Posted by Lunar Lander on February 20, 2006 at 08:23:20:

In Reply to: Help once again! posted by Gadgirl on February 20, 2006 at 07:25:21:

A few things that have helped me so far have been to "prove" to myself that the overly-negative things I think about sleep are not true or are pretty much responsible for much of my problems. This has included keeping a sleep journal that's got stuff like:

- Times I've had little or no sleep and was fine.
- Times I've had little or no sleep and got really good sleep the next day.
- Times where I've been tired but then started worrying about it later, which kept me up (which tells me that my body wants to sleep, I just have to trust it - this takes a bit of time but through repeated observation the notion gets stronger).
- The fact that your worry about something is kind-of natural, because in any other situation it would help you take care of something you need to take care of. It's just in the sleep situation it's paradoxical. I've learned to see it as a normal reaction to a lot of situations but just out of place in this one situation and say to myself "it's natural to be worried about something affecting me, but I don't have to be here; it'll work out better if I don't". I acknowledge that the worry is there when I feel it, but then dismiss it like it's not needed. I don't worry about the fact that it's there, I just kind of give it permission to leave.

This is kind-of the thing they teach you in cognitive-behavioral therapy. In the book /Say Good Night To Insomnia/, the first thing they tackle is negative and false beliefs about sleep, and the author says that it's the most important part of treatment. I'd believe that. You might want to look into cognitive-behavioral therapy as it seems to me as if your worries and beliefs about sleep are causing you trouble.

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