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Sounds like you guys are doing better. I’ve had a setback the last couple of weeks. Had to deal with family matters regarding elderly parents who live in another state. Couldn’t deal with sleep issues at the same time so got a prescription of Ambien. It knocked me out but did not give me restful sleep. Trying to get off of that now and get back on track. So ups and downs for me.
Hi Delv – nothing much to report – ups & downs still. Thanks for asking. How about yourself?
I agree, Martin, that when you have high amounts of anxiety it’s better to get up. Since I’ve started ACT there’s been a few times when my anxiety was too high to stay in bed. I had to get up and calm myself down, and then I could go back to bed.
In Guy Meadow’s book he recommends that if your anxiety is too high, it’s better to gradually get used to staying in bed. He also emphasizes the importance of practicing mindfulness and letting go during the daytime when it’s easier to do. This then will give you more confidence and skill to practice it at night, when it can be a lot harder.
Sorry you had a bad night, Mac. I’m curious, what’s a good night for you? You said you had 4 good nights in a row. Is that 7 to 7.5 hours?
Yesterday I was tired and by the evening was a zombie. Could not do anything but lay down on the couch. Fell asleep for an hour or more and woke up completely refreshed! Best I had felt in days. By 11:00, my bed time these days, I wasn’t ready to sleep so stayed up an extra hour till 12:00 when I was feeling tired again. Fell asleep right away and slept until 7:00. The best I’ve slept in days so am very grateful to be feeling good today.
Hoping that I’m back on track after being derailed for several days. Using the ACT tools again of acceptance and mindfulness and most importantly, giving up the struggle. A couple nights ago I realized that I had gotten back into struggling and it was just making things worse. So let that go.
Last night was thinking about an interesting difference between CBT and ACT. CBT is a more masculine approach while ACT is more feminine. With CBT it’s more forceful, where you grab yourself by the neck and then push yourself to do it. You’re in control. ACT is the opposite, where you learn to surrender and give up control. Also its more feminine in that you’re very gentle with yourself like a mother with a child. Just as a mother comforts a child when he’s scared of the monsters in the bedroom, you learn to comfort, calm and reassure yourself. You stop feeling like you have to fight those monsters or barricade your bedroom so they won’t come in. Your anxious thoughts melt away when you realize that “Everything will be ok.” So when the anxiety starts rising again, you reassure the little kid within you that you’re safe and that those big, bad thoughts can’t hurt you. Then you can sleep like the child who knows he’s completely safe and secure.
Not that SR and SC are easy. They’re far from it. None of this is easy. It’s the hardest thing I’ve been through in years.
Just have to keep practicing the skills to help me with my attitude, thoughts and emotions. Last night I realized that I was “struggling” with the insomnia again and it was just making everything worse. When I let go of the struggle and did some mindfulness to anchor myself back into the present, things got better and I finally fell asleep. But the sleep was fragmented again so of course I’m tired today again. Have to work on my attitude, thoughts and emotions during the day as well as at night to deal with the daytime tiredness better. Otherwise the negative thinking during the day contributes to the night time insomnia.
It would be so much easier to just put an external structure into place like SR and SC to try to solve the insomnia, than to work on myself. But as we all can see here, there’s no guarantees of that getting us the results we want either.
The days of shallow sleep and wondering what’s causing them. Wondering if I’m doing things wrong and don’t know what I’m doing. Exhaustion during the day that leads to low moods that then feeds the anxiety. Bad nights leading to more anxiety and more bad nights. Wish I had a coach to help me with this other method. It’s so hard to do this on my own. I have no where to turn with questions and problems.
I may look for someone to help me with my anxiety, which is what this is all about. I’ve got to learn how to calm myself instead of buying into the stories that my thoughts and emotions are telling me, which then feed the insomnia.
Glad you had some good nights, Mac. I’m not doing well. My anxiety has been creeping up and as it does the insomnia has been getting worse.
You’re welcome, Steve. You may also want to talk to Delv, whose insomnia started around the same time as yours and has been working with a local CBT-I therapist. You can ask him what’s been helpful and what’s not helped.
One other thought, Steve. When meeting with your counselor, find out what their methods are on dealing with your anxious thoughts and feelings and compare it to Guy Meadow’s methods and see what makes more sense to you. A lot of cognitive behavioral therapists emphasize replacing negative or fearful thoughts with more positive thoughts. I think this is not really helpful because although part of us wants to believe those positive thoughts, another part of us doesn’t really buy it. Guy Meadow’s approach is to accept all our thoughts and feelings, good and bad, and then uses techniques that help you let go of them or result in them going away on their own. I personally think that Guy’s approach makes a lot more sense. Just my 2 cents!
Steve – Martin is very approachable. I’m sure that if after you meet with your counselor you would like to compare perspectives/approaches of your counselor with Martin’s you could email him and ask him. You do NOT want to waste your time with someone who doesn’t help you get better!
CBI worked immediately for me. But for all 7 weeks I had 2 bad nights out of 7. So I slept well 5 nights and then bad 2. This did not change the whole 7 weeks. So my sleep was much better than it was before starting CBT, but from week 1 to 7 it didn’t change much. The whole time I felt like I was running away from my fears. Every night I had my white Russian, hoping I would fall asleep soon. Because I knew if I didn’t, then I would be up till 3:00 or so on the other 2 nights, which was horrible. The week after I finished CBT with Martin, I tried giving up my white Russians. Then I had 4 bad nights in a row. So I went back to having a drink every night. I know that my drink is like a sleeping pill, or your melatonin. I never depended on anything to sleep before the insomnia.
Anyway, a couple weeks before I finished the program with Martin I started reading The Sleep Book and became interested in trying this method instead because it deals directly with the anxiety that I was running away from. I hate being controlled by fear.
You might do well on CBT since you’ve found a way to help yourself get to sleep. Maybe I will try what you’re doing.
