Sleep Restriction Therapy (part 2)

​Well, I’ve completed 11 nights of SRT, and the jury is still out. I’m still optimistic, but I’ve had a couple of setbacks and it’s not going nearly as well as I’d hoped.  Two nights ago, the goal limit was to sleep 3 ¾ hours, but I woke up fifteen minutes early.  It’s always disappointing to “restrict” your sleep and not even be able to sleep as long as what you had “restricted” it to. Lol.

Technically, I should have rocked it back to 3 ½ last night, but instead, I forged ahead and set the goal limit to 4 hours. I made it except one quick trip to the bathroom.  According to my Fitbit, I was only awake for 2 minutes.

I think part of the problem is “microsleep”.  I’ll sometimes catch myself during the day with my eyes closed and I wouldn’t know for how long. I tried to combat that last night by staying off of the couch, but I guess I’m going to have to do more than that. I read in another online article, that even though it seems minor, microsleeps can seriously undermine your progress.
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Still, I’m hopeful that within the next couple of weeks, I will no longer be calling myself an insomniac.  And with this new hope, I’ve decided to resurrect a few other non-pharmaceutical strategies I abandoned in the past because they didn’t help enough – cold showers in the morning to get going and “intermittent fasting” (for me, that means not eating anything for 16 consecutive hours every day). I’ve added 15 minutes to my elliptical workouts. And added the headstand back into my yoga routine. This dude is serious.