What's better when you can't sleep? Stay in bed or stay up?

When you have severe insomnia and know that you will still be a few hours more in bed until you fall asleep and you are suffering all the time...what to do, stay in bed suffering for hours, or distract yourself even if you stay all night on front of a screen? (for example going to the living room and watch tv, or use the computer, play videogames.... with my cog fog I can't read books or do anything better).

 

Every article about beating insomnia will tell you that only stay in bed for sleep, and to avoid technology for a few hours before going to bed. I feel guilty of being late in the night stimulating my brain, and I know it will change my circadian clock and it will be even worse to fall sleep the following days even if the insomnia symptom goes away. But what else could I do? Stay in bed for hours suffering? 

 

What are your thoughts?

Find something to do that is not tied to a screen, and does not stimulate you. Get on the floor, stretch a bit, and do slow deep breathing exercises. A few minutes of these will totall relax you, and hopefully....

I had a couple of go-to-sleep CDs all ready for me in my office when I couldn't sleep. (YouTube has plenty of these also). They basically tell you a soothing story (one is told by a medical hypnotist) so you get caught up in them and stop fretting about your insomnia. I avoided the dreaded "blue screen" of TV, my phone, and my tablet like the plague. These worked for me every time. I got up, went into my office in the dark with the cat, sat in my easy chair, and let the CDs tell me a story. It took about 45 minutes to get sleepy. Then I'd go back to bed.

 

I'll tell you the titles if you like.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Katz

I am dealing with this and I stay in bed. Sometimes I wonder if it’s making things worse maybe? But sometimes sitting in ur house night after night is very lonely and not at all good for ur mental health. I sometimes just daydream instead. At least U are resting ur body.

 

I spent almost a year doing cbti and it did nothing to help but I was still taking a z drug. Maybe once I’m completely off I’ll try again.

 

But when u have benzo induced insomnia ur circadian rhythm and sleep drive are completely broken usually. So it doesn’t really help a lot.

 

Why don’t u test the theory? That’s the only way to know for sure. I know mtfan had some strategies and a plan for when she couldn’t sleep. She would watch favourite shows, read, take a bath, watch funny things online ect. Maybe go back on her old posts to see what time she did certain things x 

Sleep hygiene theory states that if you can't fall asleep you should get up out of bed and try again later on, however I found that doesn't work so well during withdrawal insomnia. I survived several years of poor to very poor sleep by staying in bed and not getting up. I learned that resting with your eyes closed does help and only by doing so can you get sustaining bursts of microsleeps that you may not even be aware of. A few months ago I had a sleep study done and was almost 100% certain that I remained awake for the entire time before I gave up and went home. The study results confirmed that I actually had a total of about 90 minutes of in and out microsleeps. You can try getting up and moving around, but if you still can't sleep afterwards you would have perhaps missed out on some badly needed sleep.

 

The trick that must be learned is how to stay calm about not sleeping in order to allow yourself some rest. First off you can't be thinking about how a bad night is going to impact the next day. I had to remind myself that I always was able to handle what I had to get done the next day regardless of sleep. I also had to teach myself that staying in bed when I was exhausted but could not sleep is much more restful than getting up out of bed and doing something. If sleep was to occur it usually rode in with a daydream that ended up turning into a real dream so emptying my mind seldom was helpful. The real bottom line is that trying to sleep is seldom if ever successfull.

Finally after posting this thread I read another thread suggested by a moderator with about 50 tips for coping with insomnia during withdrawal (I can't find it now) , made by a healed veteran benzobuddie, and one of the first tips was stay on bed no matter how bad you feel or even if you don't sleep at all the entire night.

 

So I went to bed again and after a while I suddenly felt like my body relaxed and was starting to fall asleep, but it didn't, I still was feeling anxiety and uneasiness, but after a long wait, I fell asleep. But the difference with previous days, is this night I haven't dream so much and I can't recall any dream, and I woke up much easier. I have my alarm clock set at 8:30 am but lately I've been unable to wake up I always stopped the alarm and stayed in bed and fell asleep again and stayed until 10:30 or 11:00 am. This morning I didn't fell asleep again and was up at 9:00 am.

 

 

There are people that suffer a nightmare for years with severe Post-widrawal symptoms, and there are people who are cold-tulkered and never feel any symptom (although you'll never see them on this forum but they are the reason of why doctors are so unaware of the dangers of benzos, it's because most people do well even after cold turkeing), and then there is people in the range between both extremes. I am suffering a lot during tapering, but for all I have read here on this forum, everyone is having or have had much worse withdrawal than what I'm having and what I had when I also did another taper 8 years ago in 2013 (and never had post acute withdrawal). I've read the way you feel during tapering is a guide of how you will feel after you jump, somehow. Does this mean I will have it easier? I'm very stressed of how long it will take to heal (my taper will end in a month from now if things don't get worse and I don't have to hold) because my worst symptom is I can't eat and I'm an skeleton right now. I can stand any other symptom of this nightmare because I've already fought it in the past, and I've suffered a lot in the past because other reasons, so I can stand them. But not being able to eat is not so easy...

 

EDIT: found the thread!! (thank you Chrome History view) is this one: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=235100.0

I've been following this, as I also have insomnia at 3 years and 5 months off of clonazepam.

lqtys, I am sorry you are suffering with the insomnia. Thank you for the link, I will check it out!

 

oregonkatz, I would appreciate if you shared the titles. Thanks!

 

On another note, when something works for me, typically it stops working after one or two times.  That seems to be somewhat common on here as I follow the posts.

 

Tomorrow I am having a total knee replacement on my left knee, though both are bone on bone.  On Sunday, I had an anxiety attack, it would seem. My chest felt strange, then all around my field of vision, everything was turning black. I had this feeling of impending doom, then took a breath and the blackness receded. For  moment I thought maybe this was it. Went to bed not long after that and had a sleepless night, but nothing else happened.

 

I apologize for tossing this into lqtys, post.

 

NG

 

 

 

nightengale, here are a couple that worked well for me. Just copy the info into the Amazon search bar:

 

Deep Sleep with Medical Hypnosis: Find Restful, Restorative Sleep - Naturally

 

also

 

A Meditation for Healthful Sleep - Guided Imagery to Reduce Insomnia and Improve Quality and Quantity of Restful Sleep

 

The first is narrated (and was created) by Steven Gurgevich. I think he's a Psychologist. He has quite a few CDs that focus on self-hypnosis. I found all of them useful and interesting but the sleep CD was the best.

 

The second is narrated by a woman named Bellaruth Naparstek. That woman could read the Yellow Pages and put me to sleep. What a voice!

 

Hope these help.

 

Katz

Thank you OregonKatz for the titles .

My RN ex husband who has been my caretaker through this nightmare makes me stay in bed . I walk 6 miles daily , do sleep hygiene too ( intensely ) and listen to asmr and take a small amount of melatonin under my tongue and still its a battle.

The CDs might help you, nightengale. Hope so. For me, the "stories" in each of them wafted me away somewhere and took my mind off the anxiety and dismay of being awake. You could use earbuds so as not to wake your bedmate.

 

Katz

Sleep hygiene theory states that if you can't fall asleep you should get up out of bed and try again later on, however I found that doesn't work so well during withdrawal insomnia. I survived several years of poor to very poor sleep by staying in bed and not getting up. I learned that resting with your eyes closed does help and only by doing so can you get sustaining bursts of microsleeps that you may not even be aware of. A few months ago I had a sleep study done and was almost 100% certain that I remained awake for the entire time before I gave up and went home. The study results confirmed that I actually had a total of about 90 minutes of in and out microsleeps. You can try getting up and moving around, but if you still can't sleep afterwards you would have perhaps missed out on some badly needed sleep.

 

This has been my experience too. With withdrawal insomnia, I feel like it's best to just stay in bed to get the maximum amount of rest possible.

I just stay on bed, I don’t sleep most nights anyway, 0-2 hours max, but the goal is relaxation rather than falling asleep.

Last night was another shocker for me, but I stayed in bed, and eventually fell asleep, only for 1-2 hrs (think it was more likely 1) but if I got up I wouldn’t have gotten that. Also I daydream a lot.. so even tho I feel awake I’m not fully conscious so I’m maybe in N1 sleep and that’s at least something.

I’m doing a CBT program and they advise  to get out of bed if you’re still up after 15 minutes, then go back to bed if you get sleepy again.

During this whole ordeal I have always just stayed in bed.  I sometime get up just briefly to stretch my legs in needed or swig a protein shake if feeling hungry, but although I toss and turn constantly I finally get comfortable and then sleep comes.  I use a sleep meditation on the MeditationRx app and follwo the instructions to not fret about not sleeping, and just enjoy "resting".

 

I really think that is key.  To train your mind to not care whether you sleep or not. Not easy to do, but achievable.

I’m doing a CBT program and they advise  to get out of bed if you’re still up after 15 minutes, then go back to bed if you get sleepy again.

 

I did cbti for a year. It makes no difference in benzo wd. Those of us with severe benzo induced insomnia don’t get sleepy, we’re exhausted, but not sleepy. Our sleep drive and circadian rhythm are not in sync and I would say pretty much broken. But if it helps you that’s fantastic. 

I agree with Shayna on the CBTi, a lot of it relies on sleep restriction which is almost impossible in Z/benzo withdrawal because there is no sleep drive. I’m pleased that it works for some people but I’ve had no joy with it at all. I’m currently paying the price for getting ahead of myself and having a few drinks last Friday night, really set me back, had a zero night then 2 hours or so the last two nights. Hoping it’s just a wave! Keep going everyone, insomnia really is the worst.

Redone the same thing happened to me, 1 scotch at xmas and all the progress out the window. Lessons learned. At least u know not to do it again. X we just can’t be normal people again for a while I’m afraid