Insomnia, Control

A common challenge is that people think they’ve “tried everything” already and therefore therapy suggestions are equivalent to dismissing the seriousness of their problem. It can take a self-discovery like this article describes to bring someone back around to the idea that the condition is related to something like anxiety or obsessive behaviors and is receptive to behavioral modification.

> I'd just skip the night and take my sweet time to: write, draw, practice calligraphy, code a little toy, make a little sculpture from a scrap of wood.

Importantly, none of these activities involve entering the ragebait vortex that exists in most people’s Internet time wasting destinations. For many people it’s enough to just cut out Reddit or similar sites in the evening.

People talk about CBT-I, sleep anxiety, etc etc.

From what I've found, this may be great for people with transient insomnia, where the stress is the cause of the insomnia. The key for these people is often the CBT, which helps the I, not that the CBT is to treat the I.

I've come to asking chronic insomniacs "is there something you like about being awake in the middle of the night", and I've had many responses such as "it's my time to think", "I know I should be sleeping, but my mind is enjoying the peacefulness".

I'm not a very stressed person, and I can meditate in the middle of the night, and yet still be awake.

I suffer from sensitivity to my own brain talking, but even if by some miracle there's a low stress period of inner chatter, and I haven't drank, I still have to worry about my neighbor upstairs slamming things or someone slamming their front doors in the hallway

In decades of living in a city, every single apartment had this problem, even a brand new luxury building.

And the amount of lack of sympathy from this problem I've gotten (using ear plugs doesn't stop BOOM type noises and top floors are rarely available) suggests it's a neuro divergence and not a "lifestyle" issue.

Waking up at 4AM everyday for a rigorous workout was necessary. Intense strength training or running a 5K at minimum and being done by 5AM. Sobriety as well to stick to the schedule with 6-7hrs of sleep. It works for me though.

I tried just about everything in terms of routine and ritual. Years and years of suffering and putting holes in basement drywall and believing I’m broken and increasingly frequent thoughts of suicide. And I hit a tipping point where the pain overcame my stupid stubbornness and I finally went and asked for help.

“I don’t want Ambien or one of those life destroying drugs. I’d rather just go quietly” was my thinking and what I said to I the doctor.

Introduced to a newish drug without significant side effects or addictiveness and it immediately changed my life. Sleep is now a feature as my dreams are incredibly vivid. It changed a family member’s life too. It didn’t do a thing for another close friend.

Just keep trying things. Don’t give up.

A lot of sleep anxiety can also be the result of generalized anxiety disorder, so it's worth considering therapy and/or medication. That anxiety can just be worries about your job, life, and other stressful environments, in which case improving your life conditions can alleviate the insomnia. There can be a lot of reasons for insomnia that aren't primary insomnia.

I don’t know whether it was sensible for the author but for people with sleeping problems here: in general it’s probably not a good idea to take a shower before going to bed. Warm showers can feel relaxing but also increase the body temperature even though it should be lowering before sleep. Conversely, cold showers can stimulate the nervous system.

But accepting wakefulness and often at times when feeling inspired, to just go with the flow and getting it out has really helped me too! Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night anxious, other nights with lot of new ideas, and instead of now worrying about them, acknowledging them and dealing with it (meditation, journaling, parking them, or just going to work), helps me resume sleep even after multi-hour interruptions!

Glad to hear there are others out there too :)

PS: I also wrote a brief post about my own sleep experience if anyone's curious!

https://open.substack.com/pub/mssuraj/p/why-we-shouldnt-slee...

At times I entertained the idea that I was an insomniac, but I was just stupid. I need to shut down all stimulus well before I intend to sleep or it might ruin my entire night.

__Issue 1: not wanting to go to bed__

By reflecting on the why and how, I can make myself go to bed much easier, even if I don't want to. It's just having a dialogue with myself

__Issue 2: not falling asleep__

1. Low dose of melatonin (0.3 mg): fixes the issue of falling asleep. I buy it in the Netherlands. It seems much better regulated than the US

2. Sometimes magnesium: fixes a bit of a restless leg issue I have sometimes

__Issue 3: waking up after 4 hours of sleep and not falling asleep__

The issue is that I can't take melatonin anymore. I've noticed it makes me too woozy during the day. Here is what works for me: relax, slow down thoughts; shift hyper alertness to a cozy, euphoric and safe state; reducing social media addiction. Let's go through these ideas one by one

1. Relaxation through slow breathing: basic but important. I've noticed when I don't do this but do everything else, then I can still fall asleep but it's harder

2. Reducing the speed and frequency of thoughts through breathing meditation: if I think too much, I can't sleep. Breathing meditation (observing the breath) has taught me how to reduce my thoughts. Sometimes I don't even do breathing meditation but I just focus on lying still physically and mentally

3. Increasing feelings of coziness through mindfulness meditation: for me the biggest breakthrough has been the focus on coziness. Extreme coziness makes my consciousness drift away. So even if I don't fall asleep, I don't mind

4. Increasing feelings of euphoria through mindfulness meditation and thinking of pleasant thoughts: in my case that's about being at locations I like, with the people I love, doing things I find fun. This is in the same vein of "think of pleasant thoughts". Well, yea, but it needs to induce a mild euphoric effect which aids coziness

6. Increase feelings of safety by telling myself I am safe: simply telling myself I am safe makes me feel more safe. I never noticed that I felt unsafe or anything but telling myself I am safe makes me feel more safe. Safety increases coziness

7. Reducing the amount of waking up by reducing social media addiction: I don't have data, but the anecdotal evidence on my part is that I noticed I woke up more often when I was severely addicted to social media. I think in my case it's because whenever I wake up, I wake up with a lot of energy. So after 4 hours of sleep, I feel tremendously awake. I noticed that when I wanted (social) media entertainment that I felt even more restless. So my suspicion is that feeling restless for more entertainment can actually wake you up

These are the strongest things I've noticed that are conductive to sleep for me, and I've tried a lot. I hope it helps someone. Almost no one talks about the feeling of coziness for me, but focusing on coziness is where it's at for me. Relaxation and pleasant thoughts are nice, but coziness is the main driver for me to fall asleep

There are many more things I do such as knowing what sleeping position I sleep best in, controlling temperature, controlling light, controlling sound, eyemask, standing up when the sun rises, having a sleep journal where I write down every time I have had a bad night sleep or really good night of sleep. Anything surprising needs to be logged and reflected about. Sometimes the answer comes quickly, sometimes it takes years