[stove]

For anyone like me who has struggled with insomnia, I have found that "sleep restriction", as used by this and other apps, to be the most impactful thing I have ever done. I've tried every sleep aide, pharmaceutical, and cognitive practice imaginable and nothing can even hold a candle to sleep restriction. I paid for a different app for a personalized schedule but the process is simple. These are the basics:

- Go to bed very late at a time when you can barely keep your eyes open, for me it was 2am. Do normal sleep hygiene things until this time so stay away from screens and stressful stuff. Do this for the same time every night.

- Do not use bed for anything except sleep. We are rewiring our brains so that bed = sleep and that's it. No reading, no screens, nothing except sleep happens in the bed.

- Wake up after ~5 hours with an alarm. This sucks and I hated it but I stuck with it for 2-3 weeks and it shifted my entire existence. My sleep window was 2am-7am.

- The first days will be hard and you may not sleep through that entire window. The important part is to wake up at the prescribed wake up time or whenever you wake naturally (very hard) consistently for a period of several weeks

- Over time, you should be able to sleep through that window. For me, the process of being able to consistently sleep for a scheduled window was enough to prove that there was nothing "wrong" with me as I had told myself for 20+ years.

- Over a longer time, you bring the bedtime up so you get more and more sleep, generally 15-minutes each time.

After 20 years of insomnia, the past year has been the best sleep of my life. I only get ~6-7 hours or so per night but it is deep, restful sleep that is generally uninterrupted if I stick to this regiment. The beginning is not fun but over time I have adjusted to the hours and, most importantly, have outgrown the story and habits that drove my insomnia. For me, I knew how to sleep but I had decades of sleep anxiety and surrounding stress to get past. Being so tired you can do nothing except sleep helps you rewire your association with your bed away from "sleep is stressful" towards "sleep is easy".

I paid for the Sleep Reset app to walk me through everything. Because I paid money for it, I probably had a higher degree of success than if I just Googled stuff and half-assedly tried to incorporate it. For ~$200, the app certainly has high margins and made money off of me but it was the best $200 I ever spent.

[edreichua]

I'm glad you found something that works for you! It's easy for someone suffering from chronic insomnia to just accept that there is nothing they can do (especially if they have experienced it for a very long time). It's great (and motivating for many chronic insomniacs out there) that you found a way to resolve/ cope with your insomnia after 20 years. Thanks for sharing your experience!