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Your situation sounds difficult and not unique or unusual — it bears all the common hallmarks associated with the insomnia struggle.
Feeling more awake as the night progresses is something many people with insomnia experience.
This is an important survival mechanism to prevent things like getting eaten by a sabertooth tiger that we might have seen but still fell asleep because it was bedtime. The brain can respond to a threat by keeping us awake and alert.
The brain is very cautious because its number one job is to keep us safe. So, if there is ever a doubt and if there is even only a slight threat (even if that threat is imagined rather than real) then we can end up staying awake and feeling alert at a time when we might otherwise be feeling sleepy or falling asleep.
When we put a lot of effort into trying to make sleep happen, put pressure on ourselves to sleep, spend a lot of time and energy trying to fight or avoid any difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with insomnia, we can train the brain that nighttime wakefulness itself is a threat — that it’s no different to a sabertooth tiger sniffing around, waiting for us to fall asleep so it can eat us!
So, we might feel sleepy when we know it’s not time to go to bed. And, as bedtime approaches the brain can then kick into gear to protect us and keep us awake. And this can, in turn, make things more difficult (especially since we are probably inclined to fight that survival mechanism when we want to sleep and that struggle then consumes more energy and attention and makes things more difficult).
We cannot control what our brain does but we can control our actions. So, we can work on training the brain that wakefulness isn’t a threat. This can involve doing things that help us move away from *trying* to make sleep happen, from trying to get rid of wakefulness, from trying to fight or avoid difficult thoughts and feelings, from modifying our days in response to whatever happens at night. All these issues are explored in a lot of detail in my six-week online course.
As for the sleep trackers, they aren’t usually helpful if the goal is to move away from focusing on sleep — and there’s not much we can do with the information, anyway! Studies also suggest that sleep trackers can struggle when it comes to measuring sleep in people with insomnia.
I hope there’s something helpful here, Don!
—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.
Those awakenings can be very frustrating, right?!
And, waking during the night — whether that’s at 2:00 AM, 2:13 AM, 3:12 AM, or 4:43 AM — is a natural and normal part of sleep.
What can make falling back to sleep more difficult is when we try to fight or avoid those normal awakenings, when we actively try to fall back to sleep, when we put pressure on ourselves to fall back to sleep, and/or when we try to fight or avoid any difficult thoughts and feelings that might show up with that wakefulness.
When you wake during the night, how do you currently respond? Have you tried not checking the time when you wake during the night?
It’s perfectly fine to watch TV if you find yourself struggling with nighttime wakefulness — anything that can help you build skill in experiencing wakefulness with less struggle is probably going to be more helpful compared to engaging in a struggle, trying to control things that cannot be controlled.
Perhaps the AWAKE exercise might also be a useful skill to develop and practice?
—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.
Many people have recommended that book — I have a copy on my book shelf but I haven’t found the time to read through it yet! Thanks for sharing, Larry!
—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, Noel!
When you say you need to smooth out the highs and lows, what are you referring to? It sounds as though you might still have some lingering goals related to controlling things that your experience tells you cannot be controlled — and that, in turn, might be setting you up for some ongoing struggle.
It makes complete sense that you have certain goals and desires — and that’s OK! Where we can get tripped up is when we act in ways that aren’t aligned with the person we want to be or the life we want to live as we attempt to control things that cannot be controlled. When our energy and attention becomes focused on all the difficult stuff we’re experiencing, making it harder to do things (or even notice things) that matter.
Predictions are no different to thoughts. Sometimes they are true. Sometimes they aren’t. And it’s not possible to permanently delete certain thoughts (or feelings) from your brain.
They’ll always be present and they’ll always come back when they choose to do so. Learning a second language doesn’t delete the first language you learned from your brain, right?
Thoughts will always pop up for as long as you have a human brain (yikes, imagine a life without any thoughts whatsoever — would that even be a life?). As you shared, what matters is how you respond to your thoughts.
You can respond by trying to fight or avoid certain thoughts — a response that creates more struggle, consumes your energy and attention, pulls you away from the life you want to live, and makes things more difficult.
Or you can practice acknowledging your thoughts, making space for them to exist, and then continuing to do things that matter — even in their presence.
I can’t think of any other alternatives to those two options. Can 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 are on the right track, Genie!
—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.
Sleep inertia is the sensation of fatigue and grogginess that can often show up when we wake from sleep and it isn’t always a reflection of how well we slept.
Many people (including those who have no issues with sleep) feel groggy, grumpy, foggy, and not at their best first thing in the morning — and those symptoms can last for up to two hours or so after waking.
There was actually a study undertaken that involved only the best possible sleepers researchers could find — they were young and typically got eight hours of sleep each night. After they were recruited for the study, when they woke after their eight hours of sleep they were asked to report how sleepy/alert they felt and were then asked to do some basic arithmetic every 10 minutes for three hours.
The study found it took these great sleepers about one-and-a-half hours after waking to get to their average level of alertness and mental performance for the day! So, how we feel when we wake in the morning isn’t always a reflection of how we sleep — because it’s normal and expected to feel somewhat groggy and unrefreshed for the first couple of hours or so after waking.
In other words, we’re probably not supposed to feel great when we first wake from sleep!
If you continue to find this a challenge, doing something that requires a little movement (such as a short walk around the block or some stretching) can help improve alertness and promote wakefulness.
Something that might be confused with sleep inertia is the natural dip in our circadian rhythm that happens in the afternoon. There are a few hours in the afternoon when the body’s “wake” signal weakens and that can create a sensation of sleepiness and tiredness. Again, movement and activity can be a helpful way of responding to that.
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.
Hello @frosty and thanks for the great question!
It might be helpful to explore what your goals are — it sounds as though you might be trying to make a certain amount of deep sleep happen or trying to get rid of fatigue. Is that right?
If so, it’s completely understandable that you would like to get more deep sleep and experience less fatigue! And, from your own experience, is it possible to directly and permanently control those things? Is it possible, through effort, to make sleep happen or to eliminate fatigue?
If your experience tells you that you cannot directly or permanently make more deep sleep happen or permanently get rid of fatigue, where does all the ongoing effort that’s spent trying to achieve those things get you? Might that effort be making things more difficult?
Now, let’s say that one day you find a dusty lamp, give it a rub, and a genie appears and promises to grant you two wishes.
Your first wish is for the exact amount and type of sleep you’d love to get.
Your second wish is to permanently eliminate fatigue.
Once those wishes have been granted and you are no longer struggling with those things, what will you then be able to do that you are unable to do right 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, @dennisb!
I think that practicing the AWAKE exercise whenever you find yourself trying to make sleep happen, whenever you find yourself struggling with wakefulness (or the thoughts and feelings that often come with it) can be a sensible 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.
I am not sure it’s possible to delete worry from the mind — and if we could, I doubt any of us would be alive since worry is an important survival mechanism.
What does your experience tell you about this @Kriskin1? Does it tell you that you can successfully and permanently delete worry so that it never comes back? Does it tell you that you can permanently delete certain thoughts so they never appear again?
Or, does it tell you that when you try to control your thoughts and feelings, you get tangled up in a struggle that makes 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.
Thanks for sharing, Luke — it’s great to hear that you are practicing and developing skill in acknowledging and making space for the thoughts and feelings your brain is generating as it does its job of looking out for you.
The more you practice this, the more skilled you will become in experiencing all those thoughts, feelings, and stories with less struggle!
Another response to this for times when you aren’t even in bed yet might be to thank your brain for the thought.
Brain: “What if I can’t sleep tonight?”
You: “Ah! There’s the “what if” story again — thanks, brain!”Difficult nights from time to time are natural and normal and they cannot be controlled (or avoided). What matters is how we respond to them!
—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’s really difficult — and it’s not unusual and there’s no mystery to it, either.
Ultimately, your mind has probably learned to associate going to bed with struggle. And so it has learned that wakefulness is a threat.
Since your brain’s most important job is to look out for you and to protect you, it is going to do everything it can to protect you from anything it feels is a threat — whether that threat is real (like a gorilla trying to break into your house) or imagined (you are awake instead of asleep).
As you know from experience, you cannot directly or permanently control what your brain does. You cannot permanently delete certain thoughts from your mind or get rid of (or create) certain feelings (just as you cannot make sleep happen upon command).
What you can control are your actions. And, though your actions, you can help train your brain that wakefulness isn’t a threat. That even though you might very well wish to be asleep, wakefulness isn’t a threat or a danger.
This can be done by practicing and developing skills that will help you experience wakefulness with less struggle. It can also be done by refocusing attention on doing things that matter, independently of sleep and even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings.
This is all stuff we’ll be exploring in a lot more detail as the course progresses.
What time does your sleep window start and what time does it end? Does your experience tell you that sleep is difficult when you go to bed without a strong sense of sleepiness? If so, are you delaying going to bed until a strong sense of sleepiness is present? How do you define “sleepiness”?
—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 your experience tells you that trying to permanently get rid of anxiety so that it is gone forever isn’t proving to be an effective strategy.
With that in mind, perhaps exploring ways of responding that might help you build skill in experiencing it with less struggle might be a more workable strategy? We’ll be exploring that as the course progresses!
There is no need to be off medication to find the course helpful and, in my experience, medication use doesn’t seem to have much effect on how helpful people find the course.
Many people feel a bit “trapped” taking medication — it’s something they don’t want to take but they feel they need to take it in order to help fight or avoid wakefulness and/or the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it (often because they haven’t found any workable alternatives).
Since the focus of this course is on exploring ways of responding to all this difficult stuff in a more workable way (moving away from struggling with it) many people start to feel better positioned/prepared to move away from medication (in consultation with their doctor) as they work through the course.
There is no need to be off medication to find the course helpful and there is no need to make any changes to any medication to find my course helpful. That’s something you can explore if and when you feel ready.
What can cause some issues is if people decide to come off their medication without having a clear plan in place — success seems to be more likely when there is a clear plan that is committed to, regardless of what happens from night to night.
Perhaps you might want to discuss a tapering-off plan with your doctor, if moving away from medication is one of your goals?
—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.
Even if you are using the shortest possible sleep window, it can still be helpful to delay going to bed until you feel sleepy enough for sleep.
With that being said, I would suggest using your own experience as a guide here.
If your experience tells you that you are able to sleep well when you go to bed without feeling a strong sense of sleepiness, feel free to go to bed when the sleep window begins.
If your experience tells you that things can be difficult when you go to bed without feeling a strong sense of sleepiness, it might be worth delaying going to bed until you feel a strong sense of sleepiness.
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.
You can do whatever you like when awake at night!
I would simply suggest making sure that any activity you choose is chosen because it helps you experience wakefulness with less struggle.
If you choose an activity in an attempt to make sleep happen or to control what you might be thinking or feeling you could set yourself up for a struggle that can make 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.
Fantastic — thanks for sharing!
Difficult feelings like anxiety and fear will certainly show up again at some point since they come with being a human being! What matters is how we respond to them 🙂
As you know from experience, trying to fight or avoid them only makes them more difficult and makes it harder to do things that matter — just as trying to fight or avoid nighttime wakefulness only makes it more difficult and makes it harder to do things that matter.
Continuing to do what matters, independently of how we sleep, what we’re thinking, and how we’re feeling (rather than engaging in an endless battle with all those things) is how we reclaim our lives from all this 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.
