Insomnia Forum Posting

Posted by looking for zzz on May 18, 2005 at 12:15:34:

In Reply to: sleep therapy group posted by tomwith2cats on May 18, 2005 at 09:56:44:

Tom,

For a long time, I believed that my problem was insomnia. I believed that once I started sleeping better, all would be well in my life.

Recently, I became conviced that in fact insomnia showed up because I wasn't taking very good care of myself emotionally. I would tie myself up in knots all day and expect that the few short hours that I had in my personal life would be enough to untie those knots. And instead of untying those knots, I would actually tie new ones in my personal life as well. What is amazing is that insomnia didn't show up sooner.

I came to this realization partly because of how I was feeling on weekends. Overall, this year has been really great sleep wise. When I am on a good sleeping cycle, I sleep an average of 6.5 hours per night. I sometimes sleep in and get between 7 and 7.5. I still have some rough nights here and there but overall, I would characterize myself as much improved over last year.

What is weird is that I was finding that I still had anxiety on several days of the week. The anxiety wasn't necessarily focused on sleep though I'm sure that is part of the reason. I then began to recall that even when I was a reasonably good sleeper, I had anxiety which I couldn't attribute to anything in particular.

To make things a little shorter, let me just say that I have recently come to the conclusion that many of my attitudes and beliefs are emotionally unhealthy. And while I am a firm believer that sleep restriction can and will help all those insomniacs who use sleep restriction, it will never be a "cure". I am now of the opinion that those who say that they have no issues other than insomnia are really not very self aware. And that those who seek to cure themselves of insomnia not only need to have healthy sleep habits (all the good sleep hygiene stuff) but also need to become aware of and address the attitudes, beliefs and practices that are emotionally self destructive. Only through taking care of the day time person and the night time person can you have fully address that issues that contribute to insomnia.

As some people quite correctly point out, most insomniacs focus their efforts on the night time behaviors that they hope will address insomnia. I feel that these things are important but are important only to the point that you do not obsess about them. There comes a point that these night time practices such as SR wind up only excacerbating the issue instead of fixing it. On the other hand, I believe that not being aware of the sleep destructive night time behaviors and not addressing them is just as bad as not addressing emotionally self destructive day time behaviors. While there is a small minority of people who would argue that drinking a pot of coffee before bed time does not affect them, the vast majority of us would. I really believe in common sense stuff such as:
- giving up smoking
- not eating something super spicy close to bed time
- not staying in bed more than what is required to satisfly sleep need + a little bit of optional sleep. So many people who post here claim that they sleep less than 4 hours a night but when you question them on what time they get into bed and get out of bed, they describe what sounds like an in bed time of between 8-9 hours. For the life of me, I cannot understand the logic of that behaviour.
- consume only reasonable amounts of alcohol
- don't get into fights with your spouse close to bed time. nothing good ever comes of that.

Again, I see this as common sense but some would argue that common sense practices keep you awake and are useless. To which, I would suggest, if you return to your "old self", the one that led you to insomnia in the first place, how will you expect to get yourself straightened out?

ZZZ

Follow Ups:

• Re: sleep therapy group tomwith2cats 12:23 5/18/05 (1)
  • Re: sleep therapy group moonatic 18:11 5/18/05 (0)

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