what to do about terrible insomnia?

I've battled insomnia for a long time. I went cold turkey off Ambien over a year ago and now use a natural supplement. One of the tricks I use to keep monkey mind at bay is, I close my eyes and create an imaginary story as soon as my head hits the pillow. I keep it simple so I don't get overly stimulated trying to come up with a plot. Lately, I've been using the same story line but I change small details (like what I'm wearing or the location). Sometimes, I write an entire chapter before I go to sleep, but more often I'm only a few paragraphs in before I'm snoozing. I find that if I don't keep my brain occupied, it starts to wonder off into negative stuff. My stories are always something pleasant. Usually a fantasy but sometimes it's something I'd like to have happen in real life. Hope this helps!

 

I use this technique too. Sometimes I imagine projects I want to do in the garden or my home and go through the steps in my mind. The goal is to keep my thinking neutral and non-stressful.

 

Nicole, I am sorry you are having this experience as I have had this symptom and know how hard it can be. This is the one type of tms I have actually had success over. The first tms symptom I was aware of having was insomnia. It came on from a combination of falling in love fore the first time, doing therapy which unearthed some trauma, and planning my wedding at the same time (perfect storm). I started googling success stories and the first story I came across was Howard Stern, who had horrible insomnia and said that he cured it with the Sarno approach. I also found a success story on the tms wiki. They both said the same thing, just stop trying to sleep, and basically just accept your insomnia (in other words, outcome dependence as someone already mentioned). It took me a while to get the courage to try this approach, as the impulse for me is to control my symptoms. However in the end, I just decided to stop trying to sleep and let myself be awake, and my sleep improved pretty quickly after that and I was back to having a reasonable 5-6 hours sleep. Then I got the rest of the 8-9 hours back once my wedding, and consequently the wedding stress, was over . There is a fabulous book , I think it might be called something like the sleep book by Guy Meadows (?) which advocates outcome independence so basically the tms approach. Wishing you the best of luck!

 

Similar here.
If my heart is racing, first I invoke the higher parts of my brain by doing puzzles in my head. Math is good.
But when I can't sleep normally without tachycardia, then I tell myself it's okay to just rest. Resting will be good and will help me be OK tomorrow. It's Ok if I just rest. resting is fine.
And then most of the time...after a little rest, boom. I'm asleep.