03 -Metrics of being recovered
Sleep
Sleep is of course a metric for measuring recovery from insomnia, but it is not the only or even main metric to use. Measuring insomnia recovery based on how you sleep doesn’t paint the whole picture of a recovered person. Let’s say someone has been educating themselves and allowing the experience of insomnia recovery to happen and they are now sleeping a solid 7 hours a night and have been for 6 months, can we say this person is now recovered? Maybe. Truthfully, we would want to dig a little deeper; is this person limiting their life so they “will continue to sleep well”, are they still filled with fear when they go to bed or see the sun going down, does a bad night of sleep feel like the end of the world?
With this said, when you start to sleep well, the other metrics that I highlight can also improve. Sleeping a solid X number of hours a night now? Maybe the fear of not recovering has now gone down. Maybe the fear of being awake at night and/or having a choppy night has gone down. Maybe you no longer see yourself limiting your life to appease your insomnia.
Fear
Do you find yourself facing the fear without much resistance? An example can be how resistant are you to being awake at night? Do you stay in bed fighting for sleep or are you happy to stay in bed or to get out of bed and do something else to pass the time?
Do you no longer find yourself cancelling plans after not sleeping well? Are you no longer resistant to not making late night plans in fear of becoming overstimulated, going past your “bedtime”, no longer having enough sleep opportunity for a “good night” etc? If you no longer limit your life in relation to insomnia, you have stopped appeasing it and allowing it to stay. The fear will leave if you stop feeding it.
Do you fear that insomnia may return in the future? If so, this shows you still have a fear of not sleeping/a fear of wakefulness. The end goal of your recovery is to accept bad sleep no matter how long or short that period is, you don’t need to “like” it or “want” it, you want to ACCEPT it. Acceptance is what keeps us immune from looking for a “cure” to this problem, it’s what allows us to face the fear of wakefulness and allows us to go on with a fulfilling life
Acceptance
Acceptance is the end goal and the biggest metric of recovery. At this stage you have accepted that you have no control over your sleep. You have accepted being awake at night. You have accepted the days you are exhausted. You have accepted that sleep is a truly passive process. You have accepted the speedbumps that can happen at any time and can last if they need to. You have accepted the thoughts and feelings that come with the fear. You have dropped every instance of obsession and control over your sleep, you accept that the night can go in any direction.
Acceptance cannot be manufactured, you can’t just one day say you accept everything that comes with Insomnia, acceptance happens through education and experience.
Think of acceptance like a new job, let’s say you start a new job where you have no experience, you won’t hit the ground running and have the immediate ability to do all the jobs requirements like a pro, you need the knowledge and experience to do a job well, this is why so many job posts require knowledge and experience. When the knowledge and experience is solidified into your mind, when you’re able to do the job as easily as breathing, this is when you are a pro at that job. Acceptance is kind of the same, you become a “pro” at acceptance when the knowledge and experience has been baked into your mind, you don’t have to force acceptance, you just naturally accept.