Sleep Support

Many people struggle with getting to sleep when they first go to bed,  waking up through the night and not being able to get back off, or waking too early. When this happens, thoughts and worries about not being able to sleep causes additional stress and can make sleeping even harder.  When this happens it can really impact how we are feeling and our everyday lives. 

I am someone who never slept well, even as a child. Growing up I just thought it was normal to take a few hours to get to sleep at night.  During my period of alcohol addiction at first alcohol would just knock me out for the night, but in my 30s I started waking in the middle of the night full of remorse, self-hatred and anxiety and not being able to get back to sleep. Once I entered addiction recovery sleep did improve, but as I started dealing with my underlying trauma and issues, during Covid, I went through a period of mental breakdown. One night I didn't sleep at all but assumed I would the next night.....but this went on night after night, I was generally getting about half an hour around  6 am each morning. Weeks turned into months. I was also struggling to eat. I felt like a ghost, normal life seemed on hold, struggling to function I wondered how long this would go on for, even how long someone could go without proper sleep and food before they might die.

I spoke to my GP and asked about sleeping tablets but she said these weren't necessarily effective in giving you true sleep and they were reluctant (as was I) due to my previous addiction issues. I was already in therapy and this was very supportive, but I still couldn't actually sleep. The GP was happy for me to try gentler over the counter sleeping aids from the pharmacy and this did seem to help me get a couple more hours sleep.  I was eventually referred into a specialist service providing CBTI (cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia) and whilst this may of course work well for some people, during this period I actually felt way worse. The treatment involved sleep restriction, limiting your time in bed, getting out of bed after 15 minutes if you wake up and waiting before you go back, and inputting all of your times into the system. The purpose is to train your brain to associate bed with sleep, but for me it felt like a lot of rules and monitoring which increased my thoughts about sleep, which in turn made sleep a lot harder again. 

One day in therapy my therapist asked if I had heard of Yoga Nidra, to be honet I thought she said yoga ninja and imagined doing some warior style poses before bed! But this is in fact a form of meditation which translate as "yogic sleep", generally practiced lying down it contains several elements, but primarily can help with relaxation and the brain to let go of thought and wakefulness, allowing dreams and sleep. Mindfulness practices also helped me to manage my thoughts. Knowing the true nature of thoughts and that these are automtic responses in the brain, if I get the thought "I wont sleep" I can just let this go. Overall working with my underying causes, meditations to support relaxation and sleep at night, and focusing on my overall wellbeing and self-compassion during the day made all the difference. I didn't know but what I had actually needed was relaxation, allowoing naps, having less rules and more rest. These days I rarely have a bad nights sleep, generally get 8 hours sleep (and somtimes 10!). And when I do get more challenging nights I'm kind to myself and find it easier to manage.