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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.
Hello Packer Fan 🙂
If you have a sleep window, can you share the start and end times with us and why you chose those times? Also, how long have you been following a sleep window and have you noticed any other changes since doing so?
When you say you have been getting up about the same time every day after a terrible night are you referring to your out of bed time in the morning — you are getting out of bed to start your day at the same time each day, independently of how you sleep? Or, are you referring to waking during the night and finding it hard to fall back to sleep?
As for the small naps — at what times of the day do you usually nap and for how long? If you aren’t finding those naps helpful, can you think of an alternative activity that might be more helpful?
—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 probably feel a small degree of anxiety or being unsettled even after sleeping well for a few weeks because you have a human mind that is doing its job of looking out for you — as part of that job it generates all kinds of thoughts and feelings.
Fortunately, thoughts don’t stop sleep from happening (and confidence isn’t required for sleep to happen). What can make sleep more difficult is trying to control our thoughts and feelings or trying to make sleep happen.
If your goal is to “not think” about something, you might want consider your own experience as to how realistic that kind of a goal is. Does your experience tell you that you can permanently delete certain thoughts from your mind so they never come back? If not, perhaps trying to do so is what’s making things more difficult?
What might things be like if you didn’t try to fight or avoid certain thoughts? If you gave them permission to exist and gave them space to come and go as they chose, how might things be different? At the very least, might that free up some energy and attention to do more of the things that matter to 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.
Two nights of no sleep can be really difficult — no doubt about it. Two really difficult days in a row can be really difficult, too. Difficult days and difficult nights and difficult thoughts and difficult feelings come with being a human being, unfortunately. That’s just how it is.
Sometimes there’s an obvious cause to difficult nights/days/thoughts/feelings and sometimes there’s not. When there’s not, perhaps we might be more likely to get a bit tangled up in a struggle as we divert our energy and attention toward trying to figure it out — and this, in turn, might pull us away from where we are and what we want to do.
As you’ve experienced, just because we are calm is no guarantee of sleep — so perhaps this suggests that trying to make calmness happen might be a bit unnecessary?
It makes sense that you feel really down about experiencing difficult nights — and it’s good that you are able to acknowledge that. Are you also able to practice being kind to yourself in response?
As you mentioned, it’s hard to accept that all of this difficult stuff is out of your control — and yet, your experience tells you that all this difficult stuff is out of your control, right? What you can control is how you respond — and how you respond will often determine how much power and influence this difficult stuff has over your life.
One more thing I would add is that even though our problem-solving minds can suggest otherwise, sleep becomes more likely after difficult nights because sleep drive builds with every minute of wakefulness.
It sounds as though your mind is making a claim that is not too different from suggesting that after two days of not eating, you might never feel hungry again — yet that’s probably not too accurate, right? The longer we go without eating, the hungrier we get!
That story is coming from a place of good intentions, though. Your brain, looking out 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.
Thanks for elaborating, Chris!
It sounds as though you are describing “not caring” more as a way of expanding your focus. So, caring is still there but it’s not your sole focus — there’s more present than that alone. It’s perhaps a bit more diluted than it would be if that was your sole focus. Am I closer?
I hear you on the sleep window — if it’s being used in an attempt to control sleep then it can set us up for a struggle! As I mentioned before, its intent is to help us do the opposite — to move away from trying to chase after sleep by doing things like going to bed earlier or staying in bed later. If you’re not doing those things, the sleep window might have less value!
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and experience 🙂
—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.
