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Thanks for sharing! I particularly appreciated that last insight you shared — how we feel (especially first thing in the morning) might be influenced by things other than sleep 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.
Thank you so much for sharing! What do you feel were the key insights or changes you made that helped you move away from sleeping pills and transformed your relationship with 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.
Hello Sam and thanks for the great questions!
To answer each in turn:
1. Week 2 will open up exactly one week after you enrolled — not one week from finishing Week 1 (although Week 1 will need to be completed in full before you can start Week 2).
2. What does your own experience tell you here? Have you tried going to bed if a strong sense of sleepiness shows up before the start of your sleep window? If so, did that prove to be helpful? If you haven’t tried it yet, I would suggest maybe making the hour or so before your sleep window begins the last time you check the time at night and then allowing yourself to go to bed whenever you feel ready to go to bed from that point on.
3. Before sleep was of much concern, what did you do? When sleep didn’t feel like a struggle and wan’t something you thought much about, did you use a phone in bed before sleep? Did you use a white noise machine?
—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.
Ultimately, you can’t make yourself fall asleep upon command. If there was a magic sleep switch, I’d share it with you!
You can only control your actions. So, you can go to bed when sleepy enough for sleep and get out of bed at a reasonably consistent time each day.
Sleep might not come until later in the night or close to when you need to start your day — you can’t control that — but if you continue to practice focusing your attention on the actions you can control and away from sleep itself, you will give your sleep the best opportunity to take care of itself (just as it wants to do).
—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.
Yes, post away — that’s what the forum is for 🙂
It sounds as though hyperawareness of noise might be one of those things that we just can’t really control too well.
And, just as we can’t eliminate all potential triggers of sleep disruption we can’t eliminate all potential sources of noise at night, right? And trying to do so is where we can end up stuck.
So, instead of going to war with them, instead of battling with them, instead of trying to fight or avoid them, you might practice acknowledging them and allowing yourself to observe them — perhaps with a curious mind.
You might actively listen to all these sounds, seeing if you can notice anything new or different about them. So, ultimately, you are gaining skill in being more comfortable with the presence of these sounds, rather than treating them as an adversary.
Of course, if eliminating these sounds is possible and doesn’t cause any difficulties, you can just go ahead and do that — we’re not looking to become martyrs of suffering here!
If we sleep alongside a snorer we might find that earplugs mean we aren’t disturbed by the snoring and we can create better conditions for sleep. In that case why not use earplugs?!
If eliminating the sounds is not possible or it will cause it’s own set of new difficulties (for example, if switching off the HVAC will turn you into a cooked lobster overnight) then perhaps an approach of acknowledgment and acceptance might be more useful?
Remember that you cannot delete frustration and worry from your brain! Those feelings will show up whenever your brain chooses to generate them. You always get to choose how to respond, though — and that’s what matters!
—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.
Can you tell us more about the CBT-I you tried? What did you change and how long did you experiment with those changes? If they had worked, what would be different?
—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 and welcome to the forum! Quite often, if the trigger or cause of our sleep disruption isn’t obvious or is no longer present or relevant, we might be finding things difficult because of a change in our approach toward sleep.
When there’s no effort to sleep and sleep isn’t the focus of our attention, it often happens really easily (ask someone who sleeps well how they make sleep happen and you’ll probably get a plan and confused stare, right?).
If we experience sleep disruption we are more likely to work on fixing that disruption. Human beings are fixers by nature — we see a problem and we try to fix it, especially if we see that problem as something that might make it harder for us to do what matters.
Unfortunately, with sleep, the more we try to make it happen, the more difficult it becomes. And so, ultimately, the key to moving past insomnia is to move away from all effort connected to sleep. This is often far easier said than done, and it usually requires a lot of ongoing practice — but it can be done!
—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 stuff here — thanks for sharing your experience and insights! It was a pleasure to work with you, in good times and bad! 🤣🤣🤣
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing! It sounds as though you’re exploring a new approach to all this difficult stuff and are finding it helpful — all the best to 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.
That might be a question best answered by your doctor. What I can say is that the human body doesn’t need medication to generate sleep! When we move away from medication (or anything else that we might feel was making sleep happen) we can end up focusing a lot more on sleep and end up putting more effort into sleep — all things that can make it 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.
That sounds tough, Jim. Quite often, the more we chase after sleep and try to make it happen the more difficult it can become. Is there a difference between how you approach sleep these days compared to how you used to approach it before it felt like such a 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.
Feeling tired and exhausting is difficult and things would no doubt be a lot easier if they didn’t exist! When you don’t go to the gym, play football, or socialize because of the tiredness and exhaustion, does the tiredness and exhaustion disappear?
—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’re welcome – you’re the one doing all the work, exploring a new approach to all this difficult stuff! I hope you’re able to give yourself credit for that!
—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.
The struggle switch is always present — and it can only ever be activated by our own actions. We get to choose whether we reach for that switch or not!
Sometimes we can reach for it so quickly, we might not even realize until we’ve already flicked it to the “on” position — and that’s OK. We can just reach out and flick it back to the “off” position as soon as we notice what’s happened!
Remember that not struggling doesn’t mean the absence of difficult thoughts and feelings, it just means the absence of struggle — and that, in turn, frees up more energy and attention to do things that matter.
And, for as long as you continue to do things that matter when this difficult stuff shows up, they’re at least serving some kind of purpose!
Difficult thoughts and feelings like fear and dread will show up whenever your brain chooses to generate them. As you know, there’s no delete button for the brain and trying to fight or avoid this difficult stuff only makes things more difficult!
Building skill in acknowledging those thoughts and feelings and responding in a more workable way can be a more helpful approach compared to the ongoing struggle, trying to fight or avoid them!
It sounds as though you’re on the right path!
—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 to hear you’ve been getting some practice in with the AWAKE exercise!
Do you feel that getting up and “trying to relax” when you feel very tense and your nervous system is aroused might set you up for some struggle, since difficult thoughts and feelings cannot be directly or permanently controlled?
Perhaps nothing needs to be done about the underlying fear of sleep — perhaps it’s the ongoing struggle with it that has been making it more difficult?
For as long as you are a human being you will experience difficult thoughts and feelings such as fear. It’s impossible to live a rich and meaningful life without difficult thoughts and feelings showing up.
What can make things way more difficult is trying to fight or avoid difficult thoughts and feelings — because that struggle can consume all our energy and attention and make it harder to live the kind of life we want to live.
It sounds as though you’ve learned from experience that opening up and allowing nighttime wakefulness and difficult thoughts and feelings to show up and come and go as they choose is more helpful than battling with all that difficult stuff. So, perhaps it’s a case of ongoing practice as you build skill in this new, more workable 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.
