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Hi everyone, I deal with this too. Three thoughts… (1) With sleeping pills for me, when / if I do get to sleep I credit the sleeping pill rather than it being my own ability to sleep. Sleeping pills erode my sleep confidence, which is such a fragile thing for insomniacs. The book The Effortless Sleep Method has a FANTASTIC chapter on sleeping pills, and I highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it. (2) That being said, I do give myself an “out” … if I have a really big next day (e.g., important business meeting), I do allow myself to take medication at say 2am. I try to be gracious to myself and not judge myself for taking it that night. Then I do my best to ‘snap back’ the next night to my protocols (CBT) and just forget I took pills the night before. (3) I also have a long term goal of getting off sleep meds (Lunesta). I am not my best self on that med – often hungover, dulled senses, everything can seem grey, etc. I find that 5 hours of sleep off that med can sometimes be better than 6-7 hours with that med. It’s been helpful for me to journal why I am trying to get off it…creates a stronger motivation to not pick up the bottle in the middle of the night. “He who has a why can bear almost any how.” (Nietzsche) Pulling for you!
Hi everyone, great thread…I’ve used sleep meds for 21 years. Limited at first but then increased over time as the original dosages stopped working. This cocktail got up to 3 meds at one point and included antipsychotics. Sleep was not guaranteed and when I didn’t have a full night of sleep, the day was a living horror. I would walk around in a semi-drugged state, significant headaches, and feel like I could barely get through days. In the middle of one night about 3 years ago, I remember thinking … I’m not sure what my sleep off meds will be like, but it can’t be worse than this. That started a year-long taper for me. I’m now off 2 of the 3 meds but still take Lunesta somewhat frequently. I find that Lunesta will work for 4-6 weeks but then I’ll need to up the dosage and / or will increasingly feel drugged during the day. I’ve just finished week 1 and my main goal of this course is to come off Lunesta completely by building confidence in my body’s ability to sleep (like @Whiskers25).
