I’m so glad this made sense, and you know, this is the foundation. It may not change anything right away, but awareness is change. It will help much. Now, how to reduce the hyperarousal, this is basically what every single video here is about! Education helps, but also not trying to control your thoughts. I think a really helpful episode to start learning more is Insomnia insight 339. Take a look at let me know how it sounds!!

Firas Ayadi Hej Firas! You got it! Thanks for being in touch 😊

Alina H. Hey Alina! You know what, I’m so proud of this one 😊, nothing new, this has been known in the field for a long time, but this analogy just makes Sleep physiology so approachable! Be well and in touch!!

Simon Baylay Simon! Thanks so much for this comment and welcome to the channel 🤗

Hi Martin! Man, I found this way of looking at comments in the browser, and I see all these unanswered comments :o. At least I know where to look now.. Thanks for this input, makes total sense. Instead of "forcing sleep" by staying awake a long time, it's just about reducing amount of time spent awake. So much better!

Anytime!!

Sam, thanks a bunch 😊 hope you’ll like them!!

Mr Peace Thanks! And yes that’s absolutely right. Anything that makes you more alert is that brake, even if it has nothing to do with sleep. Now, should you be doing daily calming exercises - that’s a real tricky one. I’ll talk about this tomorrow but if you have time, check out the playlist called The model here in the description. Briefly the tricky thing is that intent is everything, it determines if what you do make things worse or better. Anything you do to escape a negative emotion will make that emotion a bigger part of your life. Anything you do for pleasure will shrink the influence of that negative emotion. But before being able to do things for pleasure, you may have to do some thought work so that the intent is there. I know this sounds convoluted, I’ll expand tomorrow!! Best Daniel

@@thesleepcoachschool8192 thanks. I totally understand it all. Just a little tricky to implement. I've been doing the CBTI for about 2 weeks now. I'm still persevering. Thanks

Mr Peace Hang in there and stay engaged here and you’ll do really well!!

Hi Angeli, I’m so very glad to hear that the channel has helped after so many years… and you know, it’s of course all thanks to you, being willing to learn after all the struggle, this is amazing Angeli, well done! You know what I think could really help, stop checking the time earlier, that timeless sleep window. You’ve probably seen it but in the This is Natto playlist, you’ll find a video on the timeless sleep window. The traditional sleep restriction is tricky because often you fight to stay awake, it becomes an effort in itself! So if you just stop knowing the time at let’s say 10 or 10:30… then there’s not a countdown, things are fuzzy, you don’t know exactly when you went to bed… this often really helps.. Let me know if this made sense and how things go!!

@@thesleepcoachschool8192 Hi Daniel! The video you recommended has no subtitles. (timeless sleep window. ) As my English is not very good, I need the translated subtitles. Must be some KZfaq glitch. Still, I'm reading the comments. Gratitude. (Using Translator - Brazil)

Hi Angeli, sorry about this glitch… here’s a summary that I hope can help: The timeless sleep window is really there simply as a nudge towards less attachment. It is a way to sort of make yourself try less and let go of attempts at controlling sleep. There is often confusion about the main purpose. In traditional CBT there’s a lot of emphasis on making yourself stay awake for a long time so you feel sleepy. It is true that sleep drive is important, but anything you do to make yourself sleep becomes an effort! This includes making yourself stay up late! Remember, insomnia is not a problem of not being sleepy, it is a problem of trying too much to sleep. So the way to think of the sleep window is that it is simply a nudge in the direction of trying less. When you give yourself less time for sleep, and you no longer know the time at night, these again are important psychological steps towards trying less, being willing to have less control. What exact time you get up or what exact time you go to bed doesn’t really matter! What does matter is not focusing too much on the time. It’s also important to set it and forget it. Decide upon sometime and then don’t question it. This will free your mind to think about more pleasant things! In fact what also helps a lot is not knowing the time at night. Deciding what time to get up in the morning and then making a decision to stop checking the time at a certain time in the evening. Not knowing the time is a very powerful way of letting go of control! Finally, I think it’s important to be generous and to go a gentle path of no pressure. Is very tempting to say that you will have a very narrow sleep window so that you feel really sleepy and then you reach your goal faster. But that’s a way of pressure! Think about when people try to lose weight. The reason most people don’t do well is because they choose an extreme diet that they can’t stick to for more than a few weeks. It’s the same with sleep windows. Many people choose a really tight window and then they become frustrated and pressured because it’s not something they can do forever. If someone decides not to do a diet but rather change their lifestyle to something they can do forever, then there’s no pressure! Then they lose weight easily. If you choose a sleep window that’s for example 7 or 8 hours, that’s pretty close to what most people do anyway so you can do that indefinitely. That’s the way!

@@thesleepcoachschool8192 Thank you so much Daniel! It's definitely a new approach. I learned a lot from CBTi but it didn't work for a long time. Sleep restriction with a very tight window led me to much more stress than insomnia. I need to go deeper. Surrendering control of time will no doubt lessen my anxiety and increase my level of detachment and surrender. Accept what comes. Knowing it's one night at a time. Bad nights aren't forever nor are the good ones. Whichever way it comes, I need to be at peace. I will try this orientation of yours.

Anytime! And I was really glad to read this, I believe this is the way :-)

Hang in there Kate, often tinnitus is this expression of hyperarousal as well, we notice things we are would not have noticed if we weren’t anxious, and we think they mean something is wrong. But yes, what we teach here helps regardless of circumstances. And also you may want to listen to this inspirational story from our friend Martin Reed kzfaq.info/get/bejne/esmGlZV-1LLan2g.htmlsi=yd97pAeZcM3WS9jl

Hi Katelin! Thanks for this excellent question! And yes, I’m familiar with the adenosine model, it may very well contain much truth! But I’m also skeptical because it’s so… nice 😝 The whole theory is so clean, which makes me a bit skeptical. I think sleep drive probably is more complex than simply the build up of one compound. Which kinda is the tricky thing! Because those with trouble sleeping have trouble sleeping due to problem solving. Trying to fix the problem IS the problem. As you can imagine the idea “aha, I can exercise more, build my sleep drive, and then I’ll sleep easier!” can so naturally happen. It’s the idea that sleep to some degree can be controlled, which is the reason we have insomnia in the first place! In other words, looking to improve the chances of sleep I think is what leads to the struggle. If we go in the other direction, seeing that many circumstances surely does have some impact on sleep drive (like exercise), but that trying to manipulate the system is the cycle of struggle… when we are no longer trying to improve our chances of sleep… …that’s when the chances are improving 😁!! When I teach the gas & brake model, it’s for general understanding of sleep. But very often the idea “I need more gas” happens so yes, I find myself very often pointing out that insomnia is a brake thing, not a gas thing. And this leads to a peaceful place. Did this make sense though?

@@thesleepcoachschool8192 Thank you so much for your reply. I love that you always take the time to give a thoughtful answer to comments below your videos. What you are saying does make sense. If I understand correctly, by exercising to improve sleep drive, that is just another way to try and control sleep which continues the circular problem. :)

Anytime! Thanks for being here. And yes 100%, that’s exactly how I think about it. I guess I could have just said it in so many fewer words like you 😝😁

@@thesleepcoachschool8192 Your description had more detail and helped me to understand better. :)

So glad to hear this!

Hi VortexFlex, thanks for commenting. Sorry to hear this, but glad you found the channel! When someone has trouble sleeping + twitches and odd sensations it’s almost always hyperarousal that’s the culprit. Hyperarousal is when your brain is in a higher state of alertness. It’s looking out for a potential threat and keeps you hyper aware. Check out the playlist about jerks and twitches here: kzfaq.info/sun/PL6RQ1GS7B1ci1B__oGwLvLaJ9Da1lmIKs Basically the key to not having these type of events is doing what’s so hard - not give them attention. Let me know how things go!

@@thesleepcoachschool8192 thank you for responding. I got a question, I feel like these burning feeling in my stomach is acid reflux or something related, the twitching is something that has been happening for 2 months but this is by far the worst it gets and I do feel like the more anxious I get the worse twitching I get. I was so scared of the twitching that I even diagnosed myself with ALS but it wasnt so I got over the fear. Now I have fear of fatal insomnia and I am only 14 :(

@@thesleepcoachschool8192 do you think I have insomnia or acid reflux just messing my sleep?

This is such a great questions Dinara, thanks for taking the time to understand the model to a point where, I have to really think this answer thru so it makes sense!! You are absolutely right that if you’re spending less time in bed (which I more and more thing isn’t that important by the way, I think it’s really not good to spend like 10 hours in bed trying to make yourself sleep, but it’s also not good to spend 5 hours in bed trying to force sleep - best to pick something in between where there’s no pressure) and don’t sleep and consider reading in bed and you go “oh no, now the reading is going to make me wake up 😬” then that’s hyperarousal, that’s the brake. But, and here’s when it gets real important, it’s the fear of losing sleep that is the problem, and if you then say, “ok I’m not going to read” and end up just waiting for sleep - then you’ve reinforced that fear! If you on the other hand go “ok I’m not going to read” and you feel greatly relaxed and sleep soon after, well then I’d say there wasn’t really much of a brake issue to begin with. Putting this into the analogy, I would say that when you start reading a book in bed despite the thought of that producing some braking, you teach the brain that it doesn’t have to apply the brake because - no accident actually happens! So you kinda trade increased braking one night for less brake overall until there’s no braking at all. As you can tell, I’m not finding a great way to explain this, it’s tricky! I’ll make a dedicated video to this excellent question tonight! Thanks!!