Hey Daniel , just wanted to stop by and say hi. I haven’t been on the channel much since I’ve been doing so much better ! Thanks to you. Haven’t had a speed bump in a while and the best part about it is I’m ok if I do! Thank you so much, you are godsend
Liliana! I’m so happy to read this today 😊! Especially the part of sharing that even if there’s a speed bump.. that’s ok.. that’s just wonderful to hear. Because whatever we are willing to experience, it won’t bother us much at all! Oh and if you’d like to share your story in a letter or being a guest, let me know! Be well and have a nice one today!!
@@lillianyoukhana8451 it was bad, still to this day I still get those thoughts but I sleep pretty well . The key is like I said, to be ok with not sleeping. That’s when the fear goes away
Thank you to is gives me hope. It’s been a rough struggle for almost a year where I have been averaging few hours of sleep and not sure if anyone’s recovery was as band as mine
I had a song playing this morning too. Thank you for mentioning it. I also heard radio dj's laughing. I hope you're doing well. Delegating struck a chord. Thank you
@@thesleepcoachschool8192 I slept last night, the most in months! I also had a similar situation as your guest. I ordered both of your books. I asked Jesus to guide me. He did. Both here and another video where the young man said he was trying in his own strength instead of allowing God to handle it. All three of us due to medicine induced imbalance. Thank you! Many blessings to you!
I was also on medication and since the start I knew it was not for me. So I stopped after few weeks. This was over a month ago and I am not going back. The medication was not helping much anymore and it wasn’t worth it. It is not for long term anyways. I was always thinking if I should take it or not. Now I know it’s not an option and I am free. I take only vitamins and do meditation with breathing during the day. Not because of sleep but for overall health benefits. This process takes time. The journey is not easy but don’t give up. Try to recognize, accept and welcome also the difficult moments.
@@teresahoang6593 yes I can :) There are some nights when it is harder to fall asleep but I learned a lot and still learning from this channel, Martin Reed and Guy Meadows. So mix of CBT and ACT. Medication is Band-Aid but therapy and knowledge is the solution.
Absolutely really sad that i didnt see Daniels or Martins channel early on thos guys would have prevented me from all the suffering which i am now going through the pill isnt doing anything on me but withouth it i cant function, but i will get over it and hang in there - live goes on. Anyway such a great help Daniel
Hi Coach Daniel, a bit off topic from the video. This question has been nagging me for a while. Could you explain to me the rationale of Guy Meadows approach? He basically said we don't need to get out of bed or do anything really when we can't sleep, just lie in bed with closed eyes and rest. The idea of lying in bed and resting is quite appealing to me. Because right now, when I couldn't sleep, I get out of bed and read all night long until I feel sleepy (usually around 1-2am), I got back to bed, still couldn't sleep, and I get up, read again, until like 3 or 4:30am when I decided to go back to bed and just rest until my 6am alarm. The next night I just fell asleep (totally knocked out) at 9pm, and the cycle repeat itself the night after that (long night until 3am, then good night, then long night, then good night). I enjoy reading the book during those nights when I can't sleep, but I feel it is still quite effortful (get up, read all night long until sleepy). Staying in bed and rest actually feels more natural, isn't it? However if I just lie in bed with closed eyes, my body would just be in that light sleep/sort of awake state all night long. Physiologically, the sleep drive is also probably slowly dissipated in that light sleep stage, and not accumulated as fast like when I just decide to be awake and read. The next night and the next night is probably like that too perhaps (light sleep/half awake) and I am not thrilled with that prospect. His approach of staying in bed and rest is a bit different from your approach of befriending wakefulness (watch Netflix, do whatever you enjoy doing, etc). I couldn't see how his approach could help someone back to a place of sleeping well. Could you? Do you have clients/patients that use his approach successfully? In short, what I am trying to say is I find Guy Meadows approach appealing, but I couldn't see how that could lead to sleeping well again. Could you enlighten me? oh btw, I don't spend too much time in bed. If I do his approach, I probably do it like 7-7.5 hrs. Thank you so much for your insight.
Hi Novie! You know, whenever we approach something as an approach to achieve sleep…. It will cause more trouble. So for example if we say “I plan to do ACT but I’m not sure it will work…” the in this very statement we see the idea that there’s some way to achieve sleep, which leads to trouble sleeping. Now on the flip side, anything that takes you in the opposite direction, that takes you towards a place where it’s ok to be awake, ok to experience discomfort… this is the way to peace. And I’ve definitely seen ACT lead to peace! This was a bit big picture, feel free to write more specific questions here and I’ll reply!
Hi daniel, I read all your videos and still have issues in sleep. Let me tell my case and do let me know whats wrong and happened to me. Last year was sleeping at night and random thought came in my mind that I might not sleep(that fear was so vigorousand intense that night that I thought oh no why I thought that as we cant control sleep) and if I dont sleep I will be ill and can die. So you can see that the fear and hyper arousal came random with a thought while I was on bed at night and not because of bad sleep as night as before that I was sleeping awesome(so you can see from how long I haven't slept well). From that day my life became hell. No good sleep at all, seems like this thought has put me in shackles(each second in mind). I read your lectures and analyze that my brain is giving safety warnings but I am actually listening still issue is happening. I listen, let go and just close my eyes still outcome is same . I dont see time as well and here I see morning sunlight without sleep from my room window. I think desire to sleep can never go because mind is conditioned to sleep at night and our brain knows that. Fooling it doesn't make sense. So now you know my complete case and its too long that now I an convinced that maybe my mind doesn't want me to sleep at all. I have made a habit of not sleeping and my mind is enjoying it but my body doesnt. And we are just normal beings we are not saints that we let go so easily,,, deep inside we still have desires to sleep. Hoping to get some insights from you coach. Please correct my approach if I am going wrong somewhere. My brain ask me to close eyes and then trust me nothing happens and i m not even giving any pressure to sleep. You told that brain stops warning thoughts when its purpose is done, so If I am still getting fear thoughts(that i cant sleep) which are not letting me sleep that means somewhere there purpose is still not fulfilled, so what exactly my mind want from me?
You know that nobody can fool a mind. I know it is perceived threat but mind thinks it is real maybe. But i can only tell this to myself. Other than that I dont know what to do. I am at a place where I dont see hope.
Hi Nick, Thanks for being here and sharing what’s happened. You know, there’s so much here that could be helpful to look at, but it’s hard to reply in a meaningful way in the comments when a message is longer! You can send a message to Open class with the link below or just send specific questions here an I’ll reply. You know, it takes a lot of courage to share, and this courage is what leads to peace. Hang in there and be in touch, you’ll see whenever we are willing to learn, and be kind to ourselves, things get easier. www.thesleepcoachschool.com/have-questions
Hi Daniel, this is a question from a friend of mine. Do you think bad quality of sleep over 3 decades can have an effect on the life expectancy of a person? Can 3 hours of sleep mess up things for you as you get older in the long run?
Not at all! There was a study published in early 2019 by Lack and Lovato where they had pooled data from many studies for a total population of 36 million. When they looked to see how insomnia affects life expectancy, and they compared the life expectancy of those who had in those who did not have insomnia, they found that there was absolutely no difference! There are many many studies that look at sleep duration and life expectancy as well. It very consistently shows that people who sleep, or rather people who report sleeping more than about 7 hours and people who report sleeping less than about 5 1/2 hours have an increased risk of shorter life expectancy. Here is the thing though, ashtrays are associated with lung problems, but nobody has shown that ashtrays cause lung problems! Similarly, an association between long sleep and shorter life expectancy doesn’t prove any type of causality. Same thing when it comes to short sleep. A lot of people that have health issues have trouble sleeping because of those health issues. In fact it is completely expected that health issues cause trouble sleeping! Now, it is very interesting that the association between long sleep and health problems is much much stronger than that with short sleep. This is conveniently not told by academia and media because they want to get funding or sell things and scaring you is what gets your attention! Now, what I believe is actually much more important than looking at studies etc. is to think of how your beliefs affect your sleep. There is absolutely no doubt that sleeping little causes you to feel tired and it’s gonna affect your mood and you can feel really foggy and forget things etc. That said, anything that makes you feel more pressured to sleep will make you have more trouble sleeping! So when you believe that short sleep or insomnia causes health problems, you will feel more pressure to sleep and you’ll feel more anxious and you will sleep less! When you know that short sleep and insomnia has not been shown to cause any health problems, you feel less pressure to sleep and you sleep better!
Hey Daniel how long does it usually take people after being educated to get better? I’ve had insomnia for 3 years now and i found your channel in November of 2020 which catalyzed everything and I’ve had so much success since but I can’t help but still be frustrated that I am still struggling, and some nights I still feel like I’m in the same place as I was when i was in the thick of it years ago. My brain can’t see that this is all just an illusion and it’s so frustrating, even a year after finding out the truth about insomnia And also why does it seem infinitely harder to do things you enjoy on some nights more than others? Lately I’ve just been resorting to forcing sleep (which means I don’t end up getting much) because I just can’t find anything that is genuinely enjoyable. Why does this happen? It’s like I have no desire to do things I enjoy because of how anxious I feel
Hi Ellie, You know, it’s so different for everyone, and it’s when we try to forecast that we have some more struggle… I know it’s super hard but it’s when we make the now as acceptable as we can, that’s when the struggle ends… And you know, to me it’s all about self-judgement. When we criticize ourselves, “why am I too tired, I should have more energy, this shouldn’t be so hard, how come this little thing exhausts me”, when we are hard on ourselves in this way, things feel heavy. When we are gentle and kind, when we don’t judge or criticize ourselves for whatever we do or feel or think… then things get easier and lighter
@@thesleepcoachschool8192 thank you for the advice. The self judgement thing is something that loses me so so easily. My biggest downfall is I always try to remain as in control and “normal” as possible so when I don’t live up to that expectation, I really beat myself up for it
@@lillianyoukhana8451 hey I’m soooo much better now. I got insomnia at the end of 2018 so about 5 years ago. I discovered Daniel’s Channel in Dec 2020 and after that slowly but surely everything changed for me. I was in a really bad place for the first 2 years and now I’m at a place where I actually don’t mind not sleeping at all. That’s all thanks to this channel. You’ll get there too but it takes education and time for it to settle in and show the brain that it will be okay with whatever happens. I highly recommend listening to all of the talking insomnia episodes so you can see how similar our stories are and watch the educational videos. I still have bad nights sometimes but I don’t do anything to fix it and it goes back to normal if I don’t try or put any effort in it. :) if you want to see how bad my insomnia was just look for “Ellie” in any of the Q&A videos on this channel lol. I also left a bunch of long comments on this channel in 2021-2022.
Hey Daniel!! I've not been around quite much recently, the couple last months my perception on sleep changed and i no longer thought of it 24/7 and i was feeling better mentally, but recently I noticed that even though I was feeling better about my sleep i was not actually feeling physically better, is almost as I got used to being tired all day and today I realized that I keep waking up very very early around 5 am all day for months which is not the amount of sleep I need because I feel tired all day, do you have a thought in this ? How can I get passed this early awakening tendency that I have or should I just accept this as my normal sleep pattern ?
Hi Ignacio, Very glad things are getting easier! And you know, this is what I call a Swiss awakening. It is very common to wake up at the exact same clock time every night OR after the exact same amount of time and regardless of when you fell asleep. Sometimes you know because you checked the clock and sometimes you just feel like he was the exact same time or same amount of sleep. For example you wake up at 3:47 AM every night or you wake up exactly 3 hours after you fell asleep. What is important to know is that we all wake up multiple times, actually multiple times per hour, when we sleep. Someone who has not struggled with sleep will not react to this because being awake is not a threat. So they will not remember that they woke up many times! When on the other hand the brain has started to think that being awake at night is a threat and it can alert you when you wake up so that you wake up completely and you also remember the following day! Sometimes you may have randomly noted what time it is and then because of the circadian rhythm the brain has started to think that at this certain time something important happens and it’s important to be awake. This can keep you waking up and remembering at the exact same time every night! Similarly the brain can think that after a certain amount of sleep something happens that you need to be aware of because at some point you woke up after three hours (for example) and thought “this is odd”! The key here is just to be aware of the above and also to not know the time. What can be more tricky is to not subconsciously make estimates of the time or how much you have slept. But what you can do is cast doubt on whatever the brain come up with! When the brain suggests that you woke up at this exact time or exactly this amount of time after you fell asleep then you can just meet this with “but you don’t know that!” This way you are reinforcing to the brain that you’re not really taking it seriously when it is making these suggestions or tries to point something out to you that it thinks is important. And with time it will try to convince you that something important is going on less and less!
Hey Daniel You say not to make estimates or keep track of how long you slept. But, what about the sleep diary? I keep a diary every day to find out the time and efficiency of my sleep. I had even noticed that the use of apps to monitor sleep was making me anxious
Hi Angeli, Oh yes I think the intent with tracking sleep using a diary almost always is to figure out how to sleep more, have some control, which leads to more struggle. I think some other things to track can be more helpful, it’s all about goals really. A very natural goal to have is to sleep well or to be calmer or to have more confidence or higher sleep efficiency. And of course, the teaching on this channel leads to peaceful sleep and peace of mind! But not when those things are the goals. Because when we evaluate our progress based on how we slept any given night, how anxious we were or how much confidence we have or what our sleep efficiency was, this will lead to performance anxiety! Peaceful sleep and peace of mind are side products of another set of goals like for example: “I will be kind to myself even if I didn’t sleep much.” Or “I can be gentle and not question if I’m getting it right even when I’m anxious.” You see how when the goal is to respond with kindness rather that to achieve a certain amount of sleep or state of mind… there’ll be no performance anxiety or goal oriented activity. This helps much! And I think a diary where we check how kind we are to ourselves, this can help much!
@@thesleepcoachschool8192 What a great placement! Until I abandon all efforts and all the struggles waged with sleep, I will not find necessary peace. And without peace there is no sleep. Only when I've fully surrendered that I can't do anything to help my body sleep, will I finally fall asleep. Thanks for all your help! (Sorry for the English.)
Hey Daniel I recently contacted you since I had some concerns about sfi and ffi so my sleep has been all over the place but the symptom that worries me now and I didn't even paid much attention to it till I kept googling it is I feel I have alot more saliva in my mouth?
Hi Schierke, Yes I remember! You know, nothing here is medical advice, always check with your doctor if you're worried about your health. I will say that when we are worried, pretty much everything can look like a threat, because the brain is actively looking to keep us safe and monitoring for threats. A ringing in the ear, a twitch, having too many dreams, not having any dreams, again... anything we can think of can seem like it's not normal.. and then the more we pay attention and monitor, the more we find! What often helps is seeing this, seeing that the brain is looking for threats... and then meeting this with "aha! I see that my loyal brain is looking out for me" and then things get easier and more peaceful.
Hi Daniel, need your advice. If we dont generate sleep, if its passive process then who does? How sleep is generated and what should be ideal mindset of a person when he goes on bed? Specially when his confidence is very low due to many nights of no sleep. A guy in a pressure zone. What you gonna say to him that will help him get good sleep for rest of his life.
Hi Abhay, Absolutely thanks for checking in. I would say that sleep is passive and generated passively but our bodies. Just like hunger. We don’t do anything to become hungry. Now, if we try to willfully make ourselves sleep on the other hand, then this produces the preoccupation/self monitoring and resistance that is insomnia. The ideal mindset is knowing that there’s no ideal mindset. When we look for an ideal mindset, this is a way to have control, and trying to have control is insomnia. As for confidence, it’s helpful to know that someone who sleeps well has no confidence in an ability to sleep well! If you ask someone who sleeps well how confident they are in being able to sleep… they just go “uhh what?”, it doesn’t make sense! It’s like asking someone how confident they are that their duodenum will absorb enough sodium! When we no longer try to build confidence, and see that confidence/belief/Hope/conviction aren’t needed for peace of mind and peaceful sleep.. then things get easier and easier 😊 So this above is what I would share with him to help him arrive not only where he sleeps well but also has peace of mind for the rest of his life!
Oh yes that can happen, sorry of course to hear you felt scared… but sometimes we can learn things like that fear feels bad, but it’s just a way the brain alerts us.. it’s safe.. and then when we aren’t afraid of feeling scared we feel it less 🙂
Hey Daniel , just wanted to stop by and say hi. I haven’t been on the channel much since I’ve been doing so much better ! Thanks to you. Haven’t had a speed bump in a while and the best part about it is I’m ok if I do! Thank you so much, you are godsend
Liliana! I’m so happy to read this today 😊! Especially the part of sharing that even if there’s a speed bump.. that’s ok.. that’s just wonderful to hear. Because whatever we are willing to experience, it won’t bother us much at all! Oh and if you’d like to share your story in a letter or being a guest, let me know! Be well and have a nice one today!!
Lilliana how bad was your insomnia
@@lillianyoukhana8451 it was bad, still to this day I still get those thoughts but I sleep pretty well . The key is like I said, to be ok with not sleeping. That’s when the fear goes away
Thank you to is gives me hope. It’s been a rough struggle for almost a year where I have been averaging few hours of sleep and not sure if anyone’s recovery was as band as mine
Ty for video helpful insights
Anytime! Thanks for being here!
We have the exact same story. It's kind of creepy how much my story is equal to yours. you will get thru this! I will get better too my friend!
👍!
I had a song playing this morning too. Thank you for mentioning it. I also heard radio dj's laughing. I hope you're doing well. Delegating struck a chord. Thank you
So glad this made sense 🙂
@@thesleepcoachschool8192 I slept last night, the most in months! I also had a similar situation as your guest. I ordered both of your books. I asked Jesus to guide me. He did. Both here and another video where the young man said he was trying in his own strength instead of allowing God to handle it. All three of us due to medicine induced imbalance. Thank you! Many blessings to you!
So glad to hear Becky, and thanks for sharing 😊
I was also on medication and since the start I knew it was not for me. So I stopped after few weeks. This was over a month ago and I am not going back. The medication was not helping much anymore and it wasn’t worth it. It is not for long term anyways. I was always thinking if I should take it or not. Now I know it’s not an option and I am free. I take only vitamins and do meditation with breathing during the day. Not because of sleep but for overall health benefits.
This process takes time. The journey is not easy but don’t give up. Try to recognize, accept and welcome also the difficult moments.
TTB, loove reading these lines, thanks so much for sharing 🤗
@@teresahoang6593 yes I can :) There are some nights when it is harder to fall asleep but I learned a lot and still learning from this channel, Martin Reed and Guy Meadows. So mix of CBT and ACT.
Medication is Band-Aid but therapy and knowledge is the solution.
Absolutely really sad that i didnt see Daniels or Martins channel early on thos guys would have prevented me from all the suffering which i am now going through the pill isnt doing anything on me but withouth it i cant function, but i will get over it and hang in there - live goes on. Anyway such a great help Daniel
100% Georg, you will. And you know, tough as this is, I truly believe you’ll learn things that will help for the rest of your life.
Hi Coach Daniel, a bit off topic from the video. This question has been nagging me for a while. Could you explain to me the rationale of Guy Meadows approach? He basically said we don't need to get out of bed or do anything really when we can't sleep, just lie in bed with closed eyes and rest. The idea of lying in bed and resting is quite appealing to me. Because right now, when I couldn't sleep, I get out of bed and read all night long until I feel sleepy (usually around 1-2am), I got back to bed, still couldn't sleep, and I get up, read again, until like 3 or 4:30am when I decided to go back to bed and just rest until my 6am alarm. The next night I just fell asleep (totally knocked out) at 9pm, and the cycle repeat itself the night after that (long night until 3am, then good night, then long night, then good night). I enjoy reading the book during those nights when I can't sleep, but I feel it is still quite effortful (get up, read all night long until sleepy). Staying in bed and rest actually feels more natural, isn't it? However if I just lie in bed with closed eyes, my body would just be in that light sleep/sort of awake state all night long. Physiologically, the sleep drive is also probably slowly dissipated in that light sleep stage, and not accumulated as fast like when I just decide to be awake and read. The next night and the next night is probably like that too perhaps (light sleep/half awake) and I am not thrilled with that prospect. His approach of staying in bed and rest is a bit different from your approach of befriending wakefulness (watch Netflix, do whatever you enjoy doing, etc). I couldn't see how his approach could help someone back to a place of sleeping well. Could you? Do you have clients/patients that use his approach successfully? In short, what I am trying to say is I find Guy Meadows approach appealing, but I couldn't see how that could lead to sleeping well again. Could you enlighten me? oh btw, I don't spend too much time in bed. If I do his approach, I probably do it like 7-7.5 hrs. Thank you so much for your insight.
Hi Novie!
You know, whenever we approach something as an approach to achieve sleep…. It will cause more trouble. So for example if we say “I plan to do ACT but I’m not sure it will work…” the in this very statement we see the idea that there’s some way to achieve sleep, which leads to trouble sleeping.
Now on the flip side, anything that takes you in the opposite direction, that takes you towards a place where it’s ok to be awake, ok to experience discomfort… this is the way to peace. And I’ve definitely seen ACT lead to peace!
This was a bit big picture, feel free to write more specific questions here and I’ll reply!
Hi daniel,
I read all your videos and still have issues in sleep. Let me tell my case and do let me know whats wrong and happened to me.
Last year was sleeping at night and random thought came in my mind that I might not sleep(that fear was so vigorousand intense that night that I thought oh no why I thought that as we cant control sleep) and if I dont sleep I will be ill and can die.
So you can see that the fear and hyper arousal came random with a thought while I was on bed at night and not because of bad sleep as night as before that I was sleeping awesome(so you can see from how long I haven't slept well).
From that day my life became hell. No good sleep at all, seems like this thought has put me in shackles(each second in mind).
I read your lectures and analyze that my brain is giving safety warnings but I am actually listening still issue is happening.
I listen, let go and just close my eyes still outcome is same . I dont see time as well and here I see morning sunlight without sleep from my room window.
I think desire to sleep can never go because mind is conditioned to sleep at night and our brain knows that. Fooling it doesn't make sense.
So now you know my complete case and its too long that now I an convinced that maybe my mind doesn't want me to sleep at all.
I have made a habit of not sleeping and my mind is enjoying it but my body doesnt.
And we are just normal beings we are not saints that we let go so easily,,, deep inside we still have desires to sleep.
Hoping to get some insights from you coach. Please correct my approach if I am going wrong somewhere. My brain ask me to close eyes and then trust me nothing happens and i m not even giving any pressure to sleep. You told that brain stops warning thoughts when its purpose is done, so If I am still getting fear thoughts(that i cant sleep) which are not letting me sleep that means somewhere there purpose is still not fulfilled, so what exactly my mind want from me?
You know that nobody can fool a mind. I know it is perceived threat but mind thinks it is real maybe. But i can only tell this to myself. Other than that I dont know what to do. I am at a place where I dont see hope.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for being here and sharing what’s happened. You know, there’s so much here that could be helpful to look at, but it’s hard to reply in a meaningful way in the comments when a message is longer!
You can send a message to Open class with the link below or just send specific questions here an I’ll reply.
You know, it takes a lot of courage to share, and this courage is what leads to peace. Hang in there and be in touch, you’ll see whenever we are willing to learn, and be kind to ourselves, things get easier.
www.thesleepcoachschool.com/have-questions
How are you now
Hi Daniel, this is a question from a friend of mine. Do you think bad quality of sleep over 3 decades can have an effect on the life expectancy of a person? Can 3 hours of sleep mess up things for you as you get older in the long run?
Not at all! There was a study published in early 2019 by Lack and Lovato where they had pooled data from many studies for a total population of 36 million.
When they looked to see how insomnia affects life expectancy, and they compared the life expectancy of those who had in those who did not have insomnia, they found that there was absolutely no difference!
There are many many studies that look at sleep duration and life expectancy as well. It very consistently shows that people who sleep, or rather people who report sleeping more than about 7 hours and people who report sleeping less than about 5 1/2 hours have an increased risk of shorter life expectancy.
Here is the thing though, ashtrays are associated with lung problems, but nobody has shown that ashtrays cause lung problems!
Similarly, an association between long sleep and shorter life expectancy doesn’t prove any type of causality.
Same thing when it comes to short sleep. A lot of people that have health issues have trouble sleeping because of those health issues. In fact it is completely expected that health issues cause trouble sleeping!
Now, it is very interesting that the association between long sleep and health problems is much much stronger than that with short sleep.
This is conveniently not told by academia and media because they want to get funding or sell things and scaring you is what gets your attention!
Now, what I believe is actually much more important than looking at studies etc. is to think of how your beliefs affect your sleep.
There is absolutely no doubt that sleeping little causes you to feel tired and it’s gonna affect your mood and you can feel really foggy and forget things etc.
That said, anything that makes you feel more pressured to sleep will make you have more trouble sleeping!
So when you believe that short sleep or insomnia causes health problems, you will feel more pressure to sleep and you’ll feel more anxious and you will sleep less!
When you know that short sleep and insomnia has not been shown to cause any health problems, you feel less pressure to sleep and you sleep better!
@@thesleepcoachschool8192 thank you so much, Daniel
Anytime
Hey Daniel how long does it usually take people after being educated to get better? I’ve had insomnia for 3 years now and i found your channel in November of 2020 which catalyzed everything and I’ve had so much success since but I can’t help but still be frustrated that I am still struggling, and some nights I still feel like I’m in the same place as I was when i was in the thick of it years ago. My brain can’t see that this is all just an illusion and it’s so frustrating, even a year after finding out the truth about insomnia
And also why does it seem infinitely harder to do things you enjoy on some nights more than others? Lately I’ve just been resorting to forcing sleep (which means I don’t end up getting much) because I just can’t find anything that is genuinely enjoyable. Why does this happen? It’s like I have no desire to do things I enjoy because of how anxious I feel
Hi Ellie,
You know, it’s so different for everyone, and it’s when we try to forecast that we have some more struggle… I know it’s super hard but it’s when we make the now as acceptable as we can, that’s when the struggle ends…
And you know, to me it’s all about self-judgement. When we criticize ourselves, “why am I too tired, I should have more energy, this shouldn’t be so hard, how come this little thing exhausts me”, when we are hard on ourselves in this way, things feel heavy. When we are gentle and kind, when we don’t judge or criticize ourselves for whatever we do or feel or think… then things get easier and lighter
@@thesleepcoachschool8192 thank you for the advice. The self judgement thing is something that loses me so so easily. My biggest downfall is I always try to remain as in control and “normal” as possible so when I don’t live up to that expectation, I really beat myself up for it
Anytime Ellie, and you know this is very insightful, it will lead where you want to be.
@@11ellie7 how are you doing now
@@lillianyoukhana8451 hey I’m soooo much better now. I got insomnia at the end of 2018 so about 5 years ago. I discovered Daniel’s Channel in Dec 2020 and after that slowly but surely everything changed for me. I was in a really bad place for the first 2 years and now I’m at a place where I actually don’t mind not sleeping at all. That’s all thanks to this channel. You’ll get there too but it takes education and time for it to settle in and show the brain that it will be okay with whatever happens. I highly recommend listening to all of the talking insomnia episodes so you can see how similar our stories are and watch the educational videos. I still have bad nights sometimes but I don’t do anything to fix it and it goes back to normal if I don’t try or put any effort in it. :) if you want to see how bad my insomnia was just look for “Ellie” in any of the Q&A videos on this channel lol. I also left a bunch of long comments on this channel in 2021-2022.
Hey Daniel!! I've not been around quite much recently, the couple last months my perception on sleep changed and i no longer thought of it 24/7 and i was feeling better mentally, but recently I noticed that even though I was feeling better about my sleep i was not actually feeling physically better, is almost as I got used to being tired all day and today I realized that I keep waking up very very early around 5 am all day for months which is not the amount of sleep I need because I feel tired all day, do you have a thought in this ? How can I get passed this early awakening tendency that I have or should I just accept this as my normal sleep pattern ?
Hi Ignacio,
Very glad things are getting easier! And you know, this is what I call a Swiss awakening.
It is very common to wake up at the exact same clock time every night OR after the exact same amount of time and regardless of when you fell asleep. Sometimes you know because you checked the clock and sometimes you just feel like he was the exact same time or same amount of sleep.
For example you wake up at 3:47 AM every night or you wake up exactly 3 hours after you fell asleep.
What is important to know is that we all wake up multiple times, actually multiple times per hour, when we sleep.
Someone who has not struggled with sleep will not react to this because being awake is not a threat. So they will not remember that they woke up many times!
When on the other hand the brain has started to think that being awake at night is a threat and it can alert you when you wake up so that you wake up completely and you also remember the following day!
Sometimes you may have randomly noted what time it is and then because of the circadian rhythm the brain has started to think that at this certain time something important happens and it’s important to be awake. This can keep you waking up and remembering at the exact same time every night!
Similarly the brain can think that after a certain amount of sleep something happens that you need to be aware of because at some point you woke up after three hours (for example) and thought “this is odd”!
The key here is just to be aware of the above and also to not know the time. What can be more tricky is to not subconsciously make estimates of the time or how much you have slept. But what you can do is cast doubt on whatever the brain come up with!
When the brain suggests that you woke up at this exact time or exactly this amount of time after you fell asleep then you can just meet this with “but you don’t know that!”
This way you are reinforcing to the brain that you’re not really taking it seriously when it is making these suggestions or tries to point something out to you that it thinks is important. And with time it will try to convince you that something important is going on less and less!
Hey Daniel
You say not to make estimates or keep track of how long you slept. But, what about the sleep diary? I keep a diary every day to find out the time and efficiency of my sleep. I had even noticed that the use of apps to monitor sleep was making me anxious
Hi Angeli,
Oh yes I think the intent with tracking sleep using a diary almost always is to figure out how to sleep more, have some control, which leads to more struggle.
I think some other things to track can be more helpful, it’s all about goals really.
A very natural goal to have is to sleep well or to be calmer or to have more confidence or higher sleep efficiency.
And of course, the teaching on this channel leads to peaceful sleep and peace of mind! But not when those things are the goals. Because when we evaluate our progress based on how we slept any given night, how anxious we were or how much confidence we have or what our sleep efficiency was, this will lead to performance anxiety!
Peaceful sleep and peace of mind are side products of another set of goals like for example:
“I will be kind to myself even if I didn’t sleep much.”
Or “I can be gentle and not question if I’m getting it right even when I’m anxious.”
You see how when the goal is to respond with kindness rather that to achieve a certain amount of sleep or state of mind… there’ll be no performance anxiety or goal oriented activity. This helps much! And I think a diary where we check how kind we are to ourselves, this can help much!
@@thesleepcoachschool8192 What a great placement! Until I abandon all efforts and all the struggles waged with sleep, I will not find necessary peace. And without peace there is no sleep. Only when I've fully surrendered that I can't do anything to help my body sleep, will I finally fall asleep. Thanks for all your help! (Sorry for the English.)
Oh the English is great, and the message here - this just made me so glad, I truly believe this is the way 😊
Hey Daniel I recently contacted you since I had some concerns about sfi and ffi so my sleep has been all over the place but the symptom that worries me now and I didn't even paid much attention to it till I kept googling it is I feel I have alot more saliva in my mouth?
Hi Schierke,
Yes I remember! You know, nothing here is medical advice, always check with your doctor if you're worried about your health. I will say that when we are worried, pretty much everything can look like a threat, because the brain is actively looking to keep us safe and monitoring for threats.
A ringing in the ear, a twitch, having too many dreams, not having any dreams, again... anything we can think of can seem like it's not normal.. and then the more we pay attention and monitor, the more we find!
What often helps is seeing this, seeing that the brain is looking for threats... and then meeting this with "aha! I see that my loyal brain is looking out for me" and then things get easier and more peaceful.
Hi Daniel, need your advice. If we dont generate sleep, if its passive process then who does?
How sleep is generated and what should be ideal mindset of a person when he goes on bed?
Specially when his confidence is very low due to many nights of no sleep. A guy in a pressure zone. What you gonna say to him that will help him get good sleep for rest of his life.
Hi Abhay,
Absolutely thanks for checking in.
I would say that sleep is passive and generated passively but our bodies. Just like hunger. We don’t do anything to become hungry. Now, if we try to willfully make ourselves sleep on the other hand, then this produces the preoccupation/self monitoring and resistance that is insomnia.
The ideal mindset is knowing that there’s no ideal mindset. When we look for an ideal mindset, this is a way to have control, and trying to have control is insomnia.
As for confidence, it’s helpful to know that someone who sleeps well has no confidence in an ability to sleep well! If you ask someone who sleeps well how confident they are in being able to sleep… they just go “uhh what?”, it doesn’t make sense! It’s like asking someone how confident they are that their duodenum will absorb enough sodium!
When we no longer try to build confidence, and see that confidence/belief/Hope/conviction aren’t needed for peace of mind and peaceful sleep.. then things get easier and easier 😊
So this above is what I would share with him to help him arrive not only where he sleeps well but also has peace of mind for the rest of his life!
So you mean we can do nothing about sleep it totally depends on our body?
And do mind has any role to play in that?
We need to trust our body ability to sleep?
Yes, I believe this 100% Abhay
Now I’m more anxious because I fear that even medication won’t help me 😅
Oh yes that can happen, sorry of course to hear you felt scared… but sometimes we can learn things like that fear feels bad, but it’s just a way the brain alerts us.. it’s safe.. and then when we aren’t afraid of feeling scared we feel it less 🙂