I do melatonin, l, and it works wonders. Pretty much was at the same place as you, with the stress waking me up at night. Not fun at all. I usually get about 6-7 hours on 6 mgs of melatonin and dont' feel all stupid in the morning.

Sending you support, L~

llmt, try the melatonin, but you answered your own question, it's the stress and anxiety that keeps building. The Ambien and Xanax are to try to relax you but the roblems will just come back. You need to try to relax more, mayb some deep breathing but it won't go until you are over the divorce and have less stressors. Dr's try to treat symptons not the cause, at least you knw what your cause is a lot of people can't work it out. Your best not to go down the meds way especially if there not working all that hapens is you will feel groggy becasue they haven't had time to go through your system. Aa lot of us have been in your situation and it's not easy and there is no easy answer, try to relax as much as possible.

llmt,

What you are going through looks a lot like a sleep disorder called psycholophysiological insomnia. This is a primarily/learned insomnia. I had this too (diagnoses from a certified sleep doc). It's not uncommon among insomniacs. You can be going along in life sleeping well and then all of a sudden an event initiates the insomnia. Once the insomnia starts, it continues to perpetuate mostly due to perpetuating factors (e.g. anxiety over not sleeping, other bad coping mechanisms, sometimes sleep medication).

The best treatment for this type of insomnia is CBT-I (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia). I too was getting 2-3 hours per night of sleep even with using Ambien.....I got about 4-5 when I was using clonazepam (benzo) but I really didn't like the side effects. When I saw the sleep doc he instructed me in the following:

1) He instructed me not to do my best not to "catastrophize" the sleep issues I'm having. Easier said than done but it IS important. Anxiety over not sleeping only adds fuel to the insomnia fire. I had to learn to replace anxious/negative sleep thoughts with positive thoughts. For example: 1) the tiredness I feel is building my sleep drive....that will help me to sleep better....the tiredness will work for me. 2) I've gone through bad days with little sleep before and managed....I can do it again. 3) My sleep system will improve as I do the things required to take care of myself, etc, etc

2) Sleep restriction - he instructed me to go to bed no earlier than 12:30am and get out of bed @ 5:30am no matter how much sleep I get. He chose 5 hours because I told him I was getting about 4-5 hours of MEDICATED sleep each night. The idea behind sleep restriction is that you don't spend excessive time in bed NOT sleeping. When we stay in bed NOT sleeping, it causes us to get more anxious think about how we cannot sleep. Sleep restriction is geared towards conditioning our mind to equate the bed with peaceful rest/sleep. He told me no naps and hold to this schedule STRICTLY for 30 days and then we would re-evaluate.

There is much more important aspects of CBT-I. I've run out of time and cannot continue detailing. All of this info is widely available on the internet for free.

What I want to tell you is that you can recover....there is hope!! I'm now getting about 7 hours/night and I believe I'm still recovering (my insomnia bout started August 2011). It's really tough in the beginning and I empathize with you.....I have many unpleasant memories of what it felt like. You CAN overcome and you will learn so much about how to manage this that will help you going forward. Hang in there.....look up CBT-I.....perhaps better yet.....see if you can find a sleep center in your area and see a certified behavioral sleep doc.

My doc did tell me to take 10mg time released Melatonin. It may not have any impact on your sleep to begin with....but it seemed to help me eventually.

I really relied on my faith in God, family and friends during that time in my life. My prayer is that God will give you the strength to persevere during this TEMPORARY trial.

You are so right, it is a vicious cycle, that many of us have experienced. But you seem to have a good handle on why it's happening. Insomnia is invariably only a symptom of something going on deeper that is causing your sleeplessness.

The way out is to treat the root cause, not the symptom. You can turn this around and create a virtuous cycle by doing so.

In the long term, I agree that CBT-I is one of the very best ways to do it. As Seay describes, you can enter the vicious cycle and deliberately make changes for the better.

So much of stress, anxiety, and insomnia are self-caused. By choosing to make better responses to the way you perceive stressful events, and learning how to stop the negative thought patterns that fuel insomnia and anxiety, your sleep will improve. CBT-I has proven, drug-free methods to do this.

In the short term, here are two things you can do right away. One is to set a sleep-supportive sleep schedule, including a consistent wake-up time, and stick to it every day without exception. This helps regulate both your biological clock and homeostatic sleep drive. These two systems largely control sleep.

Then try to get vigorous physical exercise every day. This is a great way to release negative tension and reduce stress.

Good luck, please keep us posted.