Sleep problems

[herenow]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post, although I have been reading the forum for a while.
I have issue with my sleep and I though that I cold get useful advice from you guys.

My problem is that often I wake up at night and I have trouble getting back to sleep, which makes it a nice vicious circle that causes tiredness, and difficulty with doing my daily job. And the more I get tired the worse my sleep gets.

My sleep problems are cause by anxiety, I think. I am an anxious type of person.

I used to wake up with a pounding heart in my chest and feeling anxious about all the things I had to do and I hadn’t done properly etc. I used to have panic attacks. That was a while ago, then I started working on myself. Mindfulness was a refreshing take on life, the universe and everything.

I have been doing mindfulness for about 2 and half years now. I do both formal and informal practices. I have used and completed the “how to train a wild elephant” book.

Nowadays, when I wake up, my heart beat is faster than normal but not tremendously fast (I noticed it is the same during the day sometimes) and I lay there restless, not able to let go. I think a lot but I can keep anxious thoughts at bay now, thanks to mindfulness.

Lately, I went through a very bad patch, the little one was not helping, waking me up two or three times a night for five months. It’s over now and he’s back to 12 hours stretches but it has affected me badly. So, I tried a few things old and new like acupuncture and natural remedies herbs, Bach’s flowers and melatonin. Some of them are effective, especially melatonin but all this things became less effective after a little while.

Lately, I decided to work more seriously on it and I started doing 1hr session daily. Mainly body scan, Kabat Zinn style. Once the scan is complete, I direct my breath from the top of my head to my feet and back. After that, I observe my heart beat for a while and then I apply some advise from Cheesus I read on this forum. He suggested to address soothing words to the bodily part were the anxiety seems to be located. I found this to be effective.

I haven’t done al this for long, after 5 days I had to stop but I was feeling some benefits already. I started again and hope it will do the job.

Since I applied Cheesus’ advice, I realised that in this forum there is a great quantity of experience that could help me. So please give me your advice if you can.

Thanks.

[herenow]

Like everything, when you re-read your own writing, some insight comes along.

I found out that it is not my sleep issues I need to look at, but my anxiety. Reading here and there I resolved to go through week 5 from Penman/Williams once again and make it last a bit longer than a week...maybe the rest of my life.

[JonW]

Hi herenow.
Welcome to the forum.
I hope mindfulness proves beneficial to you. It does often take time to ground oneself in the practice.
We're here to help or advise if you have any queries.
All good things,
Jon

[Gareth]

...maybe the rest of my life.

It's an approach that has certainly worked for me.

Mindfulness can certainly help with anxiety. The thing is, the anxiety is never going to go away; it's the way that we're wired. But by working with the anxiety and befriending it, the impact is has on you can be lessened.

It sounds like you are quite experienced, and know most of the techniques involved. Make sure that you continue to be kind to yourself and keep up with your daily practice. It was real game-changer for me when I did.

[herenow]

Thank you guys for the replies.

It sounds like you are quite experienced, and know most of the techniques involved.

Feel free to suggest any thechniques you think might be useful.

[JonW]

Hi herenow,
Sleep problems are not my area of expertise as I always get a solid eight hours.
But there have been some good threads about sleep on this forum.
Here's one:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4121&hilit=sleep
If you type "sleep" into the search engine top right of the page, that should lead you to other helpful threads.
Cheers,
Jon, Hove