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Yes, you can expand on either end. However, I’d like to point out that the minimum sleep window that Martin recommends is 5.5 hours. So your window is a half hour short of that.
Welcome dreanminofsleep. I also use a dental appliance for my sleep apnea. As for the meds, Ambien never worked for me and I didn’t want to get addicted to the benzo Klonopin. So how are you going to try CBT-i? The free course on here or the paid course? Let us know how you’re doing.
Sonia,
You may wish to post in the thread Support Group for People Who Are Doing SR. You will get support there as well.
I am in an emotionally good place as well. I just can’t ditch the insomnia as it is so programmed into me.
Yeah, that’s just it Deb. The anti-depressants they gave me all jacked up my anxiety. My doctor finally stopped giving them to me because I was becoming hyper and on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Almost had one at work. And the sleeping pills he gave me never worked. I stayed up all night after taking an Ambien. Decided the meds aren’t worth it.
So both you and Deb are saying it’s normal to have some real bad nights at the beginning of SRT?
Thanks for the support. I appreciate it.
Hi Deb. Thanks for the encouragement. You too Mac. In answer to your question Deb, I am not on any anti-depressants. They just don’t work for me. Besides, the triggers for my insomnia ended awhile back. Now I just remain stuck with the insomnia. I first started showing signs of insomnia at the end of October of last year. So about 7 months. I slept really well before the insomnia. Then came surgery, a major truck repair and the death of my cat. All within a couple months of each other. I am hoping CBT-I will work for me. Martin seems to think it will.
Yes, went to bed at 11:45. Fell asleep within 5 or 10 minutes. Then woke at 12:35 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I normally have little trouble getting back to sleep in the early part of the night. And I normally sleep anywhere from 3 to 5.5 hours. Six hours if I’m lucky. I don’t know why I couldn’t get back to sleep. New routine? Self conscious about having to get out of bed if I can’t sleep? I normally just lie there until I go to sleep again but that’s not helping cure my insomnia. Or do you mean how I got the insomnia? I believe it was severe anxiety. The triggers are now gone but my anxiety about the insomnia remains.
I don’t intend to post every day on this thread but just wanted to say I did start my SRT last night. While I still had two more days to go on my diary, I realized that no matter what I did the last two days, I was going to have a 5.5 hour window. Therefore, I started my Sleep Restriction Therapy last night and it did not go well. The good news was I was so tired when I went to bed at 11:45 that I fell asleep in 5 or 10 minutes. But I woke up after 45 minutes of sleep and couldn’t get back to sleep.
I normally average around 3 to 5.5 hours of sleep a night. And when I do wake up in the early part of the night, I can usually get back to sleep relatively quickly. My problem comes in the 3:30am or 4:00am to 5:15am time period when I can’t sleep at all. I don’t know, maybe all of this time I have been severely underestimating how long it takes me to fall back asleep. Anyway, after the first half hour after I woke up, I got out of bed and watched TV for a half hour. Then I went back to bed but still couldn’t sleep. It was then I learned why Martin always tells us not to go back to bed until you are sleepy because lying in bed unable to sleep for another half hour does not break the connection between the bed and no sleep. So, realizing this, I got back out of bed after only 15 minutes and read a book for an hour. I tried getting back to bed again and still couldn’t sleep so after another 15 minutes, I got up and went into the living room. Since I was tired of TV and reading, I just sat in a chair in the darkened room but made sure I didn’t doze off. I finally felt really sleepy so I went back to bed but when I got in it, you guessed it. I wasn’t sleep y anymore. I almost fell asleep twice but couldn’t get over the edge so I got up for good and sat again in the darkened living room until the alarm went off.
I really thought I would do better on my first night of SRT than I did last night. I have no choice but to continue but did anybody else have problems on their first night of sleep restriction? I understand that it is supposed to get better by the end of the second week or into the third week. I hope so because I can’t keep driving in to work on less than an hour’s sleep. Any encouragement would be appreciated.
Mac – Just getting prepared for when I inevitably will have to leave the bed. Martin gave me a lot of those suggestions to get ready.
I want this to work so bad. My problem now isn’t fatigue. it is lightheadedness and dizzyness. At least I think that is from the insomnia.
Well, I am going ahead with it because I want it to work for me. I’ll try to keep the negative thoughts down.
