Well I battled with insomnia and the first bit of dealing with that is good sleep hygiene. Not exactly secret, but this would be rules like: 1/ regular bedtime. 2/ Use bed only for sleep and sex 3/ Relax before bed 4/ Room dark, quiet and comfortable temperature.
What are you issues with sleep quality exactly? Wakeful spells? getting to sleep?
I’ve got 2, 3, and 4 covered, so I think my main sleep quality issue is 1. I’ve never in my life had a set bedtime & wakeup time, it has always varied some or wildly. Keeping my comment short because in three minutes I must away to the bedroom for sleep.
Other possible issue: health related sleep issues that a sleep lab could find out. I will rule this out or in depending on how well my experiment with 1 works out: if my sleep quality issue is solved, then I likely don’t need to go to sleep lab, else, go to sleep lab.
A number of smart watches detect snoring, sleep apnea/oxygen level type issues. Sleep lab sounds expensive. Good luck with regular hours. My first job had 5:30am starts which quickly ended my wild night-owl antics of varsity. Have had regular sleep hours ever since (and became a morning-person to my surprise). Insomnia issue in later life had another cause.
One of those behaviour spirals. Noticing that if brought back to alert before fully asleep (eg by hynpojerk or disturbance) then hard to get to sleep. Then starting to panic if it happens, then worrying about the insomnia etc etc, down you go.
Some self-administered CBT. The VA CBT-I app helped, as did understanding the issue via the free course at https://insomniacoach.com/. Complimentary was doing some mindfulness stuff. There was key things that worked together and never looked back since.
I’m glad you were able to work through that :) Thanks for sharing!
I’ve bookmarked that course and will keep it in mind if I develop a bout of insomnia or other sleep related difficulties. My sleep experiment is going surprisingly smoothly, I get very sleep right around the correct time and fall asleep within 15 minutes usually, already. Waking up is getting easier and easier too, I love it!
Given the no. of upscores on this, then maybe I should expand. Firstly, if don’t suffer from insomnia then chances are that you get into bed, close your eyes and go to sleep. You are not counting sheep or some more sophisticated exercise in an effort to get to sleep. If you do suffer from insomnia, then this is this the destination you are aiming for. The sleep hygiene stuff is important because you want to train your brain that this place, this time is for sleep. But shutting off bad brain behavior is more complicated. Understanding the feedback loops is key to breaking them which is why I highly recommend the insomniacoach.com short course. But other key things for me were: 1/ the golden rule: Never toss and turn. Get out of bed and read for 15-20 minutes instead. This is surprisingly hard to adhere to but seriously, do it. 2/ mindfulness has thing of focusing on something (eg breathing) and when mind wonders off, then bringing it gently back. Your mind wanders off when going to sleep and if it wanders into a worry area, then it will stop you getting to sleep. Learning the trick of gently refocusing really helps that. It never worked for me to try mindfulness exercises in bed (other people have different experiences), but learning the trick by practice at other times helps. 3/ Body scan is an exercise you find in CBT-I and some mindfulness/meditation disciplines. This seemed totally counter-intuitive to me. Eg when I was struggling with sleep, I noticed body discomfort and if you start worrying about how your arms are arranged, then you are lost. However, what it actually teaches you (eventually), is how to ignore those body signals. Again, never worked for me to actually do this in bed.
Not instant fixes, but things that eventually work with practice and repetition.
Well I battled with insomnia and the first bit of dealing with that is good sleep hygiene. Not exactly secret, but this would be rules like:
1/ regular bedtime.
2/ Use bed only for sleep and sex
3/ Relax before bed
4/ Room dark, quiet and comfortable temperature.
What are you issues with sleep quality exactly? Wakeful spells? getting to sleep?
I’ve got 2, 3, and 4 covered, so I think my main sleep quality issue is 1. I’ve never in my life had a set bedtime & wakeup time, it has always varied some or wildly. Keeping my comment short because in three minutes I must away to the bedroom for sleep.
Other possible issue: health related sleep issues that a sleep lab could find out. I will rule this out or in depending on how well my experiment with 1 works out: if my sleep quality issue is solved, then I likely don’t need to go to sleep lab, else, go to sleep lab.
A number of smart watches detect snoring, sleep apnea/oxygen level type issues. Sleep lab sounds expensive. Good luck with regular hours. My first job had 5:30am starts which quickly ended my wild night-owl antics of varsity. Have had regular sleep hours ever since (and became a morning-person to my surprise). Insomnia issue in later life had another cause.
Thanks for the well wishes :)
And the reminder; I’ve taken my Apple Watch out of storage and will use that each night for sleep tracking, it has all those sensors you mentioned.
Oh wow! That’s an intensely early start time, my current job is only 8am, but have had as early as 6:30-7am start times in the past.
What caused insomnia issue(s) later in life? If you’re okay sharing.
One of those behaviour spirals. Noticing that if brought back to alert before fully asleep (eg by hynpojerk or disturbance) then hard to get to sleep. Then starting to panic if it happens, then worrying about the insomnia etc etc, down you go.
Ah! That sounds frustrating, are you still experiencing that spiral? If not, what helped overcome it?
Some self-administered CBT. The VA CBT-I app helped, as did understanding the issue via the free course at https://insomniacoach.com/. Complimentary was doing some mindfulness stuff. There was key things that worked together and never looked back since.
I’m glad you were able to work through that :) Thanks for sharing!
I’ve bookmarked that course and will keep it in mind if I develop a bout of insomnia or other sleep related difficulties. My sleep experiment is going surprisingly smoothly, I get very sleep right around the correct time and fall asleep within 15 minutes usually, already. Waking up is getting easier and easier too, I love it!
Excellent! Not feeling tired makes it a lot easier to enjoy life.
Given the no. of upscores on this, then maybe I should expand. Firstly, if don’t suffer from insomnia then chances are that you get into bed, close your eyes and go to sleep. You are not counting sheep or some more sophisticated exercise in an effort to get to sleep. If you do suffer from insomnia, then this is this the destination you are aiming for. The sleep hygiene stuff is important because you want to train your brain that this place, this time is for sleep. But shutting off bad brain behavior is more complicated. Understanding the feedback loops is key to breaking them which is why I highly recommend the insomniacoach.com short course. But other key things for me were:
1/ the golden rule: Never toss and turn. Get out of bed and read for 15-20 minutes instead. This is surprisingly hard to adhere to but seriously, do it.
2/ mindfulness has thing of focusing on something (eg breathing) and when mind wonders off, then bringing it gently back. Your mind wanders off when going to sleep and if it wanders into a worry area, then it will stop you getting to sleep. Learning the trick of gently refocusing really helps that. It never worked for me to try mindfulness exercises in bed (other people have different experiences), but learning the trick by practice at other times helps.
3/ Body scan is an exercise you find in CBT-I and some mindfulness/meditation disciplines. This seemed totally counter-intuitive to me. Eg when I was struggling with sleep, I noticed body discomfort and if you start worrying about how your arms are arranged, then you are lost. However, what it actually teaches you (eventually), is how to ignore those body signals. Again, never worked for me to actually do this in bed.
Not instant fixes, but things that eventually work with practice and repetition.