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Just had a funny thought. We can pretty much count on each other to give good, thorough updates to each other because most of us are OCD! We obsess about details and things, want things to be certain ways and like control (we’re also sort of “needy”). Our OCD personality is what made us vulnerable to this darn insomnia to begin with. It’s funny (well not really) but recently I had lunch with my 31 year old son and shared what I’ve been going through. He told me that he’s been struggling with his sleep for years! Pool guy! Well thinking about it afterwards, I wasn’t completely surprised. When he was a child I remembered being amused by how he would line up all his lego airplanes and ninja turtles just perfectly. And when he took over his doing his own laundry he organized it to excess, even hanging up his white undershirt in the closet, all lined up perfectly – OCD to excess. Anyway, I’ve been impressed by the detail of all your reports and now I know why!
Reporting on how I’m doing with ACT this time around. It’s been 6 nights so far.
1. Was awake most of the night with maybe 1 to 1.5 hours of sleep in the early morning.
2. Fell asleep within 1 hour. Was in and out of sleep all night. Woke up not refreshed but decent.
3. Fell asleep within 20 minutes. Slept 8 hours and woke up refreshed.
4. Was awake a couple hours. Woke up not refreshed, but decent.
5. Fell asleep within a few minutes and slept in on Saturday. Slept 9 hours. Very refreshed.
6. No problem falling asleep but sleep was light. Woke up tired.
So far, so good. The irregular quality of my sleep is what I experienced the first time around, although it was worse before. I had many nights like the 6th night above of waking up tired. I figure this time it’s better because I’m so much more calm this time. I haven’t even had to use any of the tools like “mindfulness” or “welcoming” because I’m relaxed and expecting to fall asleep eventually, which I always do.
Overall I prefer this method because it’s a lot easier and feels more natural. I was getting so tired of having to push myself to stay up late until I just can’t stand being awake any longer. Now I just go to bed with my husband like the old days. Also, I don’t worry if I did anything to mess up my night like having a piece of cake or glass of wine or sleeping in late. In addition, I don’t have to push myself to get up out of bed. Best of all, I’ve remembered what it feels like to “surrender” to sleep when I hit the sack instead of worrying or struggling with it. Sort of like what one of you said (Slarus?) about how wonderful it was to feel “sleepy” again after months of not having that sensation.
So for now, I’m sticking with this. Hopefully over time the quality of my sleep will become better on a more consistent basis. I figure this is just another by-product of the months of insomnia and that it will eventually settle down. I’ll continue to give updates on how it’s going but won’t give you a blow by blow account with all the gory details like I did before. I will post just once a week.
P.S. Don’t focus on the physical sensations either, like your racing heart and being jolted just when you’re falling asleep. Again, they can’t harm you, they are just sensations. You may want to check out “mindfulness” as a way to gently separate yourself from all these negative thoughts, feelings and sensations and calm yourself. Just google the term and you will find lots of information on it.
No problem! It’s normal to feel scared because insomnia is a very scary thing, especially long term chronic insomnia, which is miserable. I’ve had it since October and have suffered with it many months, so I know how bad it can be. I’m finally much better now, but it took a lot of hard work. You can avoid this suffering and hard work if you can begin to relax about your few nights of insomnia and just think of them as “no big deal.” But if you dwell on them, the pattern of anxiety about sleep will become more and more deeply entrenched within your brain and will require a lot of hard work to change it.
You said your insomnia was triggered by a health crisis. It’s very common for chronic insomnia to start with some kind of trigger. I had surgery which triggered mine. But then the insomnia hangs on even when original crisis is over. This is always because we start worrying and obsessing about the insomnia. So my advice to you is to please try to relax. Like I said earlier, it may take a few days for things to get back to normal. So that means you may have anxious and fearful thoughts during the night (and day) which are no fun. The thing is to remind yourself that they are only “thoughts” and “feelings” and that they can’t hurt you. Then try to “let them go” and just accept whatever happens during the night, <i>especially</i> accepting not being able to sleep that particular night. One or two nights of sleeplessness is nothing in the larger scheme of things (especially for those of us who have had chronic insomnia and have lost count of our many sleepless nights.) If you do this, you will gradually begin to get more relaxed about sleeping and as a result, you will naturally start to fall asleep more easily and stay asleep longer.
H Syub – sorry you’re having a difficult time. Since your insomnia just started a few days ago, the best course of action is to not worry about it. Then I’m sure that things will get back to normal soon. But if you worry and obsess about it, trying all different things to solve this issue, it will only make it worse and will develop into chronic insomnia, which is much, much more difficult to cure. Chronic insomnia is caused by anxiety about our sleep. So just accept that you had one too many drinks a few nights ago and stop worrying about the last few nights. It will go away on its own then. It may take a few nights to get back to normal but you will if you stop worrying about it. I promise you.
I’m not doing anything differently than what I did before. However, before I had a lot more anxiety and became confused with the symptoms I was experiencing. After the first night of sleeplessness, I had several nights of very light sleep with a lot of dreams. I would wake in the morning completely exhausted. I didn’t know if this was normal or not and had no one to ask. So I just became confused and anxious and as a result my sleep was not getting any better. Also, I had no backup plan, so when things weren’t going well I fell into depression and hopelessness. This time I have a backup plan of going back to SR & SC if this doesn’t go well. So overall this time I’m a lot more calm. My anxiety has gone way down due to my quick response to SR & SC the second time around and my sleeping well at least 5 nights a week, giving me confidence in my ability to sleep. In addition, I’ve been on an antidepressant for two months now which I’m sure is contributing to my emotions being more steady. Also, I did have one session with the ACT people awhile back where I was able to ask my question about the light sleep and dreams and now I know that is normal.
Like you guys, I have had my frustrations too. After 7 weeks I was still averaging 5 good nights and 2 bad nights a week. Also, I was staying up until until 11:30 to 12:00 depending on how sleepy I was. But even if I was really tired when I went to bed, there was still no guarantee that I would sleep because in general, if I didn’t fall asleep right away I could be up half the night.
So my frustrations have been with having to stay up so late every night to the point of exhaustion in order to fall asleep. And even with this, I was still having 2 bad nights a week. It seemed like it was going take quite awhile for things to change.
So I decided to do an experiment and try ACT again for a few days and see what happened. I reasoned that I could always go back to SR & SC if it didn’t work or I just couldn’t stand it. Also, my level of anxiety if so much lower than the first time I did it, so it might work this time.
So I started 3 nights ago, going to bed with my husband between 10:30 and 11:00 and not waiting until I got to the point of exhaustion. The first night I was awake all night except maybe 1-1.5 hours in the wee hours of the morning. I figured that would probably happen because of my first time trying this. Fortunately that day I wasn’t a zombie because I had slept well the 5 days before that. The second night I fell asleep within an hour and was in and out of sleep all night. I got up around 7:30 and felt pretty good even though my sleep had not been concentrated. Last night it took 10-20 minutes to fall sleep and I slept solid all night, waking around 7:00. Feeling well rested today. So far, my experiment is going well. I’m crossing my fingers.
Check out the thread, “Support group of those doing SR.” We’re all doing it! If you have any questions we can probably help you. Yes, it is NOT easy!
Hi Daf – good to hear from you. And good to hear that you are doing much better. I’m sure because you’re now more relaxed about insomnia, when it happens it doesn’t happen in a big way, like the 9 nights in a month.
I’ve still got a ways to go. Had a bad night again last night after 5 good ones in a row. This morning I let myself sleep in an hour so that I got 5 hours of sleep, so fortunately I’m fine today. But it would be nice to get a whole week in a row of good nights. But I’m not worried. I’m on the right track.
Read the forum threads and you will see that you are not alone. You will also find the cure to your insomnia on this website.
Hi Silias – You are not cursed and don’t have to live your life like your mother, relying on sleeping pills. You have “conditioned” insomnia, which can be cured through the right type of therapy, not through pills. Please read this website which will explain to you what conditioned insomnia is and the cure for it. Most of us on this forum have this type of insomnia and many of us are doing better through practicing the therapy described here.
You may also want to check out the book, “The Effortless Sleep Method” by Sasha Stephens. She had insomnia for 15 years and cured it finally through similar methods.
Hi Jazzcat – welcome to this group. It sounds like you’re doing really well with averaging 6 hours per night when before you were having lots of sleepless nights. Glad you are enjoying your “sleepiness.”
Pam – so hard to imagine having insomnia for 18 years! Glad that you have hope to finally get better.
Borgesbi – thanks so much for sharing your post. It’s very encouraging to all of us. I think Steve has been going through a similarly rough time as you in the early weeks.
Slarus – Happy Birthday! So glad you got a good night’s rest with 6 hours!
I had another good night of 7.5 hours. Crossing my fingers that this keeps up. By the way, I say that I’m on my 7th week, but really it’s more like my 15th week since I did 8 weeks of CBT-I in January and February. I got off track for several weeks and then got with the program again in April.
