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I usually release them monthly — glad you are finding them 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.
Thanks for sharing, Luke — as you mentioned, there are so many things that can disrupt our sleep and many of them cannot be prevented (such as a barking dog or a car alarm going off)! And, our experience usually tells us that we cannot make sleep happen through effort.
So, practicing being kind to ourselves after difficult nights (and when things feel difficult) can definitely be worthwhile!
How do you practice self-kindness, Luke?
—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 something from that experience, Czor! Thanks for sharing that you were still able to get some practice in with the AWAKE exercise when you found yourself struggling.
—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 still don’t get how to “allow my thoughts and feelings to exist” works but I am no longer trying to push them away. I guess I can compare difficult thoughts to walking down the street and if I saw some garbage (difficult thought) on the floor instead of focusing on it I would just notice its there then soon enough I just don’t think about that trash anymore.
You’ve got it spot on, Czor! As you said, you are no longer trying to push difficult thoughts away — you are acknowledging their presence and then continuing on with whatever you’re doing. The focus of your attention has expanded.
When there’s less struggle, difficult thoughts and feelings aren’t going to consume as much of your energy and attention. When you make space for them to exist, they are less likely to get stuck.
—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.
All human beings experience anxiety since it’s a normal human emotion. What can be helpful is making space for that anxiety to exist — allowing it to come and go as it chooses rather than using our energy and attention in an attempt to fight or avoid it.
Acknowledging the anxiety and being more of an observer of it (or practicing refocusing your attention on where you are and what you are doing if it shows up during the the day) can help us build skill in experiencing it with less struggle.
I hope this helps — and all the best with those kickboxing classes!!!
—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 that’s fine, Izzy! Once you get to within an hour or so of the start of the sleep window if you are finding it that hard to stay awake, feel free 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.
I don’t think anybody is claiming that wakefulness doesn’t suck when all we want to do is sleep!
What this comes down to is what’s the most workable way of responding to that wakefulness? What does your own experience tell you is the most workable way of responding to that wakefulness?
There’s probably only two options:
1. Try to fight or avoid the wakefulness and the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it.
Does your experience tell you this makes sleep happen and permanently eliminates difficult thoughts and feelings so they never come back? Or does this approach tend to create a struggle that makes things more difficult?
2. Practice making space for wakefulness and the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it.
Building skill in this approach might help you move away from adding struggle on top of all this difficult stuff (and with less struggle perhaps you might also free up some energy and attention to do more of the things that matter to you each day).
It sounds as though you might still be a bit tangled up in trying to control sleep and what you’re thinking and feeling. That makes sense since you — of course! — want sleep to happen and you don’t want to experience difficult thoughts and feelings.
And if your experience tells you that you cannot directly or permanently control sleep, what you think, or how you feel then how workable is that approach?
The NOW or AWAKE exercises cannot make sleep happen. For as long as we try to make sleep happen we are usually setting ourselves up for a struggle.
The NOW exercise is intended to help you build skill in refocusing your attention so you can better do things that matter during the day.
The AWAKE exercise is intended to help you build skill in experiencing wakefulness and the thoughts and feelings that can come with it with less struggle (since struggle tends to make things more difficult — including sleep).
How long were you taking clonazepam and why did you come off it?
If 7 out of 7 nights of sleep were good — if you were to reach that goal of 100% of nights being good for the rest of your life and never experiencing even one difficult night ever again — what would you be doing differently? What would you then be doing that you are unable to do now?
—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 these insights! Did you find reflecting on those questions (and your own experience) to be a helpful process? How might you use the insights you shared to help you 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.
It sounds as though you’re saying that sleep has always been something important to you! And, while sleep was always important, you still did many things that mattered — you still engaged in lots of different actions and activities that were important to you.
Has that changed, compared to today? When you find yourself tangled up in a struggle with sleep are you finding that you are doing less of the things that matter? Are you engaged in fewer actions and activities that are important to you? If so, could that be making things 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.
I think you’ve got it, Noel!
Certain things will always matter (especially if they’re important or difficult) so we’re not looking to pretend something doesn’t matter if it does!
What we’re looking to do is respond in a more workable way to the difficult stuff that our experience tells us we cannot control. To acknowledge what we’re experiencing, thinking, feeling. To make space for that stuff to exist (because it’s going to show up whenever it chooses anyway, right?). To be kind to ourselves. And, to continue to do what matters even in its presence.
Because the alternative response is to withdraw from doing things that matter. To engage in a battle and get tangled up in an exhausting, distracting, and endless struggle that pulls us away from the kind of life we want to live.
Does this make things a bit clearer?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thank you so much for sharing, Genie — it sounds as though you are on the right track and that you got a lot out of the course. The changes you’ve identified and shared are entirely down to your own willingness to explore a new approach and your own commitment to practicing a new approach!
—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 fuzziness makes total sense!
Let’s try turning to your experience as a guide and see if that offers any help.
Before sleep was an issue or a concern, what was your cue or prompt to go to bed?
Before sleep was an issue or a concern, did you spend much time considering what kind of activities are “allowable” or appropriate at night? Did you experiment with certain activities or avoid/restrict others in an attempt to protect your sleep?
Any insights there?
A few more questions that might help:
If you’re not really struggling with wakefulness when it shows up, why does it matter if you might spend some time awake in bed and why does it matter what time you get sleepy and why does it matter when you go to bed?
Finally, what’s more likely to keep you moving toward the kind of life you want to live? Doing things that matter when you are awake or trying to control/protect sleep? And, what’s a more workable strategy?
—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 — it sounds as though what you might take from this is that your focus appears to be on controlling or being influenced by your feelings (which your experience might tell you cannot be controlled) versus your actions (which can always be controlled).
This is where we can easily get tripped up because, in an attempt to control our feelings or our thoughts or our sleep, we can end up doing less of the things that matter to us. This, in turn, can create more of a struggle as we get pulled away from the life we want to live.
A couple of key insights I noticed in your post about what would happen if that Genie granted those wishes:
“I would feel more free to do the things I wanted to do”
“If I felt like watching a movie after the kids went to sleep I would do just that”It seems as though some of the actions that are important to you (actions you can control) are tied to how you feel or how you might feel or how you might sleep (all things your experience might tell you cannot be directly or permanently controlled).
So, you might be missing out on doing things that matter even though missing out still doesn’t permanently get rid of certain feelings, thoughts, or nighttime wakefulness itself.
How might things be different if you did the things that mattered to you, independently of how you felt (or how you might feel) and independently of sleep?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing, Czor!
Remember that we aren’t trying to make ourselves calm or get rid of anxiety since trying to do so can pull us into a struggle — the goal is to experience anxiety with less struggle, since it’s the struggle that comes from trying to fight or avoid anxiety that usually makes it so much more difficult!
With that being said, as we become more skilled in experiencing the full range of human thoughts and feelings with less struggle, we might feel more calm or less anxious — that’s just a bonus, though (and feel free to enjoy, of course)!
When is the next kickboxing session?
—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.
Yours is an experience shared with many others, @emandk!
The thing about sleepiness is it doesn’t really “go away” — the longer we are awake, the stronger sleepiness becomes.
What can happen is if the brain has learned to associate going to bed with a struggle, it can believe that wakefulness is a threat — and so it fires up to protect you.
So, earlier in the night when you know you aren’t about to go to bed, you feel sleepy. As bedtime approaches (or arrives) you can feel wide awake.
This is a survival mechanism — without it, none of us would have been alive since we’d all have fallen asleep in the face of danger!
So, it can definitely feel as though we can lose that sleepiness and that it’s “gone forever” but that’s not really the case. It’s just that the mind is temporarily suppressing it to protect us.
When the mind decides that there is no threat, sleepiness is no longer suppressed and we can feel sleepy again. And yet, even if the mind decides to remain in “alert mode” 24/7, sleep will still happen in the end because it’s impossible to stay awake indefinitely.
So, with all this in mind, what can we do — since it’s probably not too helpful for the mind to become really alert when we want to sleep, right?
Well, if your experience tells you that sleep cannot be directly or permanently controlled, it might be worth looking to what can be controlled — actions.
So, through our actions we can help train the brain that wakefulness isn’t a threat that it needs to be quite so alert to “protect” us from. We can do this by moving away from effort — by moving away from trying to make sleep happen, from trying to get rid of wakefulness, from trying to fight or avoid the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with wakefulness, and by continuing to do things that matter independently of sleep.
These are all things we’ll be exploring in a lot more detail as the course progresses!
In the meantime, I would suggest basing your sleep window on a start and end time that is aligned with the kind of life you want to live. It’s often helpful to start with the end time and to count back a duration from there.
Remember that the goal with the sleep window isn’t to make sleep happen or to get rid of wakefulness. The goal is to move away from chasing after sleep (for example, by going to bed earlier at night or staying in bed later in the morning in an attempt to make more sleep happen).
With that in mind, what truly matters is going to bed when you feel ready to go to bed (sleepy for sleep rather than only desiring sleep) and it can also be helpful to maintain a consistent out of bed time, independently of how each night goes.
I hope there’s something 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.
