[WillMember]

I also forgot to mention, depending on the nature of your insomnia, if it feels more mental (lots of thinking and planning and remembering etc.), or if it feels more bodily (restlessness, tension, pain), it may make sense to look at practices for the body, e.g. Yoga, or breathing exercises (pranayama, or simple 4-7-8 breathing can be very effective – you can find explanations on youtube). It can be good to create a toolbox of techniques that you can experiment with and use the right tool based on how your anxiety and insomnia are presenting themselves at the time.

[WillMember]

Hey Alec,

There was another thread regarding Anxiety and Insomnia back in April 2018 which I contributed to, in case you’d like to check it out: http://dharmatreasurecommunity.org/forums/topic/very-basic-newbie-question-chronic-insomnia-micronaps-during-meditation

Having worked with both Insomnia and Anxiety for a long time, I can definitely understand and relate to your experience and the continued interaction with those things and your meditation. I think the above advice is great, and the linked thread also has some great advice. I would encourage a balance between working on your meditation, making healthy lifestyle choices like Blake suggested (diet, exercise, supplements, sleep hygiene), and as necessary traditional western psychology – there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

It can be easy to get caught up thinking that meditation is the one true God-solution to Insomnia/Anxiety, but from my experience it’s better to treat it as a _component_ of the solution. As Doug said, meditation is great at bubbling up “purifications”, some unconscious material that is causing issues behind the scenes, and this itself can be healing. Meditation in general is also great at cultivating an attitude of acceptance towards your current state, and somewhat ironically, with increased acceptance of sleeplessness, _sometimes_ improved sleep can come. You could also choose to do forms of meditation before bed that are more relaxing (I do a super light bodyscan for 10 minutes).

I personally would also recommend doing your own personal investigation in to some very light supplements to aid sleep. This is a very slippery topic because it’s possible to dose too much, to become addicted and reliant on your Sleep Aid, using it as a crutch. It’s important to cultivate an attitude of acceptance towards whatever your state is, rather than a weary yielding and giving up and simply swallowing a sleeping pill each night (I’ve been there). From this place of acceptance, and with the right attitude towards medication, if you choose to look in to this I would recommend checking out:
– low dose Melatonin (0.3mg) taken every second night (right before sleep) for a given period (say, one month).
– Magnesium supplements (~1hr before bed)

At the moment I am doing my own experiment with CBD which so far seems good but it’s too early for me to recommend it from personal experience.

Very happy to talk more if you think it would be helpful, and good luck with your journey!

– Will, Culadasa Teacher in Training since January 2018

[WillMember]

I would echo what Ted has said, this sounds a lot like Stage 4 to me, not only based on the phenomenology of the distractions, mind wandering and the breath, but also your emotional affect and attitude towards the practice. I’d strongly recommend reading the Stage 4 section on “Persistent Distractions: Pain, Insights, and Emotions”.

Having to grapple with these overwhelmingly powerful distractions can undo all the satisfaction you felt at finally being able to pay continuous attention to the breath. You may feel impatient or skeptical about the benefits of meditation or your ability to practice. However, you don’t need to worry or judge yourself. At this Stage, the arising of strong and persistent distractions is actually a sign of progress! You’re coming into contact with primal drives, untapped capacities, hidden archetypes, and powerful emotions arising from deeper parts of the mind. Just remember that, whether you’re dealing with pain, brilliant insights, or powerful emotions, the goal is always the same: to overcome distractions with the right antidote, re-engage with the breath until attention becomes stable, and cultivate ever-stronger introspective awareness.

There follows in the book more specific advice for dealing with the specific types of distaction. But I’d mainly like to emphasise that this is actually good and to keep going! Even though it might be unpleasant, it can be extremely interesting to observe what your mind is doing in this state, the stories your mind is telling itself about your abilities and the practice, knowing that this mental state is impermanent and dependent upon certain conditions.

– Will (TMI Teacher in Training since January 2018)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by  Will. Reason: formatting

[WillMember]

Wonderful to hear you’re having some progress Tim!

[WillMember]

Hi Tim,

I know I’m a bit late to the party here, but I couldn’t resist replying since like some of the others, I can strongly relate to what you’re going through, having suffered insomnia (the kind that can get to sleep but can’t stay asleep) on and off for the last 6 or so years. I’ve tried loads of things and feel like I have a lot of experience with working with the problem.

I wanted to echo the other great advice here, around exercise, around the right supplements and the right attitude to them (I would add that occasional low dose melatonin for streak breaking, since it’s non addictive, should be ok sometimes too), and also meditation practices that can be done in bed. And if there are obvious causes to the insomnia or anxiety in your life, trying to work skilfully with those can help too. So it seems like those topics have been super well covered.

I wanted to touch on another aspect that really helped me a lot for me and shortened the “streak length” of my own insomnia. It’s great to have sleep hygiene, the right sleep meds, exercise and meditation routines etc. However, for me having this attitude of desperation at keeping all of those balls in the air was a big part of what stopped me sleeping at night. For a while I was using the “Headspace” meditation app, which has a Sleep Pack which I’ve now done 3 times. I’m not saying you should necessarily get that app, but the main crux of that pack was that cultivating the right mentality towards sleep during the day will help your sleep at night. There is this kind of paradox compromise between good sleep habits whilst at the same time, try not to care so much about sleep or those habits, that sleep isn’t such a big deal. If you’re anything like I was, when you hear that advice your response might be like “yeah right, that’s easy to say, but that doesn’t help me when I’m lying in bed stressed and agitated”. However there is some wisdom in this: the paradox is that if you can truly not care or stress about getting a good nights’ sleep, the body and mind can eventually find and stay in a restful place.

How does this translate to practice? Cultivate gentle mindfulness during the day, keep an attitude of softness to your sleep / exercise routine, know that lying in bed awake but relaxed is 80%+ restorative as real sleep, that when you’re restless or agitated you can try to practice on that knowing that it’s ok that your mind doesn’t play along as well as it does during the day, and that in the long term you are able to kind of condition or “brainwash” yourself, over time, to care less about a bad sleep, and that this paradoxically can help you sleep/rest better.

Hope that helps, and happy to help any time.

-Will (Teacher in Training since Jan 2018)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by  Will.

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