Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Thanks Ron. Yes, I could definitely use more sleep but hopefully that will come as I get less stress and am more calm. One nice thing about not doing SC is that even while I am lying there, my eyes are closed and so they are resting. With SC, they were open a lot as I tried to read or do other things. In addition, I used them all during the day so that led to a lot of eyestrain. I must be liking my bed more. I can’t wait to go tonight and get back in it. LOL.
Glad to hear you are doing well also.
Well I don’t really want to start reporting in every day but since this is the beginning of my journey into ACT, I thought I’d let you know how it went on my 5th night of ACT. I actually had a pretty tiring day since I had to mow the lawn (I’ll finish it tonight) and had to get up on the roof with a friend to repair my TV antenna, along with grocery shopping for the week. So, I went to bed tired. This time though, I followed a lot of Deb’s advice. I just did my mindfulness for about 5 minutes or less and then I just started letting my mind wander. I fell asleep within 15 minutes. Letting my mind wander was different than what I used to do as little as a week ago. I used to do breathing exercises and concentrate on doing that until I drifted off to sleep. Letting my mind wander was what I used to do before I got insomnia. Anyway, letting my mind wander seemed more natural and it probably took me the same amount of time to fall asleep as it did with the breathing exercises. Anyway, I did wake up after 45 minutes but after going to the bathroom, I went right back to sleep for 3 hours. Then I woke up and went to the bathroom again and fell back to sleep for about an hour. I woke up at 3:30, which is an hour and 45 minutes before I had to get up. The one thing I noticed was that there was no stress about doing SC as I knew I was going to stay in bed. I also didn’t have to do any mindfulness or welcoming. All of the thoughts and demons were gone so I just reminded myself as Deb did that I am not going to sleep but just going to rest. I also let my mind drift since I didn’t have to do welcoming or mindfulness. So all of the time I lay there I probably did get some Stage I sleep but how much I don’t know. So all in all, I figure I got probably around 4.75 hours of deeper sleep and some Stage I sleep in that long period before I had to get up. It seems I am very comfortable in bed. It’s during the day I mostly have to practice mindfulness and welcoming as that is when the bad thoughts, urges and demons come to greet me. I just have to remember that this is not going to go away quickly. It might even take 3 to 4 months but at least I am a lot calmer going to bed now.
I understand that Deb and I do have compassion for them. But I also give them funny names and make them do funny things like Dr. Meadows said in his book to make them less serious.
I have been doing mindfulness now for a couple days and it is harder during the day to do it. The bad thoughts, demons and urges keep coming back even after I invite them to stay. I just have to keep practicing it. I know I am getting calmer and accepting things more. I just have to get my subconscious to believe it. Maybe that light sleep I got last night before the deeper sleep means I am on the right path. I think I am right at 85% SE of my 6.5 hour sleep window. It may be a poor light sleep, but it is sleep. The main demons I am fighting are Mr.s Science Guy who tells me why my insomnia was caused by something going wrong during the surgery, and Exy and Tess (Anxiety & Stress) over the insomnia. But I am getting better acquainted with them. Lol.
Quick question for Deb and Ron if I may.
Deb – Did Dr. Kat have any opinion on doing SR/SW and ACT at the same time?
Ron – Do you feel you are improving using both SR/SW and ACT or do you think you reached a plateau?
Deb and Ron – I know Deb said it and I think Ron said it too but you said you initially got light sleep when you tried ACT. Can you define what you mean by light sleep? Do you mean Stage I sleep? Drifting in and out of sleep? Easily woken up sleep?
I think I got somewhere in the 5 hour range of sleep last night. The first couple hours I would classify as light sleep. It was deeper than Stage I sleep and also deeper than drifting in and out but I had a lot of dreams and I felt I could just be woken up so easy. After I got up and went to the bathroom, I fell into a deeper sleep for the next three hours or so. I am not keeping a sleep diary anymore as that kind of added to my stress of trying to remember when I woke up and fell back asleep and all. But still, these last four nights have been good and definitely better than when I was stressing about doing SC. I think accepting and everything else is helping. Now I just need to start sleeping in longer stretches and deeper. I am still going to keep the SW of 6.5 for now. That’s a good length for me not to stress about having enough time to get sleep in.
I Ron. I have 3 bikes. I have a Yamaha Zuma scooter 125cc, a Yamaha Vino 50cc and the big bike which is a Honda Shadow 725cc. (At least that’s big for me. lol) What size is your engine? I consider myself lucky as I didn’t have a problem riding this year. (My insomnia started at the end of last October so it didn’t effect me at all last year since the riding season was over.) I thought it would but when I tried it, I found I could ride it easy. I think that’s one of the things that kept me sane this year.
No, it wasn’t always in one chunk but rather adds up to those hours. I always woke up at least once. Twice at the most. But I think it was the second night I fell back asleep and slept to the alarm. It’s always nice sleeping to the alarm. My SW begins at 10:45 and I get up at 5:15. I think the welcoming helps me but also playing around with the thoughts and demons, changing their voices and giving then funny faces helps belittle them a lot. That’s what I wasn’t really doing the first time I tried ACT but I’m doing it now. I think it does help make a difference as it cuts the thoughts and demons down to size. As I said, it’s going to take awhile as I have to get my subconscious mind to believe what I am saying. Just got back from the ballgame on my motorcycle. That’s really the first time I rode it after dark. I figure why not? Time to really live my life! Thanks again!
Deb – One other thing. Thank you for sharing the info you learned from Dr. Katz. It would be difficult for me to talk to her because I am hearing impaired and can’t use things like Skype or talk on the phone. Therefore, you are a main source of info for me about ACT if I have questions. (I don’t know if she would do e-mails or how much she would charge for that feature.) So thank you. You are a Saint and a Godsend.
Well, three nights ago was my first night using ACT with the SR/SW. The first night I slept for 4 hours with a SW of 6.5. Two nights ago I slept for 5.0 hours with a SW of 6.5. Last night I figure I slept around 5.75 with an SW of 6.5. (Last night wasn’t a good test though as I usually sleep good on a Friday night since I am very tired from the work week.) I don’t really feel too tired the next day anymore, even when I was just using SR/SW/SC. It’s the dizzyness and inability to focus my eyes that gets to me the most. However, I have named all of my bad thoughts and demons and welcomed them into my self starting that first night. I do this both when they show up during the day and at night. After I welcome them, I have been doing mindfulness to stay in the moment, although I haven’t had to do it too much at night as I slept more. However, today those demons kept coming back during the day but I kept welcoming them and kept doing mindfulness. I have also accepted the dizzyness as something I can live with. I know this won’t be quick and I have to keep doing these exercises and it will probably take me a couple months but I can’t believe the amount of stress that disappeared once I made up my mind that I was no longer going to do SC unless I am really tossing and turning. SC always brought me a lot of stress because I never knew if I might fall asleep again or if I should get up and if I did get up, what I should do and for how long. After about the 4th week, I never got back to sleep after I did SC. I either never fell asleep in bed or I got up for the day. I admit it helped me get consolidated sleep in the beginning but after the 4 th week, it caused me more stress. I have also started living my life more. I met a woman on a first date this afternoon and am going to try to ride my motorcycle to a baseball game tonight. I also am soon going to have my first alcoholic drink in a long time. I just have to keep up the welcoming and the mindfulness and accepting whatever happens. And that means accepting the dizzyness as well. I don’t know if the dizzyness is insomnia related or something else but I am starting to accept that I can live with it no matter what. Now I just have to do these things enough so that my mind starts believing it.
Also Deb, I know I can go back to SR but I never got to the point where you were at where you got 5 out of 7 nights of good sleep. I was getting like two or three nights of bad sleep and then my body gave me two or three nights of good sleep to make up for it (although the good sleep was still only around 5 hours, give or take). And I don’t want to keep living my life where I have to be sleepy before I go to bed. I want to be a normal sleeper again which is why I am giving ACT a second chance.
Yes, but Ron questioned the longer SW where you said I shouldn’t have any at all. That is the only thing you two conflicted on. I e-mailed Martin to tell him what I am doing (I am an extended client) so I’ll see what he says about it and go from there. Just one other comment that you don’t have to reply to. I don’t want to take up your time with a lot of questions. I just wanted to say that I remember those days before insomnia where I just used to let my mind wander or I would think of story lines and act them out or think of a TV show I watched and inject myself into the plot line and think of what I would have done. i hope to get back to those days soon. Thanks for all of your help.
Okay. Thanks. That makes sense. Two other questions. Do you use a sleep diary at all or did you stop that? I want to try to eliminate my thoughts during the day on insomnia and I am thinking that filling out the sleep diary just returns my thoughts to the fact I can’t sleep. Also, so when you are lying in bed and can’t sleep and you have done your mindfulness, what are you doing? Playing with your thoughts you labeled? Welcoming new thoughts and creating spaces for them? Focusing on your breathing to keep your thoughts from wandering? What do you do to keep your thoughts from wandering? Of course, you get a lot of sleep now so you may not have that problem. My mind still wanders so I have been noticing unwanted thoughts and then putting them aside by doing my breathing. Thanks for all of your help with this. Being able to stay in bed instead of getting up to do SC has been a huge blessing.
You might be right Deb but I’m not too concerned at the moment and here’s why. When I first did the CBT-i/ACT mix Wednesday night, after a short spell of being awake, I fell back asleep again for about an hour and a half and slept till just before my alarm went off. If that happened too many times, I would definitely increase my SW. Last night, the second night of the mixture, I increased my SW to 6.5 hours (a half hour increase) so I wouldn’t have to worry about not having enough time to sleep. It worked in that I woke up an hour before my alarm would go off and I couldn’t get back to sleep so I just laid there and did my mindfulness/acceptance exercises for the hour. When I start sleeping again to close to the time the alarm goes off, I’ll increase the SW again. I did find one odd thing about last night. Lately, I have been going to bed and waking up about 2:00 in the morning. Last night, when I went to bed a half hour earlier, I also awoke a half hour earlier at 1:30 in the morning. It seems I am conditioned to sleep a certain amount of time before my first wake-up.
