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That’s not unusual at all — whenever we explore (or make) changes, that problem solving mind is going to be more active as it does its job of looking out for us!
—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 correct — new material is released each week so there’s a minimum amount of time for some practice, before moving on!
—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.
Do you think experimenting with the AWAKE exercise might help you build some skill in experiencing wakefulness and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can come with it with less struggle?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Great stuff — that new response you described definitely sounds more workable!
—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! I am yet to meet someone who describes their sleep as perfect every night — just as I am yet to meet someone who describes their days as perfect every day!
I think what truly matters is how we respond to difficult nights (and days). I am not sure how easy it is to permanently change our thoughts but we can always change how we respond to them!
What would you say are the most helpful insights you picked up from the course and/or the most helpful changes you made?
—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 convinced that screens have a big effect on sleep. Of course, all the typical sleep hygiene stuff out there implies that they are a nuclear missile for sleep — complete destruction as soon as the dreaded “blue light” becomes visible.
I think the influence is a bit overblown. People with chronic insomnia typically find sleep difficult because of all their efforts to make sleep happen rather than because they’re using screens. And, if screens were the problem, eliminating them would delete insomnia from existence!
I believe that screens are more likely to be an issue when they are used in a way that reduces the opportunity for adequate sleep to happen (a behavior not usually seen in people with insomnia who typically create excessive opportunity for sleep to happen).
So, for example, a teenager scrolling on their phones at night until 3 or 4 in the morning instead of giving sleep the opportunity to happen. A workaholic who checks emails throughout the night. In those cases, screens can definitely be disruptive to sleep!
I don’t think people are going to experience much sleep disturbance from using a screen during the day or using a screen to watch a movie at night or from using their phones at night.
With that being said, I do think there are definite benefits to less screen time and more outdoors time — I just don’t see them as being a big barrier or obstacle to 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! As I mentioned before, you are the expert on you!
If you feel your approach is workable, involves controlling what can be controlled (actions rather than thoughts/feelings/sleep), and keeps you moving toward the life you want to live and the person you want to be, then it’s the right approach 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.
What you are experiencing is difficult, Bruce.
It sounds as though you are (understandably!) engaged in some efforts to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings (“it’s too frustrating to stay in bed”) and that might, in turn, be creating some struggle.
Is your current strategy proving to be effective or workable? Is it getting rid of frustration? Is it getting you closer to where you want to be?
If not, do you think it might be worth experimenting with a different approach? An approach that involves practicing and developing new skills that can help you experience difficult thoughts and feelings (and nighttime wakefulness itself) with less of a struggle?
If you do feel that a new approach might be helpful, what do you think that would look like, based on what we’ve covered in the course so far?
—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.
This can all feel quite mysterious but it’s not unusual at all and it’s something many people with insomnia experience (and can struggle with).
Our brain’s main job is to protect us and look out for us. So, whenever it thinks there is a threat, it’s going to fire up and engage systems to prepare us to run away from that threat or fight that threat.
Without this mechanism, none of us would be alive today since our ancestors would have fallen asleep when a saber-tooth tiger was stalking around in their cave looking for a tasty human to eat!
If we’ve struggled with insomnia for a while, our brain can believe that wakefulness is a threat. It’s no different to a saber-tooth tiger, as far as the brain is concerned. It’s really cautious and protective so, if there’s any doubt, it will assume anything you struggle with is a threat to your wellbeing and it will try to protect you from that thing.
This means that we can be more likely to notice and experience sleepiness arriving in the evening, before bedtime — a time not usually associated with a struggle. In other words, at this time, the brain sees no threat.
Then, when it’s time for bed (or when we get into bed) that sleepiness can seem to disappear as the brain now fires up to protect us from the threat of wakefulness that has been created by our ongoing struggle with wakefulness at this time.
As you probably know from experience, we can’t really control what the brain chooses to do — we can’t permanently get rid of certain thoughts and feelings — and we can’t directly or permanently control sleep (we can’t make it happen upon command).
What we can do is move away from the struggle. We can practice experiencing wakefulness with less struggle. We can commit to doing things that matter to us each day, even after difficult nights.
The more we do that, the more we can train the brain that wakefulness isn’t a threat it needs to be quite so alert to protect us from at night!
We’ll be exploring this in a lot more detail as the course progresses, but I hope there’s something useful here in the meantime!
—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 the update, Neal!
Whenever someone tells me they’re sleeping well enough or good enough, it suggests that they’ve made a lot of progress moving away from trying to make a certain amount/type of sleep happen. And, as you know from experience, the less we chase after sleep, the less likely we are to struggle with it!
As you mentioned, there are still some difficult patches of sleep every now and then (just as all human beings have difficult days every now and again) — thanks for sharing that they’re showing up less frequently! Are you finding that your life is less influenced by how you sleep, too? Do you feel you’ve regained some “independence” from sleep?
It does often take some time for a new approach to “sink in”, right? I like to think of everything the course armed you with as skills — and all skills take time 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.
It’s perfectly fine to implement techniques such as sleep restriction when taking medication — but it’s probably a good idea to discuss this with your doctor, just so they know what’s going on!
—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.
Have you looked into ACT for insomnia or CBT for insomnia as alternatives to 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.
Welcome to the forum, Tara!
That anxiety is really difficult, right? How do you respond to it when it shows up after you wake during the night?
From your own experience, does engaging in a battle to fall back to sleep when you wake during the night make falling back to sleep easier?
—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 really difficult, Nik.
You said that you try to lay in bed calmly — and perhaps that might be the source of some struggle. As you know from experience, and as we’ve been exploring in the course, the more we try to control what we think and feel (trying to make ourselves calm, for example) the more we can get tangled up in a battle with stuff we can’t control. And that creates a struggle that makes everything more difficult.
Of course, anxiety doesn’t usually feel good — and so our default response is often to try to get rid of it. Unfortunately, the more we try to do that, the more powerful the anxiety can become, the more struggle it creates, the more exhausting this all becomes, and the more stuck we can feel.
This is why we’ve been exploring a different response. A response that involves acknowledging and making space for wakefulness and all those difficult thoughts and feelings to show up, to exist, and to come and go as they choose.
If we can practice being more willing for this stuff to show up, it can lose its power and influence. At the very least, we aren’t making things more difficult by adding struggle on top.
It’s all our (understandable) attempts to control what cannot be controlled that create the struggle you are describing and make things so much more difficult.
With that in mind, perhaps it might be helpful to practice a new approach to this difficult stuff so that each night isn’t like heading into a battle zone? An approach that involves acknowledging and allowing your mind to do what it chooses to do as it does its job of looking out for you.
You can’t control what your mind does, but you can control your response — and, at the same time, that new response often takes ongoing 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.
Bipolar disorder it not my area of expertise, unfortunately. What I would suggest is that this might come down to what feels workable to you.
If you feel that keeping a sleep diary would be helpful, then go for it! What do you feel a sleep diary will tell you that will help you move away from struggling with insomnia?
I think we simply need to be mindful of how workable our actions are — if they involve trying to control what cannot be controlled, they are probably less likely to be workable actions, right?
So, when a difficult night happens, what would be a workable way to respond (and what does your experience tell you is workable)?
Is it workable to try to make sleep happen, try to get rid of wakefulness, or try to fight or avoid whatever thoughts and feelings might show up? Does this get you to where you want to be, create better nights, and stop you from struggling?
Or, is it workable to practice acknowledging what’s going on, being kind to yourself if things feel difficult, and practice experiencing the wakefulness with less struggle?
Ultimately, you are the expert on you!
Is there anything helpful 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.
