On sleeping difficulties

I have never really been good at getting sleep. Even as a child I found it difficult. Perhaps I am a person who tends to mull over things in the head, when it would be acceptable and wise to let it be.

Not getting sleep has been one of the main triggers for my PMO behaviour during the years. Unfortunately that evolved into being a comforting habit which I learned to trust in. This has almost made me feel that I am no longer able to get sleep without it. On the other hand, this aspect of dependence only made my addictive behaviour worse.

I have a question for you who have had similar issues. Do you see this more as a problem that has to be taken care of for the recovery to be possible, or is this perhaps more of a withdrawal symptom when trying to abstain from PMO? Now I again seem to have a period of insomnia, and I can't really judge whether it is mostly either of these. Certainly I would not want to ruin all my starting streaks because I am worrying about not getting sleep. (And that worrying can be stressful!)

And of course, any tips are welcome!

 

So did I understand it correctly, that you follow the tactics of getting to bed at the same time each day? Then, if you happen to not get sleep, do you stay in bed still waiting or do you get up for a moment? This is something that is often recommended, and I guess it's good advice. Perhaps I should have more "courage" to not worry about not getting enough sleep.

 

What I've been trying in the past - and also now do - is to wake up at the same time each day. The idea is that then I would be somehow naturally falling asleep when it is time in the evening. That sounds good in theory, but the problem has been that, even though I may feel tired towards the evening (and already in the afternoon), falling asleep just doesn't happen sometimes.

Usually, when I have tried this habit of setting the alarm early every day, it has worked nicely in the beginning. But then, since I have been sleeping a bit too little for some time, it backfires. For example, there was one summer, when I was waking up (by alarm) very early every day, and regularly went for quite a tough exercise pretty much straight away. I tried to push even too hard. After some time I had to stop this, as the stress was cumulating. Currently I'm trying to go for calmer walks in the mornings. Still, there are days when I can't even remember turning off the alarm and getting back to bed. Nevertheless, I wake two or three hours later than was supposed. My alarm clock is even on a different side of my room than my bed, so I really have to get up to turn it off. Still, often I cannot remember having done any of that. It confuses me.