Check-in for Current and Recovering Insomnia Sufferers. ~2/9

[Deleted]

I realized that this check-in hadn't been updated yet. I hope everyone is doing well this week.

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer?


2. Did you develop insomnia only after having kids or have you always had sleep problems? What triggered it?


3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working?


4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better?


5. GTKY---If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be?

[Deleted]

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer? Last week was quite rough. I was having trouble falling before 2 every night. There has been some improvement the past few days.


2. Did you develop insomnia only after having kids or have you always had sleep problems? What triggered it?
No kiddies yet. Sleep issues my entire life. Night terrors, insomnia, then the big N.

3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working? Nuvigil during the day. Ambien at night.


4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better? Still trying to sleep on the couch. DH is still not getting the hint to leave me alone.


5. GTKY---If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be? Budapest. It looks like an amazing city.

[mama2a]

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer? Recovering. I was doing so well for months and then out of nowhere I had one bad night and it spiraled. I've gradually been improving again.


2. Did you develop insomnia only after having kids or have you always had sleep problems? What triggered it? After DD. It hit at 4 months PP about a month after I returned to work. I was breastfeeding, pumping, still nursing overnight, and barely had any time to myself and could never get out of "mom mode".


3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working? I'm doing CBT-I with a sleep Psychologist. He is helping me get my confidence back and has been providing feedback on my sleep logs.


4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better? My Psychologist told me he thinks I'm going to bed too early. I go to bed around 9:30 and wake up at 6am. He wanted me to do sleep restriction by going to bed at 11:30pm for a little while. I really tried to do that but I couldn't keep myself up past 10:15 before my eyes started involuntarily shutting while reading (I was really sleep deprived). I took this is a good sign because I've never in my life ever listened to internal body cues--I've always just gone to bed because it was "time to go to bed" and thought I needed to ensure I get 8 hours of sleep. I think that's why I'm improving because I've realized now that taking 45 minutes to fall asleep (which is how I was pre-insomnia) means I'm going to bed too early. The past 4 nights I go to bed when my eyes start shutting and I am too tired to have any racing thoughts, and thus fall asleep in 15 minutes. I also have started reading "Sound Sleep, Sound Mind" which talks a lot about how you think and feel during the day impacts nighttime. The main lesson I've learned from there is that those suffering from insomnia have a hard time "closing the day". To accomplish this I need to feel my emotions instead of just thinking about them. Thinking about them doesn't resolve anything and leads to racing thoughts. Feeling emotions allows you to really understand the feeling and encourages you to resolve the negative feelings so that you don't need to perpetually keep thinking about it.


5. GTKY---If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be? I'm a little scared to travel multiple time zones right now, but I would love to visit India.

[tonksy]

Seemed appropro to answer this at 12:30 when I currently can't sleep despite being exhausted

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer?

Current

2. Did you develop insomnia only after having kids or have you always had sleep problems? What triggered it?

My kid and a new high stress job happened at the same time, so hard to tell what the trigger is. I think my job because usually I am up because I can't shut my brain off. Can't stop thinking about all the stuff I haven't done.

3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working?

Not sure I have coping mechanisms yet. I have an alarm to remind me to go to bed every night. I can be good about going to bed for a few nights, then I will follow it up with 2-3 sleepless ones. It's a bad cycle. It's like just when I start to feel normal, I am not exhausted enough to shut my brain off.

4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better?

Nope. See above.

5. GTKY---If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be?[/quote]

Thailand or Bora Bora.