you try, the more you set yourself up for a struggle.
What you can control are your actions. And, it sounds as though you are responding in a workable way. You are doing something more pleasant compared to battling away and engaging in a war with your mind (and sleep).
It’s totally understandable that you experienced frustration and even a sense of helplessness as this was happening. Remember that your goal isn’t to make sleepiness happen, make sleep happen, or change whatever you might be thinking or feeling. Your goal when doing something more pleasant is to build skill in experiencing all this difficult stuff with less struggle. Being more of an observer rather than an opponent — because resistance only makes it all more difficult.
To answer your question, if you were to get out of bed instead of staying in bed, what would your goal be? If that worked, what would be different? As suggested by @fidgety-feet, it doesn’t usually matter whether or not we get out of bed — what matters is whether or not we are trying to control what our experience tells us cannot be controlled.
Is there anything 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 from a fellow Oregonian
Ups and downs are all part of any journey — especially the ones that really matter!
Tossing and turning all night does not sound pleasant and responding to wakefulness with a lot of battling and struggling might be making it even more difficult.
You might want to review Week 2 of the course in particular since it really digs into all the difficult stuff that can show up at night and offers ideas on how to respond to it in a workable way that doesn’t set you up for more struggle and more difficulty.
Of course, we are all here to support you, too — you are not alone!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Waking during the night is a normal part of sleep — so, nothing unusual there. You are clearly taking action and you are learning from your actions. That’s what matters and that’s what will set you up for success!
You’ll be exploring workable ways of dealing with difficult thoughts and feelings 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.
Thanks for sharing what you are noticing, experiencing, and learning! When there was no pressure or effort to make sleep happen you were better able to experience being awake with less struggle. You weren’t engaged in a battle and that made the experience of being awake a bit better.
Since frustration is one of those normal and valid human feelings, there’s probably no way to permanently delete it or avoid it. Perhaps what might help is acknowledging it when you notice it, maybe even thank your brain for looking out for you, and allow it to be present and to come and go as it chooses.
The alternative is battling with it and trying to get rid of it or trying to make a different feeling appear. And, that approach (although totally understandable) might come with similar results to going to bed and trying really hard to get rid of wakefulness and make sleep happen!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Welcome to the course!
As you shared in your post, the more attention we put on sleep and the more effort we put into it, the more elusive it can become and the more we can end up struggling with it.
To answer your question, it can be helpful to remind ourselves of the intent of the sleep window — it’s to help us move away from chasing after sleep by doing things like going to bed really earlier or staying in bed really late.
A sleep window isn’t intended to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen — if that becomes our intention, we are trying to control sleep and that can set us up for more difficulty and more struggle.
Typically, I would suggest aiming to get close to the start of your sleep window (any form of movement — especially if related to an activity you enjoy or is otherwise meaningful can be helpful if you find yourself unintentionally falling asleep).
If you are finding it hard to stay awake and you’re within an hour or so of the start of your sleep window I think it’s perfectly fine to head off to 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.
Glad that made sense, Molly! Keeping a consistent out of bed time can help create better conditions for more consistent sleep — that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with sleeping in on the weekend, just that sleep might be different on nights following those long lie-ins, if you choose to have them!
Sleep anxiety can be difficult and it’s something that we’ll be exploring in a lot of detail as you work through the course. Although it can feel otherwise, difficulty falling asleep and difficulty falling back to sleep is pretty much the same thing and it typically comes from all our efforts to make sleep happen!
You are clearly taking action and that means you are setting yourself up for success
—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.
