3 eye-opening TRUTHS about insomnia recovery I wish I'd known earlier
Vložit
- čas přidán 3. 08. 2024
- I wish someone had told me that when I suffered from insomnia. Sharing my key insights to help you get through your sleep recovery journey easier ❤️🩹
-
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.
-
What to watch next
A CONCEPT that made my insomnia recovery path EASIER: • A CONCEPT that made my...
How to get 8 hours of sleep?: • How to get the DESIRED...
Anxiety about anxiety: • When insomnia takes a ...
What to read next
Perfectionism and insomnia: www.sleepcoach.sk/perfectioni...
Cheat days: a smoother path to effortless sleep: www.sleepcoach.sk/cheat-day/
3 reasons why we feel worse after a night of good sleep: www.sleepcoach.sk/sleep-anxie...
My other resources & links
💌 Weekly Newsletter (Sleep Talks Letters): sleeptalks.substack.com/
👋 Follow me on Instagram: / sleeptalks.ali
❤️🩹 Read my insomnia recovery story: www.sleepcoach.sk/my-insomnia...
📣 Work with me (1-1): www.sleepcoach.sk/contact-me/
Special thanks to Sarah, Santiago, Gigi and Liza for supporting me on Patreon - you are the best!
If you wish to support my work on Patreon too ❤️: / sleeptalks
Hi Alina, a Czech girl, living in the UK here 🙋♀️ I have been going through some stress and anxiety related chalenges for the past six months. This is my second bout of insomnia. I've tried both the well known approaches, and none of them brought any permanent relief. I admire your teachings, it brings me a lot of comfort. Removing the pressure and teaching my brain not to be scared of wakefulness have been an incredibly useful realisation. I slept well the last two nights, and some anxiety is showing today. I'm embracing it and keep reminding myself of all the things I've learned so far. Thank you for all your love and compassion!
Měj krásný den. Budu se těšit na další video. Mockrát díky. S láskou, Petra.
This girl deserves 1 mil subs
Ty for what you do beautiful lady
Thank you 😁
i even hate the word insomnia i try to believe the condition dont exist if i think i may not sleep tonight i say to myself get lost i am going to get some sleep it sonly a thought and some thoughts wee have to tell ourselfs to ignore because we know sometimes we think to much
I'm very anxious, worried about being able to continue doing my job. And Ezopiclone is wearing off. Please, anybody and everybody out there, be praying for me. Thank you !
Is it me or is it this woman is extremely attractive in every sense
So glad I found this channel 🙏
Glad you enjoy it!
This was so helpful! Thank you Alina. I’ve definitely hit a rough patch and feeling so frustrated and defeated. Good to know it’s all part of it. Any suggestions on addressing the return of hyperarousal/anxiety?
Thanks
Aly
Feeling more normal helps relieve the pressure. Thank you Alina. 🛌💤🇨🇦
Hey Alina! I've developed migraine pain on top of insomnia since 1.5 months now. I had insomnia since 1.5 years now. I take medication for anxiety and insomnia. I've been trying to taper it off myself. I've somehow convinced my brain that nausea, poor digestion and fatigue the following day of 0 sleep night is basically anxiety and not from the lack of sleep. I've watched all your videos and from Daniel's channel. But somehow my brain always comes up with the solution that you have the meds take them and I end up taking them at night. I understand now that they're working because once I take them I'm more calm and it reduces my anxiety wrt to sleep so I just drift off. The thing is that I've been getting headaches every single day and doctors advice to sleep well and sleep more if you have migraine. It helps. So my brain is just very confused because I take the meds, I sleep well and less headache the next day along with feeling well. It's like I'm in a constant battle with my own mind. The day I don't sleep next day is a fight with brain to take something that's helping me. Whereas when I take it, the next day is a battle on ''how will I go like this forever''. Your opinion on this?
I'm literally unable to focus on studies that's what I'm supposed to do. I can't stop thinking about sleep and it's effects all day 24*7. What should I do?
Thank you Michael 🥰
Did you recover, by the way?
@@poojachhatwanihey Pooja how r you I m also from imdia😢
I’ve heard that most insomniacs are just suffering from ocd. That’s why I believe that CBT-i helps.
Sure, CBTi can be helpful. It's just sometimes people take it to extremes when this method starts working against them - that was my experience with CBTi (any approach has its limitations and it is good to be aware of them so that we can use it in our favour) Specifically for these people there are other approaches! But I don't say that CBTi is completely useless
Hi Alina- I struggle with onset insomnia in an all or nothing type of way. As in, if I do not fall asleep within the first hour, it becomes a panicked all nighter. Any advice on how to overcome?? Thank you so much for your work!
Hi Tiffany, so sorry that you are struggling with this. To me it seem like you are having a perceived threshold when you think in terms of "I'm okay with this/I'm not okay with that" - it is very common thinking pattern during insomnia. E.g. I'm okay if I am awake until 12am but I'm not okay if I'm awake at 1am. Recognizing these thresholds is the first step to work with them. These thresholds are the imaginary constructs of the brain that is trying to get some sense of control in this situation. In reality, you are safe all this time and have the same chances of sleep whether it is 12 or 1 or 3am. Hope this brings some clarity!
@@FearlessSleep thank you Alina! Once I realize I’m not falling asleep in the first hour or so, I start to panic and then the whole night is like one very prolonged panic attack, resulting in the all nighter. I understand what you are saying, and agree you’re right. However I am still struggling the same… any advice to help with this? I understand the concept, but my body doesn’t seem to believe it…
@@FearlessSleep thank you so much Alina! Agree with all of the above, makes sense, however even with this awareness, I’m still not seeing much improvement in my sleep or panic. Any advice you can give?
@@tiffany9321 i am the same i now say to myself, i am just like that like a lot of people are so if i am awake all night thats ok because the body will just sleep even if we are anxious when we have been awake to long
@@tiffany9321 hello lets connect on some social media. Same problem i kind of know how anxiety driven insomnia works but still my body doesnot seem to believe it and fear comes.
hi Alina! i have OCD, and it has merged with insomnia to make a really nasty beast. no matter how much i listen to people like daniel erichson or martin reed, my brain continues to convince me of all the horrible health myths out there. i spend all day arguing with myself, even though I've gotten to the point that I'm sleeping well.
do you have any insight on this? its been almost 3 months of arguing with myself, and if i don't argue, i panic all day.
Sometimes arguing with yourself is a form of trying to escape unpleasant feelings. Plus we can't rationally convince our emotional part of the brain to belief it is safe when it keeps seeing a danger everywhere. The brain learns by seeing that nothing wrong is happening no matter how scary the thoughts were. In the video 4 ways to work with anxious thoughts I briefly explain some of the gentle practices.
Perhaps it's best to talk to your medical professional for advice and treatment. I have come across some people who have ocd and just have ruminating thoughts all day every day, despite nothing remotely as bad has ever happened to them at all. They just get plagued by these thoughts relentlessly from the moment they awake
I have just recently started with an ocd therapist, and we'll be starting treatment very soon!
Hey!! I remember you saying realizing nothing works and is helping is what caused surrender..
I have things that work but i dont want to have to use them, will this prolong my surrender process because im dependent on something? Is weening off and accepting my discomfort the way
Hi Alina,
I have the feeling my sleep is messed up. Why do I believe so?
Yesterday I slept 7 hours but in 4 spurts with approx. 90 min. I'm suffering since 6 weeks and my sleep quantity getting better, although my feeling is still worse. I think my body is missing NREM sleep stage 3. I have problems with memories and thinking and my muscles and joints are feeling worse than ever. I dream a lot, which indicates a lot of REM sleep. How can my body get Stage 3 NREM sleep, if this is true what I believe, of course?
Hi Christoph, sometimes focusing too much on the different stages of sleep might be anxiety inducing. The truth is, even if we wanted, we can't control these stages. It is something that happens on its own. But I know that the less we are attached to getting a certain outcome the more likely we have satisfying nights!
Hi Alina! You think It's normal to be afraid, but not knowing exactly of what? I don't know if it's fear of fear (my own reactions since they're automatic and I don't know how to work with something I have no control over; I can always become scared and anxious, even if it's by boicot, and if I'm afraid of being afraid even more since It's a little bit like an autoprohecy), if it's fear of not sleeping and Its physical / mental consequences, fear of all of this together... It's like a diffuse fear and anxiety sensation, and being in that state without knowing the exact reason (how can I work with fear if I don't know exactly what I'm fearing?) or why am I even still afraid when I know I can sleep and trust my body... It's driving me crazy. Any thoughts on that?
With time I came to the realization that there is always a thought behind an emotion. Sometimes we might not articulate that thought with words, but we just feel it somewhere on the background. Usually once we find that hidden thought/belief, we get that aha moment when we see what we are running away from. I would think about the moments when our expectations don't meet the reality - this is usually where people get stuck. Once we find it, we can question that expectation and let it go. E.g. you might think: "I have to feel calm in order to sleep" while you are obviously anxious and frustrated. This is where reality and expectations don't match. Now we can question this expectation: "Do I have to feel calm to sleep? Since we can't control sleep, then also a state of no worry can't produce sleep either. I know I can be calm and not sleeping and anxious and sleep more - these things aren't even that connected". And now, with that knowledge we can let go of that expectation because we know that it can't change the nature of sleep. Sleep will come on its own terms.
@@FearlessSleep Thank you for taking your time in responding me, Alina!
Hi Alina, I am really struggling with trying to identify and apply a lot of the things you say and concepts you explain. You mention the difference between someone who struggles with sleep vs someone who doesn’t is that the person who does sleep easily does not worry about getting sleep and that the insomniac does. But of course the person who sleeps easily every night wouldn’t worry about sleep and the person who never sleeps would? It’s like saying the person who has the money and resources to buy and receive food doesn’t worry about food scarcity versus the person who does not. This to me feels like such a false comparison and honestly almost insulting. I did not worry about not sleeping until I experienced my first night of insomnia and then it spiraled from there. But if I were never introduced to that first experience of a sleepless night, of course I wouldn’t know insomnia like this exists. So I’m truly not understanding how a lot of your content puts blame on the insomniac as if they are just being obsessive over getting perfect sleep or being dramatic about how sleeplessness feels. I have a much higher pain tolerance than everyone around me and deal with so much trauma daily due to my insomnia, but your content paints me out to be this person who dramatizes their experience and therefore is causing their own insomnia. I don’t understand how this ideology works for anyone?
@audrinaxoxo033 Hi Audra, thank you so much for your openness to share your thoughts. And thinking from your perspective, I can see how this can come across as dismissive or insensitive. However, it has never been about putting the blame on the person going through a struggle. As someone who’s been there too, I know that we don’t choose to develop insomnia in the first place, and it is not the fault of a person.
But what’s important here is to understand what creates this vicious cycle and understand its mechanics. Because understanding gives us an opportunity to change that.
A common confusion often arises from mixing secondary and primary insomnia types. I must admit, I have never spoken about this distinction clearly, and I think this can make a good video topic. But I think understanding these two types can shed some light.
Secondary insomnia is a sleep disruption caused by an external factor: health issue or life circumstance that makes it hard to sleep. In this case, it is really true that insomnia didn’t create itself, it has originated from another event. Therefore, addressing the original cause automatically addresses the sleep part too. Secondary type is never the topic of my channel, but what I’m talking about in each and every video is the primary type, which is a self-perpetuating cycle of insomnia.
Not always, but very often, it’s created from the secondary insomnia, when that first bout of sleeplessness leaves an emotional mark on us, like a trauma, and our brains naturally want to protect us from that trauma ever happening again. This is how the vicious cycle is formed. We may no longer experience the original cause of sleep disruption but the fear of it lives with us recreating the same experience over and over.
It urges us to build protective strategies, avoid things that can potentially disrupt our sleep again - which is so understandable, we all have done that. This urge to protect and escape to safety is not voluntary and I always say this in my content - we aren’t consciously choosing to feel anxiety or ruminate.
It’s a survival response that needs not to be blamed for but understood. We never do it intentionally or out of drama, it is how our brains are trying to protect us.
At first, this happens almost unconsciously, and we do all the things to protect sleep because we can’t not do it. But due to the passive nature of sleep, such efforts never lead us to the desired outcome, and so we feel even more and more scared and feel even a stronger urge to do more efforts. Like an infinite feedback loop.
But we can break that feedback loop - through becoming aware of our automatic/unconscious reactions, fearful beliefs and resistances. The moment we are aware of what is really going on with us and why we react the way we react, we gain agency in this process, we suddenly get to choose how to respond to it next. We are no longer reacting but responding, if that makes sense.
And it’s really important to approach it not in a self-judgemental way, but in a very self-kind and compassionate manner. Knowing that none of it is our fault but also knowing we can overcome this issue.
But I understand the skepticism and I think if someone came to me with this message right when it just started, I would probably feel skeptical too.
I hope this adds a little bit to what wasn’t being said clearly in that video. I appreciate your honesty and thank you for pointing out an alternative interpretation of the message. On my part, I will be more mindful of communicating it in a way that would feel more supportive.
Sending you support and love ❤
I know setbacks are normal but I have been experiencing setbacks so many times like weekly. It seems to be going on forever I’m not sure how to get out of this vicious cycle.
It’s part of recovery ❤️🩹
Keep going u will do good 👍
Show the brain all is good
U will be on the path to recovery ❤️🩹
I experience pretty much the same. It was tolerable for a couple of weeks with only few setbacks. Now I got back into a very bumpy period. I find it very hard to show my brain that all is good as I just feel emotionally destroyed right now.
Usually the reason why we get stuck in the cycle is because we don't notice the hidden efforts to get control over things that can't be controlled.
Torture. That’s definitely the word for it
How long did your insomnia last?
My journey from start to finish lasted over a year. It is difficult to put a date on it because insomnia just faded away.. I talked about the details and timeline of my journey in one of my previous videos, hope you will find it helpful 😊
@@FearlessSleep if my insomnia lasted for 5 years, would the recovery be longer?
These videos are pointless if you don't get a microphone.