How I was getting over speed bumps, personal learnings, insomnia recovery
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 3. 08. 2024
- Reflecting on my personal experience with speed bumps - periods of time when sleep gets worse again. How did my speed bumps look like? How long did they last? What kept me encouraged? Watch the video to get some insights that might be helpful in your own journey.
DISCLAIMER: Not medical advice. Everything on this channel represents personal opinion and experience and is provided for informational purposes only. The author is not a medical doctor, psychotherapist or any other licensed professional. Any information on this channel does not constitute and/or substitute medical, psychotherapy, counselling or any other professional advice and treatment. It is not intended to treat, cure, diagnose any medical or psychological condition or disorder. Always seek professional licensed help if you have any health concerns.
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Thank you for another great video! I had only one call with you last year and your content gave me the exact tools I needed to overcome sleep anxiety. My sleep is back to normal now because now I donât care about how much I sleep. Iâm now enjoying doing whatever I want when nights do go exactly how I would like them to.
â€â€â€
Loved this! This comment made my day! So glad to hear about your progress Kimberly
â@@FearlessSleep
Hello Alina
Are there any Insomniacs who had less sleep drive but after CBTI or your way they gained their sense of sleepyness again?
Like do they feel sleepy again like they felt before?
â@@FearlessSleep
And what was your problem
Was your Problem waking in the middle of the night and not be able to fall asleep again or other?
What is the best advice that you could give for this situation
Mine is waking up in the middle of the night and hardly fall to sleep
â@@FearlessSleep
How is this going to recover like
Is the fragmented sleep going to extend?
Fragmented sleep really sucks...
Hi Alina,
It seems that insomnia looks like a brutal way to let go off control. Being arrogant or feeling the tendency to have control over your emotions and thougts insomnia will put you down to your knees to let go.
Being in this very hard loop I am starting to see why people that being on the other side say it was eventualy a gift. 4 months ago I never ever would have a thougt like this about insomnia.
Again thanks for being so honoust and real. And you and the other sleepcoaches here make an enormous positive impact. It isnt all about insomnia but really about what anxity means at the core.
Much love,
Alexander
This is so spot on! Thanks for sharing this đ
I came to the same conclusion.
Fantastic video Ali! â€
thank you Shari!
Very interesting, keep up the great work!!đŻ
thank you!
you always have the right words ! Thank you miss !
Brilliant just brilliant I love how you have explained this .. just found your channel as seen you on coach daniels programmes .. itâs great how you two think the same.. been struggling with insomnia since august .. I am getting so much from viewing all the videos on this way of tackling insomnia .. and Iâm not stressing as much now when I donât đ€.. just a shame I didnât know about you guys back in august as I was at my wits end and been paid out for cbti which just didnât works at all. Keep doing what your good at â€.. Janine from the United Kingdom x
Thank you Janine for being here!
Missed you Ali!
Thank you for your videos †â€đ
Great video. Thank you for sharing your experiences. It is so helpful. đđ€đšđŠ
ONLY AFTER. thank you for this. Yes it usually comes after I need to stop seeking clarity during đ
Did you ever experience that you woke up after an hour of sleep? After you recognized that you slept an hour your heart started to race? Then you are awake for 2 hours. Then you go back to bed and monitor if you will sleep? And in the back of your brain you think:
I will never make it. Will I ever sleep again in an ammount that is fine for living.
Did you ever sleep only 1 or 2 hours for days?
I think you always slept 6 hours or none? You never dealt with these 3 or 4 or 2 hours thing?
Thank you for your video.
Iâm just wondering why the term âspeed bumpâ is used? It implies that we have basically recovered but are just experiencing a temporary glitch. It seems to me that when we have nights of wakefulness it is just the continuation of chronic insomnia. In other words they are not just bumps in the road after having recovered, they are chronic insomnia itself. What they tell us is that we still have this impossible condition, we have no control over it (as you rightly say), and recovery is nowhere in sight if itâs possible at all.
Also, I agree thereâs nothing we can do, and wakefulness at night is time that might as well be used doing something enjoyable (if that is possible). However, itâs not the wakefulness time at night that is the problem. Itâs the next day on no sleep that causes dread and is the crucial issue. Itâs the crux of the problem. If we could simply give up that dread, maybe it would help. But after so many months of extreme deprivation, exhaustion, health worries, many of us canât let go of the dread of the next day on no sleep. And when the next day comes, I feel extreme malaise, exhaustion,hopelessness and fear that this condition is going to kill me. How can we overcome the dread and also overcome the extreme malaise when trying to survive after months or years of chronic sleep deprivation?
This has come at the right time! I went on holiday 2 weeks ago and fully expected rough sleep. I had a couple of bad nights but then slept fine for the rest of the break. However, since coming back home I have noticed the hyperarousal still lingering until last night I had roughly 1-2 hours sleep and hypnic jerks all night đI felt so sad but your video has encouraged me.
I had nearly 2 months of 'normal' sleep and now I find myself in this situation. I wonder Alina, did you ever have similar gaps in between speed bumps? It feels so cruel to go so long with proper sleep to be back in this position.
Hi Lisa, thanks for your comment! Yes, I did have long gaps and they were definitely frustrating. I talked about this in my other video about my timeline of the journey. This is totally normal and temporary!
@@FearlessSleep đthank you for your kind reply. It's so encouraging to know that others, like yourself, experienced similar situations â„ïž
How are you now
@@lillianyoukhana8451 I am doing well, thanks. I sleep without issue most nights and the nights that can be a bit tricky I manage to face without fear now. There is still mild frustration but I'm not scared anymore and this has helped immensely.
Hi Alina. Have you ever had general anxiety or was it just sleep anxiety? Iâm trying to find a video about people who have general anxiety along with sleep anxiety but canât find any resources . Please make a video about it. â€ïž
@@user-em1op7je6y Yes, I have been anxious prior to insomnia too - about many things. I mentioned this a few times in videos/newsletters but I havenât made a specific video about that. Maybe this could be a good topic for the future videos :)
Thank you Alina for this encouraging videođ I have one question:
I am experiencing in my recovery journey nights where I sleep very well..but the following days are marked by hyperarousal. During these days, I experience ALL the day sensations of fast breathing and palpitations. The reason of these sensations after a good night sleep is: "it is too good to be true for me for having a good night".
So it is frustrating indeed. The feeling of palpitations due to "too good to be true" is annoying.
Do you have thoughts on that?
I know it is an automatic process. I have no control over it. But I cannot accept that it stays in my life
Thank you always!
Can you give ur context?
Hi Leo, thanks for being here and I can totally relate to your feelings. Had a similar experience and you are exactly right: sometimes experiencing improvement sleep-wise, the brain might still have some doubts, thinking that it was just a coincidence, a fluke. But that isn't a coincidence at all! The natural by-product of trying less is having more peaceful and effortless sleep. This is why it might feel so confusing to the brain because it can't find anything what you did "right" because you actually didn't do anything at all. Understanding where our daytime anxiety comes from and looking at it not as something bad but something the brain will try to do in order to get things under control can help us feel less engaged in it which leads to eventual lowering of that emotion. Hope this helps! You might also find my another video helpful: " SLEEP ANXIETY: why we are more anxious after sleeping better and what to do about it" czcams.com/video/UunbapmzUsQ/video.html
I'm having sleep bumps now but I'm very emotionally involved. I stayed up almost 24 hours, slept 2 hours and awake since them. I know it came from a trigger. LMFAOOO yes to finding something unusual about every speed bump.
I have trouble GOING to bed. Even if I'm exhausted I don't get sleepy. Seems too hard to turn out the light and go to bed, so I stay up until 5-6am, take an ambien, sleep late, and am exhausted the next day. Can't seem to break the cycle.
Been sleeping well for weeks finally got the confidence to cut out mirtazapine last night. I cut the tablet in half and ended up struggling to fall asleep tossed and turned and felt hyperarousal. Im hoping it was just coinsidence as i dont feel sedation most nights from mirtazapine anymore i just want to be off them and sleeping naturally
I always get anxiety during the day from speed bumps and is this a common experience as well?
Madam did you used any medication before? If yes how many months? Please reply
Hey alina and greetings from Greece ! I want to ask something.if you have the attitude "oh today i will sleep" like before insomnia and be happy with this thought,it is a lie to yourself ? I ask this because i am feeling that i love sleep so much and when i feel sleepy i think about sleep like that! But its a problem when you have insomnia ? It is expectation ?
Good question Cat Cat! Short answer - authenticity matters. Do you feel inner resistance when you say to yourself "I will sleep today"? Does it feel like a lie? I find nothing wrong in enjoying a good night's sleep and looking forward to it, but when we try to use affirmations to trick the brain, often that turns into a safety behaviour. Would a thought "I might sleep well tonight, and I might have some wakefulness. Either way - I'm cool with both" feel more natural and liberating?
@@FearlessSleep yes this feels more realistic ! Both nights are OK! However I like the bedtime even if I don't sleep it's cozy and I love it ,I think it's OK to feel this if it's true !! Thank u so much that you answered me â€ïž
Hi Alina, it is interesting for me to hear that your insomnia started like mine, through the side effects of a medication (actually the Covid vaccine). The all-nighters that followed started my insomnia. My biggest anxiety is actually the fear of the all-nighter. I wouldnât even mind if it takes several hours to fall asleep, but the all-nighter feels like the ultimate threat.
When you stopped sleep efforts, did it stop the anxiety?
Not immediately, anxiety took much more time to subside
Nice! A have a question! I've dreaming many times per night and waking... Can you give me your advice or your experience?
Context: I'm in my 2 month sleep deprivation or recovery (through CBTi and biological treatment for anxiety and depression. Never experience this so far... Feels incredibly not pleasant on my health. My thing is anxiety and awareness in the night... Thank you!
Hello Juan Pablo, I too experience many dreams (some very vivid dreams ) when my brain is too alert/hypearoused during those nights of shallow sleep, I find it very common and nothing to worry about
Hi Juan, sorry to hear about your struggles. I covered some of these topics in my videos which you might find helpful:
Hyperawareness at night: czcams.com/video/zksZjInKAFA/video.html
Something about dreaming: czcams.com/video/dRJhmyS07xY/video.html
Waking up frequently at night: czcams.com/video/AyIhlXJWXAU/video.html
In general, having vivid dreams isn't only insomnia's case, sometimes I have one of those nights when I can remember so many dreams. The key, as I see it, is in our reaction to that experience. When we begin to look at it as something that isn't okay and should be avoided, we tend to teach the brain to watch out for it which leads to more hyperarousal. But when we allow ourselves to experience dreams or awakenings, the mere reason why they were happening in the first place stops to exist leading to gradual lowering and dissolving of those. Still, dreams can happen from time to time but we no longer view them as our enemies and they stop having power over us. Hope this helps Juan!