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She talks about people using SR who increased their sleep window and then couldn’t sleep. That sounds like dependence on it. But if its actually over time helping to reduce the association between going to bed and anxiety, then that’s a good thing. I’m hoping that is my case.
I’m re-reading some parts of Sasha Stephens’ book and was surprised to find that she is really against SR. She says that’s because it can be an artificial crutch like pills. Got me to thinking. Anyway, she talks about how we have to learn to trust ourselves again more than anything else, which makes sense. After all, we had complete trust in our ability to sleep before the insomnia started, so now we just have to develop that trust again. I guess for me, hiring Martin and doing what he says has been like a crutch. I put my trust in him and his methods which helped me to relax which then reduced the anxiety and therefore, the insomnia. But maybe it’s ok to take an intermediate step of trusting someone or something, and then eventually learning to trust ourselves completely. Just some thoughts.
Had 6.25 hours of sleep last night. Am tired today, but not too bad. On my 2nd cup of coffee. True confession here – the last few nights I’ve had a nightcap before going to bed. I know it’s probably reducing the quality of my sleep. This darn anxiety makes you do stupid stuff you know isn’t good for you, but the worry about having a bad night is still so strong. But after reading Sasha’s stuff about crutches and the importance of regaining confidence in our natural ability to fall asleep, I’m going to give that up. We’ll see how tonight goes.
Just wondering, Mac, what wakes you up in the morning? I’ve gone through brief periods where I start getting anxious about waking up and not being able to fall back asleep. I could be woken up by something like needing to go to the bathroom or something smaller like a cat meow or even turning over in bed. Because of the anxiousness I wake up all the way and then can’t fall back asleep. Is that what happens to you? For me, I find that eventually the anxiousness goes away and I can fall asleep again naturally.
Sorry you didn’t have a good night, Mac. Sounds like a good idea to get more strict with the sleep window. I know it’s hard to stay up when we’re really tired, but this consistency really does seem to work. I thought for sure I would get anxious last night, but I think the association between bedtime and sleep is getting stronger, so I konked right out.
Sometimes during that last hour or so before bedtime I can barely keep awake, nodding off and maybe getting through only 2 or 3 pages of my book, but I stay up no matter what. I’m starting to get used to this routine now, so it’s getting easier. I think the body craves routine actually, and doesn’t do well with changing bed times, changing sleeping locations, etc., – just like little kids do well with routines. Maybe make a commitment of say, two weeks, to stick with it no matter what, and just see what happens.
My sleep window has been increased to 6.5 hours. Yay! But I’ve got to give up my naps and alarm clock snoozes. Slept the whole night through and woke up feeling good. Yay! Was afraid I might get anxious because of the night before, but fortunately, no aftereffects of the bad night.
Another bad night. Blah! Got up 3 times and didn’t fall asleep till about 4:00. Got up at 7:30. Why can’t I get more than 5 good nights in a row? I was very tired last night also. I could barely keep myself awake for the last hour. But then as soon as I hit the bed, the worry started creeping in. Last week a couple times I managed to fall asleep after getting up only once. Somehow I was able to calm myself after I got up the first time so that things didn’t spin out of control like they did last night. Have to see if I can do that again, especially tonight when the anxiety might be even higher because of last night.
Don’t know if there are any courses online, but from my experience so far as a client of Martin Reed’s all you need is a sleep log, sleep restriction (SR), stimulus control (SC) and techniques to help yourself relax. In the sleep log you basically record when you went to bed, when you got up, how many hours of sleep did you get, how many times did you get up, the total sum of the time up, how much caffeine and alcohol you consumed, and at what times. SR and SC are explained on this website. You start with SR and then add SC. In determining your sleep window for SR, make sure you average over a week the number of hours you are actually sleeping. So for example, if you’re sleeping one night 8 hours, but another night only 4 the average is 6. Don’t make your sleep window your “ideal” length of sleep, say, 8 hours, or it won’t be effective. You may be tired a lot, but you will overcome your insomnia sooner.
This is not easy work to do alone however. So if you can find a coach like Martin or a CBT-I therapist to help you, that is best. Otherwise you can always come here to the forum for support (and a place to vent when it gets rough – it will!)
There also is a book that explains in detail how to do this – End the Insomnia Struggle by Colleen Ehrnstrom. She says you can do either SC or SR. I wouldn’t recommend that. Do SR with SC together and you’ll get better results. Good luck!
Daf, you’ve mentioned sleeping on the couch, which is not consistent with CBT-I. I did that for awhile too, but now I’m strict about sleeping only in my bed. Everything has been pretty strict for me – the 12-6 window, the SC when I can’t sleep and sleeping only in my bed. I did have one bad night where I just couldn’t stand the thought of only 3 hours of sleep, so I slept in an extra 1 & 1/2 hours. But I got right back onto the schedule the next day.
Looking back, I think the first two weeks are the hardest. But if you can be strict with yourself during that time, then it starts to get better. So I will continue being very disciplined about this, although its getting easier as time goes by so less and less I will be tempted to cheat in order to get some sleep. So up front it’s hard, but in the long term it’s easier. As they say, faster is slower, and slower is faster. If we give ourselves relief in the short-term and don’t follow through consistently, then in the long-term the insomnia hangs on. But if we can be patient and perseverant up front, even if it takes a few weeks to begin to stabilize, I believe we will save ourselves months (or years) of struggling with this.
Sure sounds like you tried a lot. So you stuck with a strict sleep window, used SC and slept only in your bed for weeks just like me and you didn’t get any better? You said you had a “good go” with CBT-I and that it works a lot. Then why did you stop if it was working?
I’m wondering if it’s not working for some people because their sleep window isn’t small enough. Even though being tired a lot has been a pain, it has helped to make this method work for me because the tiredness at bedtime overrides any anxiety. And now that I’m more and more consistently getting 6 hours of sleep at night, the cumulative effect is that I’m less tired. Of course, because I’m falling asleep more and more regularly the anxiety is also going away.
I’m almost 3 weeks into it now. Have had 5 good nights in the row. I’m in this for the long run, to make sure things stabilize for good.
Why “accept” it when you can get better? The author doesn’t mention anything about trying CBT-I. I can understand accepting when you’ve tried everything. But obviously he didn’t or he’d be writing another story.
I’m not expecting to feel amazing until I start getting enough sleep everyday from 7 or 7 1/2 hours of sleep, which won’t be for another month or more. But at least my nights for the most part are frustration and worry free. I’ll take that for now.
Yes. 19 days now, with 4 bad nights and 15 good ones. Included in the good nights are a couple where I got up just once, but then after going back to bed fell asleep right away. The bad nights were when I couldn’t fall asleep until at least 3:00 or 4:00 or not at all.
I’m tired again today but I wouldn’t trade this any day for all the anxiety, worry about the approaching night, and the many miserable nights.
Slept 5.5 hours. Could feel the anxiety creeping in when I laid down in bed. Somehow it didn’t stop me from falling asleep. Thank goodness. 4 good nights in a row. Tomorrow I turn in my sleep log to Martin. If I have another good night tonight maybe I can increase my sleep window by 15 minutes. Even 15 minutes more of sleep would be appreciated. But I’m doing ok on the 5.5 to 6 hours. Yesterday I took my 20 minute power nap at 11:30. It amazes me how much it rejuvenates me for the rest of the day. Did a lot of things like my part-time job, exercising, piano lessons and going to the jazz jam last night. It helps to fill the evening with activities so the night doesn’t feel so long, waiting for 12:00 to roll around.
About the log that I fill out, I only record the time I went to bed, the time I got up for good, the number of times waking up, and about how long I was awake. So other than the actually going to bed and getting up times, they are just approximate and you don’t have to look at the clock to see what time you woke up in the middle of the night.
Wow, that’s a long time to be struggling with that. Mine started just 3 months go in October. Just wondering, are you averaging 4-5 hours even with using Ambien?
That is ironic that you put people to sleep. Sleep compression and sleep restriction appear to be opposite strategies of treating insomnia. In sleep restriction you cut your total time in bed down so that it’s close to the amount that you actually are sleeping. So in my case, my actual sleeping time averaged over a week was 5.5 hours (even though I could average 10 hours in bed because I couldn’t fall asleep!) Martin added on a half hour. As your sleep stabilizes within that amount of time, you gradually increase it. I used to sleep normally about 8 hours but on this plan I’m sleeping 6 hours, from 12 to 6. A consistent time is important. This is the method Martin is using with me. It’s working really well, and since I started 18 days ago, I’ve only had 4 bad nights. Before, most nights were bad with an occasional good one or two. I’m tired a lot though because 6 hours isn’t enough sleep for me, but my anxiety has gone way down because the method is working. I look forward to my sleep window gradually increasing.
With sleep compression, you work the opposite way, picking a length of time and gradually decreasing it. I noticed that there is a good explanation of it on the internet when I googled it.
