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You’re in New York? I am just outside of Syracuse. I do not get regular migraines. I get ocular migraines which are the auras without the pain. Still a problem though as the auras affect my ability to see.
No problem with not posting every night. I don’t plan to. Just when I need support or ideas. I do plan to start my SR Friday night instead of Saturday. Sleep diary won’t be affected by the one day. My SW will be 5.5 hours no matter what happens tonight or Friday night so may as well start it.
Hang in there Mac. You beat it once. You can do it again. But now you know you have to stick with it even after you think you got it beat. At least for a long period of time. I have to ask you, when you say you thought you were never truly healed, did you mean you thought you might start having insomnia again or did you mean while you had good sleep, you never felt like you felt before the insomnia hit? For me, I just want to get rid of these headaches and occular migraines. I don’t know how much sleep that will take to get rid of them.
If you are doing SRT, then don’t forget to post in the thread I created.
Hi Erdento. I should probably let Martin have first crack at this question as he is the Sleep Restriction expert here but I just wanted to give my opinion in the meantime. Sleep Restriction is not like a computer program where it is put into you and you follow the program. Rather, it is a technique that you would learn and implement over time. It is either going to work for you or it isn’t. But whether it does work or it doesn’t, it doesn’t stay in your system until you remove it. My guess is that your sleep went down because you had massive anxiety over your sleep issues. Especially since you went through what, four sleep programs and none of them seemed to work? That can cause a massive amount of anxiety in anyone. I know my own insomnia started slowly and went downhill from there. Only my further anxiety caused it to increase. I hope this answered your question and I hope you look into therapy for your anxiety and another sleep program to get you back to sleeping normal.
Okay. If you decide to do the Sleep Restriction, which is the main part of the course, feel free to stop into the thread for those of us doing sleep restriction for some moral support.
Hi all. After thinking about it, I am going to check my sleep diary tonight and tomorrow night and if it’s pretty much the same, I will probably start my SR Friday night. That’s because if the next two nights are relatively the same, there is no way I will not have a 5.5 hour Sleep Window. If that’s the case, might as well get started.
I have my reading material which I will probably read in my chair next to the lamp. I have my TV across the living room from me. I will probably sit on the floor and watch it since if I sit in a a chair or on the couch, I might fall asleep watching it. Especially if I am up because I couldn’t sleep. I have some hot, decaffeinated “Sleepy Time” tea to drink if it gets cold at night, which it might still do where I live. I guess I could also do some housework. Any other tips and ideas from those of you doing SC, or did it in the past?
I hope it works as well for me Deb, as it has for you. As I said, I tried ACT as well. Never worked for me. It was one thing to say I accept my insomnia and welcome it, it was another to actually do it. I ended up just tossing and turning the whole night. I think the thing that appealed to me was not having to get out of bed when I couldn’t sleep. It was nice to think I could just lay there, say I accept whatever comes along, and watch my insomnia disappear. In realty, it’s a whole tougher ballgame.
When I scan the internet on insomnia and CBT-i therapy I always run across complaints from people who say CBT-i hasn’t helped the quality of their sleep. It seems that they fall asleep rather easily but then they keep waking during the night because the quality of their sleep is so poor. Has anyone out there found this to be true? With my sleep, I am all over the board. I sometimes have difficulty falling asleep, I wake up during the night a lot, and I finally wake up too early, like at 4:00 in the morning, and can’t get back to sleep. So no matter what, I am going ahead with the CBT-i SR and SC because I figure it can only help me. But I was just wondering how many others had complaints about CBT-i and their quality of sleep?
So are you taking the free course or the paid course to cure your insomnia? What do you mean by “I want this therapy to work and am invested”?
Hi Matt. My triggers were some surgery I had to have done, an expensive truck repair bill, and the death of a family pet. The triggers are gone now but the anxiety over sleep remains. I started having insomnia back in November of last year when I just awoke one night and couldn’t get back to sleep. It progressed into February where I went 4 days on one hour’s sleep. My sleep slowly came back to 4 to 5 hours a night but in very fragmented sections. A lot of times I even get less then that. It’s just not enough and my body is feeling the effects. As for meds, they gave me everything from anti-depressants to sleeping pills but nothing worked. Or only worked a couple days and then quit. My advice to you is that the meds aren’t going to make your insomnia go away, only mask it. And they also can interfere with the type of sleep you get. Plus, there is the issue of dependence/withdrawal. I do recommend Martin’s free sleep course on here. I tried it once but for various reasons couldn’t deal with the sleep restriction. However, starting this weekend, I will be trying it again. I heard the paid course is also very good. The difference is that in the paid one, Martin is a cheerleader/coach, which many of us need to get through the sleep restriction. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. I know how tough insomnia is.
What surprises me most about a lot of these websites that promote SR as a valid way to treat insomnia, is that they tell you to keep a sleep diary to learn your sleep window, but then never mention the 30/30 rule.
The fact that you and Deb had success with SR, even though it was short-lived, encourages me a lot.
Tried a LOT of sleeping pills and anti-depressants. OTC sleep medications. ACT. Sleeping in another bed in another room. CBT oil. First round of Sleep Restriction. Am in the process of starting it again using Martin’s free sleep course. CBT-I with a counselor. (He wanted me to try medical marijuana.) I stopped seeing him after 2 visits because he wasn’t true CBD-I.
