Just read a very interesting account of an insomniac's journey to better sleep through a complete treatment program.
Mindy Clawson writes about being a periodic insomniac for many years and reaching a point of being unable to sleep without medication. She was already doing what was advised in every article about insomnia; going to sleep at the same time every night, cutting out caffeine and alcohol, no TV in the bedroom etc. And yet she often woke in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep.
Clawson then describes her treatment at the Vermont Regional Sleep Center, which involved a combination of therapy, exercises, breathing exercises and self hypnosis. Most importantly, she was asked to maintain a sleep log, recording what time she felt tired, if she took alcohol, or a sleeping pill and what time she got out of bed.
She was told that if she woke during the night, and was awake for over 20 minutes, she was to get out of the bed, and do something else until she became tired.
One of the things that I found very interesting in Clawson's story, and could relate to it with my own experiences completely, was her diagnosis of waking up and not being able to go back to sleep. Her doctor explained to her that everyone has "awakenings" each night, but most people simply drop back off to sleep, sometimes not even knowing they've woken up. For people who operate at high speed during waking hours, once the body comes out of deep sleep, the brain revvs up to full-operational mode.
Clawson reports that it took about 7 sessions with the sleep specialist, spread out over two months, for her to start to get seven hours and 45 minutes of sleep time consistently.
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