I used to have insomnia. Now, I am not an insomniac but occasionally I do have trouble dropping off to sleep. This is natural, everyone has problems nodding off at some time or other. Insomnia is common with Anxiety Disorder.
Let us define Insomnia. The medical profession divides it up into three sections. Transient, acute and chronic insomnia. They are categorized thus by the amount of time the patient has been experiencing sleep problems. Transient insomnia comes and goes. Acute insomnia lasts for at least three weeks, and chronic last over three months.
Insomnia doesn’t mean you can’t sleep at all. It means that your sleep is not sufficient.
As an anxiety sufferer my sleep was disturbed by worry, physical tension in my body and a racing mind.
I tried quite a lot of different things to control the worry. Using CBT and writing techniques was quite helpful, but didn’t really deal with the major worries, or the really pressing issues.
I also tried progressive muscle relaxation and autogenic relaxation to relax my body. They did help relax my body but they didn’t necessarily help me sleep.
A racing mind was a hard one to crack. You see when my mind raced it wasn’t with necessarily bad thoughts. Often the were very pleasant daydreams that I didn’t particularly want to stop, until I realised how close it was until I needed to get up.
All in all none of the above quite hit the mark. They key was to relax the mind. I believe that if you relax the mind, the body will follow, but if you relax the body, the mind will not necessarily follow. The mind, for me, is key.
By far and away the best and simplest way I’ve ever found to relax the mind is Mindfulness Meditation. I think that because of this serious insomnia is now incredibly rare. And when insomnia does occur now I think it is because subconsciously I don’t want to sleep, or I want an excuse to get out of the next day’s chores. When tackling insomnia there is some mileage to be had in looking into secondary gain.
Secondary gain occurs when part of you doesn’t want you to get over a problem, because there is some perceived value for keeping that problem. It is more common in all areas of life than many people think.
