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Re: How's everyone?

Posted by looking for zzz on September 27, 2004 at 11:06:34:

In Reply to: How's everyone? posted by DCTom on September 27, 2004 at 08:42:42:

DCTom,

I thought I would answer your question from another post here... If you don't want to read the entire post, the answer to your question is yes, I feel like I sleep very deeply now. I have mild sleep apnea so I'm sure I still can improve the quality of my sleep but I feel that I've got that "groggy" feeling back.

I'm 20 weeks into SR now. I had a string of over 3 weeks of good sleep (averaging 6 hours per night, time to fall aslpeep under 30 minutes avg, frequent wake ups but back to sleep in under 5 minutes) broken over this weekend. I had to sleep in the same room as my daughter and she was tossing and turning which kept me up pretty much the entire night. Then last night, I was back at it again. I went to bed and the next thing I knew, the alarm clock was going off.

My thoughts on the recovery process are these:
- SR is a wonderful tool to help an insomniac get things organized. It is one of the very first steps you can take to recovery. But it is not the only step.
- Many things that are part of normal life can interupt sleep. SR is not able to resolve things like having to get up in the middle of the night to comfort a crying child or having to get up to go to the restroom.
- Recovery from insomnia is not just a matter of SR. SR is the tool that helps you set the proper conditions to fall asleep and stay asleep. True recovery comes from becoming adept (again) at falling back asleep after being woken by whatever it is that usually wakes us up at night whether it be a barking dog or a harley riding past your street. And I believe that one becomes adept by practicing. Have faith that even if you are not successful at falling back asleep again quickly tonight, tomorrow night brings you another chance to sleep better and another chance to practice the skills you need to become a "normal" sleeper again.
- I still have many other skills to learn to become fully "normal" again. I still can't go to sleep at a drop of a hat. I have "ritual" I follow every night and am hoping one day that my sleep becomes robust enough that the ritual is not always required. I still wonder how I will do when I have to travel to a different time zone.
- The more confidence you have in SR and your ability to overcome the obstacles that keep us from a good night sleep, the longer the duration of sleep you will get and the better the quality of sleep you will get.

In the first few months of SR, the duration of my sleep increased a little bit at a time. But it was not very deep. As time went along, I noticed that I would occassionally feel very "groggy" in the morning. I believe this was a result of sleeping more deeply. These days, I usually wake up groggy every morning and feel much more refreshed. I would even go as far as to say that my sleep quality now is the same as it was prior to my insomnia days (though not as lengthy as it used to be).

Life is so much better today that it was in may and june. Those months were absolutely horrible for me. I look back at my logs from those days and am thankful for where I am now.

ZZZ

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