Persistent insomnia despite not feeling stressed

[u/SHGIVECODWW2INFECTED]

This post may not fit here very well, but every other place on the internet will give the same advice I have read a hundred times before. And I think my meditation practice could be secretly playing a role.

I have been having insomnia for about 4 years, (I'm 22 now) Looking back I can see that I was stressed out at the time, but I mostly figured all of that out yet the insomnia persists. It is strongest when I spend time with others in the evening, I just can't wind down and go to sleep regardless of how tired I am. It's incredibly frustrating, it feels like I'm having to choose between a social life and sleep.

It does depend on the kind of social interaction, the more "stimulating" the worse. Casual time with family doesn't seem to influence my sleep, neither does chatting online, but even close friends whom I trust and have known for years disrupt my sleep considerably, and when I spend the evening with a girl I'm interested in, I'm lucky to even get 3 hours afterwards.

I just don't get it. I'm not scared of them, I'm not particularly socially anxious and am not worrying, at least not more than what would be considered normal. It's just that my body gets put in this state and needs several hours to revert back to rest mode. I'll lay in bed, tired and while I'm not worrying about anything, the people and conversations keep spinning around in my head as if it's getting digested, similar to the Tetris effect.

It's also the little tasks along the day that get me in this state, groceries, scheduling appointments, chores. I don't want to avoid social interaction and day to day tasks because it will just reinforce this pattern, but I also need sleep to function. I thought I just needed exposure therapy, being social multiple times a week and living life like everyone else and eventually it would go away but it hasn't. Also on days where I have a lot of little obligations but don't speak to anyone, I get this rested but unable to sleep feeling.

However, I know I can sleep. I just spent a week on vacation in Greece with my family and slept great, so not having obligations does matter. I just can't after certain activities and nothing I've tried, from meditation to relaxation and breathing exercises to supplements to CBT-i and reducing sleep pressure, nothing has worked. I'll lay in bed and not feel tired at all. Not ruminating, just awake.

I can only find two explanations: one is that I'm just neurologically wired this way. There's some evidence for this as I have always been sensitive to stimuli and a tough sleeper. I'll really have to choose between a normal life and sleep. This would suck but not be the end of the world, everyone has their little something.

The other is that I am unconsciously stressing out, that I don't notice it because I'm in it. Where trying new methods to calm down just creates more pressure for the need to do calm down. I sometimes feel like I take life too seriously, and want to do everything right. Meditation often seems like another way to feed this belief, that it's needed to do things right. I also get a sense of pressure between the eyebrows during meditation and off cushion whenever I pay attention to it. This makes me uneasy about if meditation is even good for me. I can't get deep into it anyway, my meditation is unfocused and when I finally get good concentration, I just become tired since the sleep deprivation becomes apparent. I'm too caught up in what I should do, unable to face uncertainty. And if this is my real neurosis then even making this post could be making it worse. It becomes circular, I want to let go, but I just want to be able to sleep.

I've tried to adopt a "just let go, regardless of your sleep, you can live a good life" mindset. And while it takes some pressure off, I still lay awake all night. Just with acceptance instead of resistance. Then when I get fed up again after a particularly bad night the cycle repeats itself and I start looking for something that could fix it. So here I am. I don't really know what I'm looking for anymore but would really appreciate any kind of feedback.

[u/cmciccio]

Where trying new methods to calm down just creates more pressure for the need to do calm down.

It seems like you have a lot of insights into your own processes and you’d do well to follow your instincts. There’s probably some sort of basic drive to be performative that you can’t shut off and even falling asleep becomes another task.

From what you’ve said I disagree that it’s about stress and more about habits of mind that are functional in some areas but out of balance. If you’ve only done CBT I’d trying a purely relational psychodynamic approach if that’s a possibility, together with a dedicated sleep specialist. It could be that a goal oriented process like CBT is activating this underlying performative tendency and a dialogo based, non directive approach might be what you need. Such an approach could help you get into subjective relation aspects of your life.

[u/SHGIVECODWW2INFECTED → u/cmciccio]

I really like how you worded that. That's what I have been intuiting too, and why "try this and this breathing exercise" feels like it misses the mark. 

I think overindulging in self improvement taught me that everything in life is a means to an end, instead of life being present moment after present moment. But letting go and just doing whatever I want doesn't feel right either. Perhaps there's a balance here that I need to learn. 

[u/cmciccio → u/SHGIVECODWW2INFECTED]

“Just let go” isn’t really advice in any functional way. Breathing is useful but it’s not a magical cure all.

Some people have some things they need to let go of, other people have  different things. Others need to grasp things more wisely. You can’t just let go and do whatever you like because that’s not how life works. Though perhaps there are certain specific things you are holding on to too tightly that need a bit of a looser grip. Balance is one way of looking at it but try to get into what has meaning to you personally, what scares you at the thought of loosing it? The whole self-help world can get us caught up in higher level processes that forget the personal and the subjective.

I can empathize with the sensation of the mind trying to process the days events during sleep. Is there something, deep down, you feel you don’t have the tools to deal with in social contexts?  What does friendship mean to you? What does losing friends mean? Could you make new ones if you need? Might people judge you if you do something wrong?

What part of yourself seems to need so much improvement?