Insomnia Support Group

Insomnia is a symptom, rather than a disease, and is characterized by inadequate quantity or quality of sleep. People with insomnia complain of difficulty falling or staying asleep, which results in significant impairment of daytime functioning. Insomnia is categorized as transient (shorter than one week), short-term (one to three weeks) or chronic (longer than three...

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ocdgirl 07/27/2016

Are any of you suffering from insomnia due to a fear of sleeping? I suffer from OCD and get terrible intusive thoughts about my sleep.

curiousmountain 07/27/2016

Fear of sleeping increases the likelihood you will stay awake. You might try turning your thoughts to something mundane that will not cause arousal of your emotions. I pay attention to my breathing to divert my thoughts.

Hypnos07 07/27/2016

Agree with curious. Once an intensely negative emotion like fear gets associated with the idea of sleep, insomnia is an understandable result.

My approach is to understand the reality of sleep. How it is good and healthy and needed and normal. There is nothing to fear about it. The fear is irrational and can be safely let go. You may need to remind yourself repeatedly of that (I did), but eventually the fear recedes and sleep improves.

hesse 07/30/2016

insomnia caused by fear. fear of being vulnerable and fear of dreaming. i don't know whats worse the fear or the insomnia

jmetallo 08/13/2016

I have insomnia and it is related to fear but my fear is different from yours of OCD. I was once turned on to these videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wDwXkVW_M8 so maybe they can help you or someone in this group. My fear is more deeper than this video can help with. Besides all it did for me was make me sleepy, hahahaha. Good luck OCDgirl.

collette 08/18/2016

Hi!
Yes I do. I get so scared if not being able to sleep that it makes me anxious and I stay awake.
I take Ambien sometimes

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