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I should say thank you to Pam for your response. I am doing sleep restriction now, and although I have driven to work every day so far, I have also verified that walking and Uber are options if I really don’t think my brain is there enough for driving on a given day. It is hard to stay up until bedtime but I am getting better at it.
I know from experience that simply ignoring insomnia isn’t enough for it to go away (for me). But I also know that sleep confidence is key for recovery, and I will thank Chee and “sleep” for assuring me that I can sleep well in the future. The components I’m doing with CBT-i are also helping me and teaching how to deal with negative thoughts. I recently posted this thread about dealing with negative thoughts:
, and even though that was only a couple weeks ago, I feel I am much better at this now.Unfortunately, Chee2308, I have tried the “just don’t worry about it” approach and it did not work at all. I have had many, many nights where I completely succeeded in not worrying about sleep and sleep still did not come. Even when I was a teenager, before I worried about sleep, it still took an average of an hour to fall asleep at night, I woke up a few times during the night, and had occasional nights where I couldn’t fall asleep until 1-2 hours before having to get up. When I was younger than that I would have periods where it took on average 2 hours to fall asleep.
CBT-i teaches you how to let go of negative thoughts and worries about sleep. Thinking about it isn’t a problem, it’s worrying and catastrophizing that’s the problem, which CBT-i addresses. There is no contradiction. CBT-i also strengthens your natural sleep system, meaning a little bit of stress doesn’t override sleep as easily as it will when having insomnia.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of how my sleep works. I will say this, though: you can’t convince me that the only difference between me and a good sleeper is that I try to sleep/worry about sleep and they don’t.
If “just don’t worry about it” works well for you, great. But understand that it is NOT a magical and profound piece of advice that works for everyone.
I’m very glad you are out of your insomnia! I’m currently working on ending mine through CBTi, via the Stellar sleep app. I want to discuss one part of your story.
“On the way home i told my husband i was going to drop all the meds and just accept whatever happened. You won’t believe what happened… that night i slept without extra meds at all. For like 8 hours.
I wish i could say that was the end and it’s been perfect since, but obviously that’s not the case because no one sleeps perfectly.”
Yup, the “just don’t worry about it, bro” advice does not always work, even though many people present it as the profound piece of advice that will work when nothing else has. Sometimes real intervention is needed. I think sometimes your brain becomes wired to resist sleep, and properly rewiring it requires intervention.
I’m glad this approach has worked for many of you. But it does not work for everyone, because it is based off two assumptions that are false in many cases (including mine).
1. That fear of not getting enough sleep is the one and only cause of insomnia.
2. That people can choose by their own free will to simply let go of any effort to do anything.I think that, if curing insomnia were as simple as “just don’t worry about it, bro”, forums like this would have a lot fewer people, and CBT-i would not be considered the golden standard for insomnia. CBT-i is good because you are training your brain to recognize that bedtime is time for sleep and nothing else. It also makes your sleep system stronger and less sensitive to stress.
If you can choose by your own free will with no outside intervention to just stop worrying and putting in any effort, great. But do understand this does not work for everyone (I myself tried to simply not worry about it before doing CBT-i).
