[turtlestamp]

Anytime ! Even though it was 2+ years ago for me, I still remember the feeling of desperation, I’m sure I’ll never forget. Rest assured, you will get past this, just accept it’s going to take some time.

In terms of those resources, here’s another attempt to include those links:
– Search for “The Sleep Coach School” on youtube – you will see a channel with that name
– Search for “Insomnia Coach” on youtube – you will see a channel with that name

I mentioned books, you can just search insomnia online but I found the following to be the best by far for me personally (it has a more ACT slant, but it touches on everything):
– The Sleep Book: How to Sleep Well Every Night: Written by Dr Guy Meadows
– Both the youtube channels authors (one being the host of this forum), and the author of the book above provide paid “coaching” services and/or paid apps. For many people this has worked wonders so always consider that an option as well

Just to complete the train of thought –
– You need to progress through the steps, if you feel you’re at an earlier step, I’d start consuming whatever education you can about insomnia and CBT and ACT (there is tons above and on this forum).

The ironic / sad part about those aforementioned steps, you can see for me (and I see this in most) the eventual step is to stop spending as much time thinking / researching about sleep regardless of how well you’re sleeping. So you may ask, can I just jump to that step ? 🙂 You can try.

But, this did not work for me, at the time I was in the thick of it I had read similar things (and folks telling me to just try to ignore it), essentially everything you read, be it CBT/ACT/… has the same end goal, remove the built up anxiety in your mind about sleep. But until you go through the process of educating yourself you cannot simply “switch” off that anxiety.

So a few more quick tips
– If your lying in bed, not sleeping, and you start to panic and/or have severe anxiety, do change things up (whether it’s leaving the bedroom, or staying in the bedroom and doing something else … what this is will be personal e.g. read if you like, watch tv, go for a walk, whatever, … but it needs to be something that you enjoy … don’t force yourself to do something others suggest that you don’t enjoy {e.g. for me I started by forcing my self to read in low light} …)
— Just a little continuation, people will suggest reading because it’s not very active and can be done in low light … sure I get that … but we have so much anxiety built up in our minds … we should do whatever brings comfort, even if that’s in full light 🙂 … most importantly … the goal of whatever you are doing is NOT to sleep, or build sleep drive, it’s to bring comfort. A term you’ll hear a lot is “befriending wakefulness”, this really resonated with me …
– Read / watch the insomnia success, they are very comforting and you’ll take things from them
– Try to do your best to get on with the day even if you got no sleep (i.e. if you like to exercise, still do this, even if you can’t do things 100% as you would typically)
– Extreme anxiety (which is what we have) can manifest physically, if you feel off physically it is very likely due to anxiety it self (I feel the need to insert the typica “this is not medical advice” verbiage here, if you feel really off, do go to your doctor, but I can say personally, I felt really off physically in many different ways, and it was all 100% due to the anxiety)

Last thing, I’ve said this a few times but it’s worth repeating. This is going to take time to fix/heal – too the point that you will eventually start sleeping better, you may think you’re past this, but you’ll have relapses, you’ll still feel off … all of this is completely ok … accepting this will help accelerate this process.

If you have any questions just ask !

[turtlestamp]

I had replied earlier but I think because I included links it was moderated, I stripped them out here (I’ll see if I can include them later):

Hey Robb,

Really sorry to hear about your loss ! You description of events in regards to the impact on sleep brought back many memories as it’s uncannily a familiar story.

You will get a lot of advice like; Just try to ignore it, sleep will come, don’t worry about it, you’re just going to be a little bit tired, go on with life … generally from people that mean well (be it online or from friends and family) but when you’re in the thick of it none of this is really useful (at least it wasn’t for me) so I’m not going to tell you any of that …

Rather, I’m going to describe the steps on the path of “getting over” insomnia, at least for me (though I’ve seen similar patterns in others). One caveat here, I feel these steps are most applicable to people who are going through sudden onset insomnia (there are others where this develops slowly over a very long time, and in such cases there are some differences).

Another thing, you’ll need to go through all / most of these steps, there is no magical pill (or mindset) that will solve this, but of course there are things you can do to expedite the process. Just to touch on why briefly, the mind is a powerful thing, you have so much anxiety generated around the mere thought of sleep, you likely think of sleep in some form 24×7 and very little else (I know I did), it is going to take time to change this.

Step 1) The initial non “sleep” event;
– Something happens in life that causes you to have difficulty sleeping (either initially sleeping or staying asleep), this has nothing to do with sleep it self, this typically lasts a few days.
– Note that I can say with some level of confidence this has or will happen to everyone in life (and multiple times) but for most people, they never associate this with a sleep problem, but some other unrelated issue that makes it difficult to sleep as their mind is racing, but it never progresses to step 2) below

Step 2) Slowly morphs into a potential “sleep” issue
– Generally at this point the initial event in step 1) has completely subsided or you’re thinking less about it, but you notice you’re still having difficulty with sleeping and starting to think about sleep it self directly
– Usually you’ll convince yourself it’s still related to step 1) and may try sleep aids (whatever this may be e.g. sleep hygiene {sleeping only when tired} and/or over the counter medication)
– For many this subsides at this point and they move on but for others this can keep progressing

Step 3) I cannot sleep event occurs
– This is where things go down hill, after trying whatever you tried to sleep for a little while (maybe a few days or a week) some event will occur where your mindset will shift from “I’m having trouble sleeping lately” to somethin along the lines of “I cannot sleep anymore”.
– I’m sure this differs for everyone but for me this was 2 or so consecutive nights of 0 “nil” sleep whatsoever.

These first 3 steps happen pretty quickly (a few weeks to month or so)

Step 4) Doom spiral
– At this point you have likely convinced yourself you cannot sleep or have a serious issue related to sleep
– You probably spend most of the night reading about why you cannot sleep and conditions associated with this
– Additionally, when this first happens people are generally not familiar with “insomnia” and are not aware of any “good” resources online (like this form), and rather any searches they do likely point to how “important sleep is” and sleep hygiene tips (e.g. keep your room dark), all of which compound the situation further
– For some, through their searching, they stumble on extremally rare medical sleep conditions, leading to a feeling hopelessness and impending doom

Step 5) I can sleep (just terribly)
– This may not apply to everyone, but for some, step 4) can get so bad they convince themselves they just cannot physically sleep, but at some point in time (e.g. a few weeks later) they come to a realization that they can sleep it’s just terrible, merely due to the fact enough time has transpired …

Step 6) Finding the “right” education
– At this point, usually you start to stumble on better resources online in regards to sleep (and you realize it’s a common problem people go through)
– Generally here I’m referring to the likes of CBTi (cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia) and ACTi (accept and commit therapy for insomnia … note this isn’t a common term).

Step 7) Everything in life revolves around sleep
– You have good resources, be it ACT or CBT or whatever you find (e.g. the plethora of books about sleep and insomnia), but you’re spending 24×7 either researching techniques or thinking about sleep (including trying to sleep)
– Usually at this point you’ll find some things that work, but they only work from time to time, and you’ll start looking for patterns (e.g. if I did this, I slept 4 hours, but I tried it again two days later and it didn’t work)
– For some, all the anxiety about sleep and to a lesser degree the physical lack of sleep can manifest physically as well (e.g. burning eyes, headaches, general soreness and pain, …), this happened to me

Note these two steps can last a very long time (e.g. months+). So I suspect you’re somewhere between step 6 and 7. What happens after this is where it’s more of a personal journey, only in the sense that I think there isn’t a one size fits all solution here, so I’ll describe what worked for me (i.e. step 8+).

First I think it’ll be helpful to describe what step 6/7 were like for me;

I found many books (and purchased them) but the most useful resources at the end of the day were the following (I can share others as well if you like):
…
– This form + Martin’s exceptional youtube videos
…
– Daniel Erichsen and company’s exceptional content on youtube

I read everything I could about “CBTi” initially and attempted many of the techniques (e.g. I had a sleep log, I would get out of bed if I couldn’t go to sleep, I wouldn’t keep a phone in the bedroom, so on and so forth). At this point my life revolved around sleep, I was working, but given this was during the pandemic I was able to work from home and that made it bearable to a degree.

I tried this for a good 30-60 days but I wasn’t finding a lot of success, I’d have some good nights, but then some terrible nights, and I didn’t feel things were “getting better”.

At some point I reached a conclusion that leaving the bed when I couldn’t sleep was in of it self causing me a ton of anxiety (i.e. I would get out of bed 4+ times a night), I’d so something like read a book (something I typically don’t do) then go back to bed.

I remember one night quite distinctly I just gave up on that element of CBT. I told my self, I’m staying in bed, and I’m going to watch youtube, I don’t care anymore. Ironically enough, what did I watch on youtube ? One of the many “success” stories on Martin’s youtube channel, so it was still about sleep of course 🙂 … but I actually fell asleep during it and slept the rest of the night. This was a bit of an aha moment for me, don’t get me wrong, I was far from over sleep, but I felt some comfort in not having to leave the bed. This is when I started to read about ACT, most of Daniel Erichsen’s content revolves around this.

There are many similar properties between CBT and ACT, but in my mind (and I’m sure others can give a much more thorough answer) the difference is in the mindset; CBT is more about changing the train of thought from a negative to a positive whereas ACT is more about just accepting the thought as is. In the context of sleep, CBT uses many techniques to try to make sure you have the right mindset in the bedroom, and when you don’t, you leave, in ACT, there’s less of a “fight” element and more of an accepting the fact you’re not going to sleep.

I don’t believe one of these is better then another, it’s very personal, for some the more regimented CBT approach works very well, or at least initially, and for others ACT has more value. Personally I found doing both was the key i.e. I started with a CBT approach, and I think in the process changed my mindset to a degree and then shifted to ACT.

So after the night I had described above, I stopped leaving the bed when I couldn’t sleep. Rather I did whatever I felt like doing, and this is where it’s controversial to a degree as this probably goes against most advice, but if my mind was racing because I couldn’t sleep, I watched youtube, initially it was still about sleep but then I started watching youtube travel vlogs 🙂 I did this until I felt too tired to keep my eyes open and then turned it off, some nights I repeated this multiple times. I also stopped maintaining the sleep log I had. The key was less and less of my time was spent thinking about sleep (even if I wasn’t sleeping). Eventually I found these free podcasts (sleepwithmepodcast), I hated them at first but they grew on me (essentially they are non-sense stories told in a very monotone and calm voice). I shifted to these from youtube (keeping these only when things were bad) as it was easier to just have on in the background.

In some ways if I think about this, it’s a combination of ACT and CBT. In pure ACT, they may argue, you should attempt just to sit with your thoughts (about not sleeping) in the bed and accept them; I did try this but I found it was too hard, at least initially (later I could), hence the podcasts and youtube; It’s no different then the “leave the bedroom and do something else”, but for me I just stay in the bedroom.

All of the above slowly started to work for me after a few months.

I’m going to stop here for now, sorry for the very long post !

This isn’t the end of the story though (i.e. I had more “steps”), I’ll touch on them later.

Because while I mentioned above those “steps” started to work, it wasn’t really the end, small set backs could bring back bouts of anxiety and re-lapses, the tools I had picked up helped. Just to give another quick example of how this could manifest for me, I would have a few nights of great sleep, yet I wouldn’t feel that good for whatever reason, now I’d start thinking “even though I slept something still feels off, maybe there is still something wrong with sleep” … even though I’m sure you can think back to earlier days when you just felt off regardless of sleep.

More soon.

• This reply was modified 1 years, 10 months ago by turtlestamp.

[turtlestamp]

Hey Robb !

I haven’t been here in ages, but got the notification on this thread. I hope that provides some solace that there can be light at the end of the tunnel; Moreover, while generally people like to avoid using the term “being cured”, and I think there is good reasoning behind that, depending on how you define it, I think you can be “cured” 🙂

So here’s where it becomes difficult, I think everyone’s journey is going to be different and tools that work for some won’t necessarily work well for others. Let me draw on my own personal experience. For a bit of quick background in case it helps, I had what I’d call acute onset insomnia; What I mean by this it started very quickly and it was very bad, many nights of no sleep. How it started was the very typical story, a medical scare (completely unrelated to sleep) leading to a few nights of little sleep, then it morphed to “sleep” being the issue, so on and so forth. It got to a point that I thought I just couldn’t sleep normally or at all again, and of course as such impacted every facet of my life …

Personally, a mixture of CBT and ACT techniques were the key, more heavily relying on ACT as time went on. Additionally, I would add it was not a quick fix, and accepting this was key, while the worst period was about a 3-4 month ordeal for me, it probably took me the better part of a year to be completely over it. By completely over it what I mean sleep is 100% a natural thing again, I look forward to it and enjoy it;

I’m very happy to answer any questions you have !

[turtlestamp]

Search for: Headspace Guide to Meditation

🙂

I echo your comment in regards to the insightfulness from everyone has been so immensely helpful ! No one is alone, even though it can feel like it at times, while everyone’s story is unique you can see how many similarities there are between all of us.

The only other thing I would add is you really need to take it one day at a time, doing anything more than that causes a lot of pressure and anxiety. For example you’ll have a good (relatively speaking) night then worry about the next night.

[turtlestamp]

Hey @Elizabeth.ca, just to want to make sure you don’t feel alone in this; Note your sleep schedule is very similar to mine 🙂 i.e. the last week and a half I’ve had several sleepless nights and then typically anywhere from 2-4 hours (but they’re broken i.e. one hour here and another two or three later).

I’ve been more laid back about the sleep schedule (until a few days ago) which isn’t helping, so I think it’s a great sign you’re being consistent about it.

One tip I can share that I hope can help; I’ve been going through this for about a month and a half, the first month was terrible, even though I was actually sleeping a lot more, sleeping somewhere between 3-6 hours ! Ironically, when I accepted the fact it’s going to take time to heal from this and more importantly began to befriend wakefulness the nights became better, and more importantly the days were immensely better. I came to a conclusion all the day time symptoms I was feeling (depression, physical aches, frustration, …) were 80%+ because of my constant struggle, when I changed this attitude, there have been some days where I sleep 2 hours and actually feel better then when I recall sleeping 7+ hours 🙂 … of course it’s not perfect, you still feel fatituge and some aches and the emotions do surface from time to time … but I’ve concluded the attitude (namely your acceptance of the situation and not “fighting”) is a huge driver of how you feel.

The other very important thing was after staying in bed for some period of time and feeling like I’m not going to sleep, I now stop trying and do something else, in strict CBTi you should leave the bedroom but I’ve been ignoring this and just doing something enjoyable in the bedroom (for me it’s watching youtube on my phone with a bluelight filter … yes, this violates everything you’ll hear, but it’s worked great for me), I’ll typically watch something for an hour then get very sleepy and attempt to sleep again (which works sometimes, and other times works but only for say 30 min) then I repeat the process. I think if you do something similar, the key is something you enjoy, it’s probably even better to do it out of the bedroom, this will help a lot as well.

Lastly, I know CBTi involves a sleep journal and stimulus control (getting out of bed after X min), I would avoid clocks at any cost, particularly initially, instead of getting out of bed after X min, do so once you get the feeling (“I’m not falling asleep”, “I’m frustrated”, …) if you’re laying down and feel tired I would give yourself the chance to sleep.

[turtlestamp]

Hey @Manfred, right it’s a core element of ACTi in some form or another, even CBTi really. I know what you mean, it’s easy to say or read about, but a totally different story when you have the anxiety building up. I find it’s a really personal thing, and differs with everyone so there’s no magical answer out there. So I can just tell you my personal experience ,but it may not help or apply to you; I’m content with nights of no sleep, I’ve been through it for a while that I know that eventually I do fall asleep (the night after or even next), and I find my days are impacted of course but not overly so and I can function just fine. It wasn’t always like this, just 1 week ago no sleep led to huge anxiety, particularly at night, there wasn’t really a day it switched, it was a slower process.

In terms of medicine, I did take trazodone (stopped about a week ago now), I find it helps a little with anxiety, and sleep as well (but not a lot).

Hope that helps.

[turtlestamp]

Hey @Manfred, really sorry to hear about your night ! I’ll let others chime in who can definitely give you a more technical answer. Personally, I never had much success with SC, rather I tackled it a different way … namely befriending wakefulness i.e. I’m OK if I spend an entire night up, I know I can function on a day of no sleep, and in fact several days of a few hours of sleep.

So for me, this meant making that thing as enjoyable as possible, so I actually watch youtube in bed (yes that probably that violates many CBTi tenants : – ) … travel vlogs in particular). It works pretty well, I usually get tired within 30 min to an hour and attempt to sleep again. One thing though, I only do this if I’m “not sleeping”, but if I’m frustrated, I’ll leave the bed, and I never watch with the intent of it making me sleep.

I actually rarely have anxiety at night time (sometimes still a little frustration), most of my anxiety comes in the early evening time now, I find just sitting with it, accepting it, generally it passes after 5-20min. But I know this is easier said then done.

I also hate to suggest “sleep aids” or “sleep hygiene” but I’ve been doing something else recently which I find helps, so I mentioned youtube videos earlier but I only do this when I wake up after sleeping for say 30 min and no longer feel tired, so this isn’t very frequent. If I’m tired and trying to sleep, I’ll sometimes put podcasts on in the background at a low volume (particularly the “sleep with me” podcast, you can search it, there are hundreds of episodes, I’ll queue up several {which is hours worth} so there’s no end, and you’ll see it’s very monotone, to the point I barely remember what any of them are about ! ), I find it works really well for me, but I don’t listen to it to sleep, I just like to have background noise and find it relaxing. Often I fall asleep to it, sometimes when I wake it up again and I’m very tired I turn it off, or lower the volume even further. If you have racing thoughts this can help ground you a little I find. Now of course, its best not to ignore those thoughts though, so I suggest this very cautiously, because if you listen with the attitude of “this will make me sleep” I doubt it’ll work and likely cause more frustration.

btw I get those thoughts, I have/had them, but you know you can sleep at this point ? So it’s more the frustration that you cannot sleep every night ? I definitely get this !

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by turtlestamp.

[turtlestamp]

@scottctj that was immensely helpful and reassuring, thank you so much !

I feel I’m getting a lot closer on the mental/emotional side … but have small setbacks … for example yesterday I’ll feel what’s arguably a minor physical ache (pressure in eye), and worried that I needed to sleep well that night for that to go away … I often find the anxiety is what causes the most damage (even physically).

I think you’re also spot on about the commitment to cbt-i, I think I’m trying a hybrid now and I don’t think that’s working, to be clear (in case it helps others) the mindful element of act-i (and how to approach thoughts) is great and at least personally I think that works best for me, but, in terms of the physical side of things i.e. when to go to bed and stay in bed, that’s where I’m sitting on the fence. For example going to bed early (10am) because I think I feel tired, when in fact it’s clear I’m not, so I stay awake until 3/4 am (fairly clam), then when I start to watch something (do something to actually distract myself) I actually get tired so … : ) … commitment needed ! …

Thanks again !

[turtlestamp]

@manfred, not too bad, pretty much similar to content in the sleep book.

Has anyone been through 3/4/5 days with just a few hours each (i.e. 1 to 2 hours) ? I’m hoping at some point my body will just give in and sleep.

[turtlestamp]

Yep and @Dlupu I’d encourage you to check out his success stories on youtube, you can find a link in the “resources” tab above. It’s very helpful to see others have went through similar things and how they managed to improve their situation.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by turtlestamp.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Martin Reed.

[turtlestamp]

@anmareta I’m sold 🙂 I’ll get the app. We can really use all the help that’s out there.

I like your idea actually, maybe I can apply it to myself on a shorter time frame i.e. for the next 5 days I won’t use any medicine (trazadone or anything over the counter) no matter the situation.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by turtlestamp.

[turtlestamp]

Hey @Manfred. Because links are generally moderated for a while let’s try this:

facebook dot com /groups /sleepschoolcommunity
-Request to join that community, lots of replays are there.

[turtlestamp]

@anmareta it is so helpful, I do really like his approach as well : ) Just to confirm you mentioned you got the app, and you found it worthwhile ? I’m considering it as it’s relatively cheap compared to other things you can get.

[turtlestamp]

@Manfred thanks for you comments ! I think my sleep window is still too large (it’s probably 6/7 hours) which clearly doesn’t jive with my 0-4 hours of average sleep 🙂

The worst thing for me is some nights I manage to be pretty calm (relatively speaking) going to bed, I “lay down” and “rest” for say an hour or an hour and half, I suspect drifting in and out (a little bit), as the time goes by fast, but no real sleep, at some point I get frustrated and it’s downhill from there.

I also think my “safety net” of taking a small dose of Trazadone at say 3:30/4am is really backfiring and really reducing any sleep confidence I have (as I typically have been falling a sleep after taking it for a few hours until it’s bright e.g. 3:30<->4:30 am -> 8 am).

[turtlestamp]

@anmareta thanks a lot my wife managed to figure it out for me 🙂 (err how silly of me), I got on the call, it was great ! Others can watch it (the replay) on facebook later.

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