Posted by sova on October 04, 2005 at 11:19:04:

In Reply to: Re: How to change after 12 years of it? posted by Brightonbelle on October 04, 2005 at 09:52:59:

I am another with this same problem. I never sleep much the night before I have something "exciting" planned, like playing chamber music (which I usually do once a week) or seeing my family, etc.,etc.
Compounding the fact that I won't sleep the night before, I also don't sleep the next night if I have been out late in the evening (I must get a "second wind" sometime in the evening.) Generally, I go to bed fairly early.So this means that not only do I not sleep the night before I go out, but I don't sleep the night of the "event" either. I think I also "overanticipate", and I also want to be really "up" and in good form for whatever I'm going to be doing, which means I HAVE to sleep, which, in turn, means I won't because of all the pressure I have built up.

I am now in my second month of being off sleeping pills (after 40 years of need a pill every night!)
I think I am doing better than I ever dreamed I would, and I feel better than I have in years. However, as you might have guessed, the last hurdle which I having trouble with is this one of not sleeping the night before an event. And, of course, there is always something that is going on, so there is very little escaping this phenomenon.

So far, I haven't succumbed again to pills. I continue to give myself the good advice I have gotten from this forum, namely: I tell my brain that it is not getting a pill, and it better just do what it knows how to do on its own: sleep. If I don't sleep, I just get by somehow, and will sleep that much better the second, or third night--or eventually. I think I reached such a nadir of feeling bad with the pills, that right now I have said "never again will I be a slave to them", and as far as sleep goes, I tell myself (as the kids say) "whatever". I sleep or I don't.

I also try to reduce anxiety by listening to books on tape on a walkman in bed, so that I am not thinking about sleeping, but about whatever I'm listening to for entertainment. It helps alot.

For me, one of the most important things was deciding I am going to live life and not be a slave to insomnia anymore. I'm going to go out and have fun like other people--even if I feel miserable now in the beginning because I didn't sleep. I think it will get better when my brain accepts that that is the way it's going to be, so it might as well not bother to get all anxious!

Don't know if this will help--it's the theory I'm going on right now.

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