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Recognizing/acknowledging your thoughts is often a helpful first step toward not giving them power and that power comes when they control our actions in an unhelpful way!
We’ll be exploring this in more detail as you work through the course — in the meantime, acknowledging and even thanking your brain for looking out for you when certain thoughts and feelings show up might be a more helpful way to respond compared to trying to fight them or permanently delete them from your mind!
If nothing else, that’s an approach that might help you move away from struggling with 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.
Thanks to @Arnoldgonzalez112, you know you aren’t alone here @agnespg!
All those “what if” thoughts are natural and normal and are evidence that your problem-solving brain is doing its job and looking out for you (thanks, brain!). What do you think is the most workable way to respond to those thoughts?
When it comes to living your life and doing what matters when your sleep is poor, you seem to have two options:
1. Do less and get pulled away from the life you want to live
2. Continue to do things that matter to you and move toward the life you want to liveI am not sure there are other options — can you think of any?
As for taking medication to avoid certain experiences, that’s totally understandable! Is a strategy of avoidance working for you? Is it getting you closer to where you want to be?
—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.
What you’re experiencing is difficult and it is a common part of the insomnia struggle that many people here will be able to identify with.
It can perhaps be summarized as: the more you try to make sleep happen, the more difficult it can become and the more you try to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings (such as anxiety) the more power and influence they can have and the more you can struggle with them.
With that in mind, what do you feel is a workable way to respond to all this? What guidance does your own experience have to offer?
—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! There’s a lot of information about CBT-I on this page and the free insomnia sleep training emails break down a lot of the CBT-I techniques (with some influence from ACT-I, too).
If you have any questions as you work through all this material, just let us know!
—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 — you are not alone.
This feels difficult because it is difficult. As you shared, insomnia usually comes with a lot of difficult thoughts and feelings and most (if not all) of them are involuntary — they just show up, even though we might wish they didn’t. And then, we might start trying to get rid of them. And that can make them more powerful and more difficult. We might also be hard on ourselves when things feel difficult, and that rarely makes things any easier.
Since you’ve been dealing with this for 10 years, you’ve got a lot of experience and knowledge to draw from and that’s a real strength. What do you feel is the best way to respond when it is taking a long time to fall asleep? What do you feel is the best way to respond when those difficult thoughts and feelings show up?
—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.
Where are you and what are you usually doing when you feel really sleepy at 10:30 PM? Since you are the expert on you, what do you think you could do instead, that might make it more likely you’ll get closer to the start of your sleep window?
On a separate note, what made you choose a sleep window that starts at midnight? Why is it important to you not to go to bed before midnight?
—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! Your experience is a common part of the insomnia struggle. You said that when you experience a certain thought like “What if I don’t fall asleep?” you are likely to experience some uncomfortable sensations. You then get out of bed.
Why are you getting out of bed in response to certain thoughts and feelings? What are you trying to achieve when you do that? How is that response working 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.
Good on you for playing around with the AWAKE exercise — glad to hear you are finding it to be a helpful way to respond to the appearance of anxiety! It sounds as though you are a good visualizer and are using that strength to help you experience anxiety with a bit less struggle.
You can definitely practice the AWAKE exercise during the day, too! In Week 3 you’ll be given an exercise that’s intended more for daytime use as a way to practice refocusing your attention on where you are and what you are doing when difficult/distracting thoughts and feelings show up.
If you find that you prefer the AWAKE exercise, you can continue to use it during the day — and you don’t need to choose one or the other or have any rules here. You are the expert on you! These are tools. You decide how you’d like to use 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.
Thanks for sharing!
Everyone here is the expert on themselves — getting out of bed is always an option, but it’s never a requirement! And, if the goal behind getting out of bed is to make sleep happen or to get rid of certain thoughts and feelings, it can be counterproductive!
Everyone spends time awake in bed. The difference between people who are concerned about sleep and people who aren’t is that people who are concerned about sleep are more likely to struggle with that wakefulness — they’re more likely to try to get rid of it and more likely to try fighting any thoughts that show up with it. The bed becomes a battleground. A place to fight and/or a place to avoid.
People who aren’t concerned about sleep are likely to be far more “passive” when it comes to their response to being awake in bed. They are also more likely to spend time awake in bed intentionally — watching TV, scrolling on their phones, reading, maybe even working — and they sleep just fine.
So, being awake in bed isn’t really the problem — it’s trying to fight being awake in bed that can create the ongoing struggle. With this in mind, shifting the goal away from sleep and toward rest and doing anything (in bed or out of bed) that can help you build skill in experiencing wakefulness with less struggle can be 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.
I think you’ve got it! The two exercises are similar in that they both aim to get us to practice acknowledging what we are thinking and feeling (and allowing our thoughts and feelings to exist) instead of immediately trying to fight what we are thinking and feeling.
The AWAKE exercise is intended to be used at night since it’s more open-ended. The NOW exercise is intended to be used during the day since it’s more about refocusing if we find ourselves getting distracted by our thoughts and feelings (compared to the ongoing observation that is perhaps more likely with the AWAKE exercise).
Does this help?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
It’s great that you are playing around with this @Marlin63!
How are you accepting your thoughts and feelings when they show up? When you then think/focus on things that are important to you, what are you trying to achieve? When it works, what happens?
—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 jerks/starts (also known as hypnic jerks) can be difficult to experience, that’s for sure!
First, I’d suggest talking to your doctor just to make sure that’s what they are and that there isn’t anything else going on!
If there’s nothing else going on, it might be helpful to know that they are typically a sign that sleep is happening.
As for what to do about them, if your experience tells you that trying to fight or avoid them doesn’t seem to work, perhaps an approach that’s similar to how you might deal with the appearance of difficult thoughts and feelings that show up might be more workable?
What ideas do you have?
—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.
Setbacks are part of progress — just as we fell over so many times when we were learning to walk (and even now, we might still trip over from time to time).
If you are using there AWAKE exercise with the intention of getting rid of frustration and anxiety, it’s not going to do anything for you.
As your experience is telling you, there’s no delete button for certain thoughts and feelings. They’re going to show up, no matter what you do. You can choose to fight them or you can choose to allow them to come and go (perhaps as more of a kind and curious observer rather than an aggressive opponent).
The goal of the AWAKE exercise is to help you practice building skill in experiencing wakefulness and all the thoughts and feelings that can come with it with less resistance and less struggle.
Struggle is what can make those thoughts and feelings even more difficult and struggle consumes so much energy, effort and attention. You might find it helpful to revisit the content for Week 2 where this is explored in more detail.
It’s totally natural and normal that new thoughts, ideas, and stories will show up as you practice the AWAKE exercise. If that’s happening while you are visualizing the existing ones, you can just add them into your visualization — perhaps even welcome them to the party.
Remember your goal isn’t elimination (your experience tells you that’s not possible — so why go to all that effort). Your goal is to be more of an observer. To experience them with less resistance. To move away from trying to fight them.
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.
Ups and downs are all part of the journey — what matters is ongoing, committed action!
As you shared, if you rate your progress based on something you cannot directly control (such as sleep!) you can set yourself up for struggle. More useful indicators of progress might include reflecting on: what you are learning, the level of power and influence sleep has over your actions, and the consistency of your ongoing practice 🙂
Thanks for sharing your awareness that good sleep doesn’t guarantee a good day, just as difficult sleep doesn’t guarantee a difficult day! So much goes into how our days go — sleep is probably one of them, but there is a lot more! Perhaps our actions have the most influence?
It sounds as though you are also giving yourself permission to experience the full range of human thoughts and feelings. That’s a wonderful act of self-kindness and can also help reduce your resistance to them — something that can make them more difficult. As you pointed out, acknowledgement tells your brain that you are listening — so perhaps it doesn’t have to yell quite so loud 🙂
I love the post-it note on your nightstand — “stay consistent, stay committed”. That truly is what counts, and it’s something you can control!
Thank you for sharing your progress and congratulations on getting off the medication!
—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 and it’s not unique or unusual.
After a difficult night, there’s more sleep drive to help overpower any arousal that might be present. After a better night, there’s less sleep drive — so if you are putting pressure on yourself to make sleep happen, putting effort into making sleep happen, trying to fight or avoid any thoughts and feelings that might show up, then sleep is less likely to happen and struggle becomes even more likely.
Does this explanation help with any confusion? How do you respond to those difficult nights as they happen, and what problem are you trying to solve with that response?
—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.
