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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.
Welcome to the forum
If you are actively trying to make more than four hours of sleep happen, you might be setting yourself up for a struggle — because nobody can consciously make a certain amount or type of sleep happen.
On a related note, a sleep window cannot make a certain amount or type of sleep happen. Really, it’s a tool that’s intended to help move you away from chasing after sleep — from doing things like going to bed earlier or staying in bed later in an attempt to make sleep happen.
What probably matters more is going to bed when you feel ready to go to bed (often indicated by feeling sleepy enough for sleep — finding it hard to stay awake) rather than because you want to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen.
It can also be helpful to have a reasonably consistent out of bed time in the morning so you can strengthen your body clock, you ensure there’s enough time for sleep pressure to build to help with sleep at night, and you have the opportunity to engage in the world around you and do things that matter.
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.
That sounds difficult, @Froghop.
How can you practice being kind to yourself when things are difficult and what kind of things can you do that might help make those difficult days even just 1% better?
What kind of actions can you continue to commit to (no matter how small) that reflect who you are, who you want to be, and that keep you moving toward the life you want to live?
—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.
Moving away from trying to control sleep is often a more workable approach compared to trying to control sleep!
I am not sure it’s possible to stop worrying (or to stop any other kind of thought or feeling for that matter) because the human brain is generating thoughts and feelings all the time.
The more difficult thoughts and feelings usually come from our brain doing its job of looking out for us. Trying to fight or avoid this is something that can create a struggle that makes things more difficult.
Thoughts don’t stop sleep from happening — battling with them sure can make sleep more difficult, though! After all, how likely is sleep to happen if we are engaged in a battle at night?
Committing to actions that reflect your values and that move you toward the life you want to live, even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings and regardless of how you sleep can also help reduce the power and influence all this difficult stuff can have over your life.
As for the benzos, that would be a conversation to have with your doctor.
I hope this helps!
—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.
If you feel there’s a medical explanation for what you are experiencing, I would recommend speaking with a doctor. Having said that, I don’t see anything unusual in your posts other than the typical behaviors and experiences associated with the insomnia struggle.
Waking during the night is a normal part of sleep — and awakenings often become problematic only when we label them as such. The more we try to make a certain amount or type of sleep happen, the more we try to get rid of wakefulness, the more we try to fight or avoid the difficult thoughts and feelings associated with insomnia, the more we are likely to struggle with all this stuff.
It sounds as though you are learning from your experience and you are taking action to change how you approach sleep and respond to being awake. You are clearly a strong advocate for yourself!
Ups and downs are a normal part of the journey — what matters is the workability of your actions because for as long as you try to control what is out of your control (like sleep, what you think, how you feel) you might be setting yourself up for some ongoing struggle.
For as long as you choose actions that move you away from an ongoing struggle, you are more likely to be moving closer to where you want to be.
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.
First, I would suggest that if you are experiencing palpitations you should speak to your doctor to see if there’s a medical explanation for them.
Next, let me say that your experience is not unique or unusual. It sounds like a common part of the insomnia struggle.
Finally, the answer to the question, “What will help me fall asleep?” is this: Stay awake for long enough, and don’t try to make sleep happen.
Ultimately, insomnia exists for as long as we try to fight or avoid it. Quite often, we need to practice and develop new skills that help us experience insomnia with less struggle — and that is what moves us closer to experiencing effortless 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.
Welcome to the forum.
What you are going through is really difficult and it’s not your fault and it’s not unusual. What you have described so well are common symptoms of the insomnia struggle — so you are definitely not alone (you’ll likely recognize much of your experience in the stories of others on the Insomnia Coach podcast).
The vicious cycle you described is usually a symptom of trying the same thing, over and over again. When those things don’t work, we try harder. And, around and around we go.
Ultimately, the more we try to control sleep the more difficult it becomes. To break out of the cycle, a new approach might be needed.
—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.
