sleep anxiety

Hi Rachel,

I sympathise, having suffered sleep anxiety for most of my life too, also starting in childhood. It lessened as I moved through life, probably because I started to realise that lack of sleep wouldn't actually harm me, even if it made me feel exhausted all the time. It only really disappeared once I retired, though it can still come back now on the night before a journey or a big meeting.

Insomnia is one of the known side-effects of mirtazapine withdrawal, so you'll need to give yourself a few months to get over this.

I never took prescription sleeping pills, as I knew they all stop working after a very short time. What I did was to take one of the old-fashioned antihistamines (the ones that make you sleepy) but only for two or three consecutive nights. That way, I'd get a couple of reasonable nights' sleep, then I'd tough it out for the next week before taking them again for a couple of nights. You shouldn't take antihistamines every night, as you can develop tolerance to them too, just like sleeping pills, and they soon stop working. I took them intermittently like this, and in very small doses, for about 45 years and they never stopped working. My favourite was promethazine, marketed in the UK as Phenergan.

If you are going to try antihistamines, it's important to take them at least an hour before bedtime, as their effect is quite weak and takes some time to kick in. If you wait till bedtime to take them, they won't work immediately and you'll be so anxious after an hour or so that the mild sedative effect won't work at all.

A year or so ago, someone calling himself "bemmeh" posted a wonderful message on these boards. He gave me permission to re-post it as often as I liked, so here goes.

Partial quote from bemmeh:

...The moment I stopped struggling against insomnia it simply started going away, though not suddenly. It took quite a while. But the improvement was real from the start. Insomnia is not a thing in itself. The ability to sleep is so strong among us, humans or animals in general, that it is almost impossible to seriously alter it. Insomnia in us humans appears when we TRY (and therefore struggle) to sleep. You just need to stop doing all the things you are doing FOR sleeping and let your body and mind do whatever they want - if you sleep it's OK but if you don't, that's OK too (everybody has bad sleep for all kinds of reasons once in a while). When sleep time comes just go to bed, close your eyes, and rest. Don't TRY to sleep, as you are used to do. Just rest! If sleep comes that's OK, if it doesn't that's OK too, you haven't been very successful in getting the amount and quality of sleep you have desired anyway - that's why you call yourself an insomniac. So why keep on trying/desiring? Just let it go. Accept your reality and move on to the things in life you can control over. Sleep is not something we can control. You just need to trust your body and mind for it and stop trying to do anything whatsoever for it. Good luck!

End of quote.

This is about the best advice I've ever heard on coping with sleep anxiety. I just wish I'd read it 50 years ago!

I have read your post and can sympathize with you as I too am having the same issue with insomnia and just came off mirtazapine, why were you put on Mirtazapine? (For sleep) how long have you been off the Mirtazapine?  I just went to see a sleep doctor and I can tell you what he said about me if you would like.  Rachel’s post has some very good advice about insomnia do not try and force yourself to sleep, have to learn new mind technics to just let it go, this is what I am trying  to do right now, it’s hard for me I am a type A personality, I have made an appointment to see a behavioral health therapist in an effort to retrain my mind, I hope it works, please keep in touch and let me know how you’re doing.

Hi Rachael I have the same issue

The key is try to not be anxious over it as this worsens it

Say to the sleep. Stuff it even if I get less sleep now I'll make it up