Sleep Schedule

I have been really suffering lately with lack of sleep.. been having a rough go in my house fighting every night until midnight finding it hard to sleep lately. I go to bed most nights midnight and wake up at 6:30am everyday and stay awake all day. What’s a good sleep schedule and do people who suffer with anxiety need more sleep than the average person? I feel like I’ve been super sleep deprived and can barely function been getting a blank mind, forgetful thoughts feel like I’m dozing off during the day. I refuse to sleep in the daytime cause I have a fear of sleeping when I’m home alone in case I don’t wake up or wake up feeling confusion which is another symptom I experience with anxiety. Any advice please?

[Jeff1943]

JacknJills, there's absolutely no reason to believe you're going to have a stroke. You're far too young to have a stroke any way. I'm sure your doctor has given you similar reassurance. But because you're experiencing anxiety disorder you don't believe it and still think you're going to have one. But that's just the anxiety talking to you. If someone convinced you that you aren't going to have a stroke you'd just replace it with another symptom. That's the way it goes with anxiety disorder.

Anxiety can mimic every known disease and ailment. It's a real shape shifter but there is a way to bring about a permanent cure. You have to learn to accept for the moment all the symptoms of anxiety calmly and with a minimum of fear. Once you stop fighting them and start accepting them you stop thrashing your nerves with fear and slowly they lose there over sensitisation and you begin to recover.

[Hidden in reply to Jeff1943]

Thank you so much Jeff! You described it perfectly. Exactly, as soon as I stop going through a symptom it gets replaced. I occasionally get moments where I’m not thinking of anything then all of a sudden I’ll panic and go “Wait what symptom am I going through now? Why am I forgetting?” It’s just out of habit in a way I guess.

My drama teacher just talked to me about it and he told me that it’s all learned behaviour with anxiety too so what I need to do is relearn a new behaviour to replace these ones that may be affecting me. It’s so scary because I am constantly not knowing how to live “properly” whereas before I never even thought twice about it I “just lived” I want so badly to get back there.

[Jeff1943 in reply to Hidden]

Its very simple really, you can't cure yourself of an illness you don"t have. Its impossible. So instead of trying to cure yourself of illnesses you don't have why not try curing yourself of the illness you do have - anxiety disorder. Isn't that more sensible?

The first thing to do is to stop fighting your anxiety. Fighting only causes more stress and strain and fear and makes your nervous sensitisation worse. Has fighting it helped so far? No of course it hasn't. So now do the opposite of fighting it. Surrender to it. Run up the white flag. Instead of fighting it Accept it for the time being. Accept it calmly and with the minimum of fear because you can't accept and fight at the same time. So accept all those uncomfortable symptoms for the monent and by giving your sensitised nervous system a break frim fear it begins to recover. But slowly. Not today, not tomorrow, not this week. But inevitably.

The Acceptance method has been around for 50 years and has helped untold tens of thousands to recover. If you only read one more book in your life that book should be 'Self help for your nerves' written 50 years ago by Doctor Claire Weekes still available new or used for a couple of quid from Amazon.Just read a few of the hundreds of reader reviews - over 90% rated it Very Good or Excellent. You will soon recognise yoursekf in its pages.

Jacknjills, your anxiety's days are numbered believe me. BUT IT WILL TAKE ACCEPTANCE, PERSISTANCE AND PATIENCE.

[Mariapalmer]

I was really bad for sleep it comes and go now I get around 8 hours which I settle for. Napping during the day won’t do any favours for your sleeping at night anyways so no point in that. Try something to aid your sleep if it’s not getting any better

[foxglove in reply to Mariapalmer]

Would you be kind enough to tell me how you get 8hours sleep? ...sound idyllic!

[Mariapalmer]

I got myself into routine for bed, some nights I don’t always get to sleep for a while but I make sure I’m in bed I have the tv on low so I listen to that otherwise I’ll just be listening to my thoughts too much I find that helps. I don’t eat anything past 11 at night either just drink water. I don’t know why but it seems to of helped before that I wasn’t sleeping until about 4am. Now I’m asleep by half 12-1 latest.