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Okay, I had my first light sleep last night since implementing ACT, which I take it is good news. I am using a 6.5 Sleep Window and I did my usual wind down routine before going to bed but I wonder what was going to happen as I wasn’t nearly as tired as I was the night before when I ended up tossing and turning. As has been happening recently, I fell asleep relatively easily and then woke about 15 to 30 minutes after I initially fell asleep. I grounded myself in the moment and then it took a while (another 15 to 30 minutes?) but I fell back into a deep sleep and then awoke around 3:30. I went to the bathroom and when I came back, I realized this is where my trouble usually starts so I regrounded myself in the moment again and then, because I wasn’t having any thoughts or urges, just let my mind wander. From that point on, I was in and out of sleep for the next hour and 45 minutes. But there was no tossing and turning and I didn’t (and didn’t feel the need to) look at the clock once. However, knowing I was in and out of sleep for awhile, I decided to check the clock and just as I did so, the alarm went off. So, I was in that light sleep for about an hour and 45 minutes. I feel a lot better this morning although nowhere near 100% but that’s obvious since I didn’t have the deep sleep for 7 hours or more. I am not falling to sleep at my desk this morning and can focus my eyes a little better. So not fighting anything by tossing and turning saved me a lot of energy. Normally when I wake up and I am fatigued, I still get up quickly but wish I had more sleep. This morning, I feel I could have laid there longer, even if I didn’t sleep, and I really can’t wait for tonight to see what happens. I am ready to accept little if any sleep tonight but I am hoping I get that light sleep again so I can say I turned the corner to better sleep. I think I have finally accepted things and hope this continues. One more thing. As I said, I am using a 6.5 hour SW and I was thinking of shortening it since I was spending so much time tossing and turning at the end of it. But after last night, I think I might increase it by 15 or 30 minutes soon, as long as I still am having that light sleep. If my sleep improves, I want to make sure I am ready for it by not having a restricted SW. And if I have the light but restful sleep/awakeness, that will improve my energy more than staying up 15 or 30 minutes to make sure I don’t go to bed before my SW. In short, I am really looking forward to tonight, no matter what happens!
Debt – One last question for today. If your mind wandered to unpleasant thoughts or urges what did you do? Practice mindfulness or just continue to let it wander?
By engaging, I mean talking to it and accepting it, along with accepting the anxiety and stress that come with it. I have been accepting of the fact that I might not get anymore sleep that night and that doesn’t bother me. But after resting an hour or so I get bored and sore and start to toss and turn. I guess it will take me a little longer. I have read that for some people using ACT, it can take up to 4 months.
I can see what you are saying Deb but sometimes I think I toss and turn because I’m sore from lying there awake so long. I do notice that I shut my eyes and try to fade off to sleep when I should probably be not trying to sleep but rather lying there engaging my insomnia. But that is hard to do. I am much more relaxed this second time I am doing ACT as I am doing the mindfulness tools several times a day. But it is hard trying to engage my insomnia when it’s the middle of the night and I am so tired. I am not sure how to “engage” my insomnia. I’ll look over the pages you gave me again and see what the book says. I am also trying very hard not to think about my insomnia during the day and I am succeeding so far. Thinking about this so much during the day can’t be good so I am trying to concentrate on other things to take my mind from it. Thanks again for your suggestions.
Hi Burn. Yes, I second Deb’s response. Please ask her if ACT can be combined with SR. Also, what do we do if we wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and there are no thoughts or urges or anything to welcome but we still can’t sleep and we start to toss and turn? At that point, even though I am relaxed, I start to toss and turn. Thanks.
Hi gsdmom. Glad to hear you had a good sleep last night. The dizzyness is definitely better since I stopped doing SC. For some reason I don’t get that and the buzzing in my head when I don’t have to keep climbing out of bed to practice SC. As for the dry eye syndrome, it’s too early to tell on that yet. I use the dry gel at night also but I ran out and I have to get more. I use the regular drops during the day. Because of the very poor sleep last night (and actually the last three nights) I am having a hard time focusing my eyes today. But that usually happens when I don’t get in the high 4’s of sleep.
So what time do you go to bed? I know you don’t do a sleep window but it sounds like you are staying in bed for over 8 hours. I’m glad you have more energy during the day and that is always a help. It’s funny but I think I have more energy as well since I stay in bed. I mean, I still feel crappy after a poor night’s sleep, but I can function a little better the next day. I am coming up on 10 months of insomnia. I was hoping it would be gone by now but I just have to keep following the rules and maybe in another couple of months, it will be.
Good luck on your job interview. Are you going to go to it or have you decided not to because it’s shift work? BTW, what does gsdmom stand for? I get the mom but not the gsd.
Hi gsdmom. How did your sleep go last night? I have to tell you that it was a really bad night for me. I got to sleep relatively quickly but woke up after about 45 minutes. This has been happening a lot lately, even when I was practicing pure SR/SC. Then I returned to sleep after awhile but woke at 3:00 in the morning with terrible anxiety. I started tossing and turning but after awhile, I started doing the mindfulness exercises I learned in the ACT book and at least I was able to stop the tossing and turning. Still, there was no way I was going to get back to sleep with that amount of anxiety. I’m just considering last night to be an off night as I have been doing good with the mindfulness tools I learned in the ACT book. I am not picking up any more sleep yet but after evaluating how I feel this morning, I can honestly say that I don’t think I am any worse off than when I was just doing SR/SC. Besides not doing SC anymore, and using the mindfulness tools I learned in the book, I am not doing much of anything different now that I started ACT. Probably only the SW is a little longer which I might shorten. Not sure yet. Are you now getting the same amount of sleep before you started ACT?
Deb – Yes, if you do ask her if SR and ACT can be done together, let me know what she says, would you? I am real curious about that. Basically, except for the SW, I am doing all ACT now. Of course, both programs have a lot of combined elements.
Ron – I can answer a couple things where they differ. CBT-i uses SC where ACT does not. ACT wants you to stay in bed to conserve energy. CBT-i says only go to bed when you are sleepy. ACT allows you to go to bed if sleepy or just tired. You can do calm activities in bed, such as reading, besides sleep and sex with ACT.
gsdmom – It’s okay to watch the clock with ACT. You don’t have to be afraid of it. It’s your reaction to the time on the clock that is important with ACT.
Thanks Deb. I don’t mean to keep asking you questions and I know you don’t want to keep being the source of info on ACT. It can get tiresome and I understand that. I will give it some time to see how this works out for me before I go to her.
Deb – Yeah, that’s what I figured which is why I am going to leave the SW as is. Thanks for all of your input.
One other quick question for you Deb. What do they mean by “Acceptance” for ACT? Is it not thinking about the effects of the insomnia the next day? If you aren’t thinking about how bad you feel, have you accepted it? Or is Acceptance something else? I feel real crappy today but I am not thinking about it as much as I did yesterday. I mean it’s hard not to think about it but I still have less thoughts about it today. I am trying to use mindfulness to keep my mind on other things. I agree with gsdmon in that I feel worse than when I started ACT 5 nights ago. My sleep has gone downhill in that the last few nights I have only slept about three hours a night and I was fluctuating from 3 to 5 on SR. I know you were having 5 out of 7 good nights on SR and then you started going downhill when you started ACT. And like gsdmom, I know this procedure can take a couple months. I’m just not sure what ACT means by Acceptance. I know when I wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and can’t get back to sleep, my mind is pretty much blank and I have no thoughts or urges to welcome. Those usually come in the day although yesterday and today, there have been less. I’m hoping that means I have started not worrying about them. So, I just lie there and do breathing exercises or just let my mind wander.
On another note, because my sleep has gone down to 3 hours or less, I was wondering if I should shorten my SW by a half hour. But then I thought it wouldn’t help much as the sleep I am getting is still consolidated in a three hour or so block. It’s not fragmented so I would still have that long awake period at the end of the shortened SW. Also, if I was really doing ACT with both feet in, I wouldn’t really have any SW at all. And the SW that ACT does have, I am near. ACT wants you to cut 30 minutes off the beginning and the end period that you stay in bed. I need about 8 hours of sleep as that is what I was getting before I had insomnia. So the two 30 minute cuts totaling an hour would bring it down to 7 hours of sleep and I am doing a 6.5 hour SW now. So I am near that figure anyway.
