Insomnia & Hypnic Jerks, Desperate for Sleep

Signs and symptoms
1

To start off I am 24yrs old, and no stranger to insomnia (at least on-set insomnia). I'd also like to mention that I do have anxiety - although I cannot pinpoint any major stressor that would have triggered this insomnia, which is totally different to the insomnia I usually face (which scares me !!)

Before this I had been sleeping about 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep, my sleep schedule was awful (3pm-11pm) but I was sleeping at the very least. Then one day I decided to try to sleep at around 4am because I realized hey, I should probably fix my schedule and in the past doing it slowly usually worked. Well I tried to fall asleep and I just kept jolting myself awake, so I thought ok .. I'll stay up the entire day and by tonight I'll be exhausted and fall right asleep .. nope. Same exact thing happened, I jolted myself awake. I tossed and turned and only managed to get about 2 hours of sleep.

The next day I decided to try Zzzquil, I was already feeling very anxious about what had transpired the other day. I don't normally get hypnic jerks, in fact I only ever got a severe case once before and that was due to a horrible panic episode. Well I didn't need the pills to fall asleep for about four hours, but when I woke up I was anxious that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep so I took a couple and dropped off back to bed, I slept 7 hours, waking about twice. These awakenings didn't keep me up, it was more like I realized I was awake, looked at the time and fell back asleep. 

After that day I felt pretty confident that while I was kind of concerned about waking up in the middle of the night (which usually doesn't happen with me) that I was going to be able to do it again tonight, especially since I had decided on a more healthy sleep schedule, I exercised in the afternoon, and didn't drink coffee any later than 11am. So I spent an hour meditating before bed, laid down and .... jolted awake. 

This went on for about three hours or so. No about of meditation, relaxing music/sounds could make the hypnic jerks stop. I eventually took more of the zzzquil but I don't think they really helped as I only managed to sleep for about an hour before I woke up again.

I stayed awake for a little while and just started crying, eventually I laid down again and slept for 4 hours, waking up every hour to look at the time before falling asleep again.

I'm so broken down, I'm so distraught. I'm scared that the jerking awake and the waking up every few hours is something more serious (i know of sFI but have tried really hard to put it out of my mind) because its not something I've ever really experienced before. I'm so terrified I'm going to spend the rest of my life battling for sleep. I know it takes time before new sleep hygiene actually kicks in and helps but every night I get so anxious and scared and inevitably I can't sleep I just keep jerking and waking up. What should I do?

 

2

Sebastian, it's your anxiety that keeps jerking you awake. Many of us have gone through periods like this before. It can take months or even years for reasonably normal sleep to come back. As you say yourself, every night you get anxious about sleeping, and this causes the jerks to start again.

Having gone through this myself as a young woman, I can't give you much practical advice, other than to wait it out. It will go away in the end.

3

I have been experiencing what I believe are hypnic jerks as well.  Let me ask you, when do you notice the jerks coming on?  I usually notice them right as I'm about to fall to fall asleep and then I'm jolted awake.  I have also been experiencing anxiety lately and my sleep pattern is very much disturbed.  I have had insomnia for about 6 months now due to a breathing condition that developed while I had the flu.  I have been taking Ambien at night to get more sleep as I would typically only be getting 4-5 hours and wake up at 3:30-4:00 am and be unable to fall back asleep.  It would be helpful if you could describe what these "hypnic jerks" feel like for you.  They often feel like you are "falling."  Kind of like when you are dozing off while in class and you are suddenly wake up.

4

Some of brains activities have not yet been analysed.  If we r in anxiety mood during day time it will spoil the night's sleep.  Don;t get dejected or anxity.  I was also workhaulic, forgot sleep, always in anxiety mood expecting perfectness in work ended in insomnia. I have been taking sleeping pills which I m not able to stop.  So don't go for pills.  Discuss other oprions with your Neurologist or Psycriatist.

5

Thank you - last night I was able to totally ignore the jerks and allow myself to sleep for about 4 hours, I did however wind up waking up every single hour after that (at least - to my knowledge) my partner who was in bed with me said she didn't think I was waking up every hour and that I was definitely snoring, but I do remember checking the clock at least three times.

Is this still within the normal range of sleeping? 

6

For me they aren't full body jolts, they are actually more like limb movements. For instance I could be just about to fall asleep and my foot will jerk to the side and kind of jolt me awake, and I'll start to drift off again and my shoulder will jerk upwards once again jerking me awake. Those are the minor ones, they aren't necessarily making my heart pound, but they are enough to take me off the edge of sleeping. 

The bigger ones are probably more what you have, the full-bodied sleep jolts, although I tend to have them mostly in my legs, where they will kick out. 

7

Yes, it's well within the normal range. In fact, it's normal to at least partially awake at the end of every sleep cycle - each one lasting approximately 1.5 hours - but most people don't remember doing this. If you put people in a sleep lab, they'll show signs of these regular arousals and may even wake completely, but most won't remember it in the morning. Some of us - including me - tend to wake completely between cycles and remember our awakenings in the morning. This is still perfectly normal.

You might also find it interesting to google sleep state misperception, which could explain the discrepancy between your and your partner's idea of how much you slept.

8

Hi Lily, just a quick question.

The last two nights I have actually managed to sleep for about 8 hours with only one or two awakenings. However tonight I couldn't fall asleep until like 2 in the morning and only managed to sleep 4 hours. 

Are these kinds of setbacks normal? I thought I was doing better and now I feel kind of dejected over the fact that I didn't manage another good night, and I'm scared the cycle will begin again. 

9

Perfectly normal. The problem - as I know only too well from personal experience - is that once you've gone through a spell of sleep problems the anxiety never quite goes away. This means you'll go on having little relapses - and sometimes longer ones - for years, or perhaps for the rest of your life.

This won't do you any harm at all, in spite of what the occasional troll on these boards might tell you. The idea that everyone has to have a solid seven or eight hours' sleep every night in order to stay healthy is a complete myth. Think about new parents. If they have two or three children close together they sometimes go through years of disturbed nights. They feel very tired during this time but it doesn't do them any harm in the end.

It hasn't done me any harm either. I was an atrocious sleeper for most of my working life but I've still made it well into my 70s in good form and without significant health problems.

10

I know that it has been 8 days since I last posted, but I wanted to give an update. 

For the last four days I feel like my sleep is declining. 

8/5 -  5 hours

8/6 - 3 hours

8/7 - 9 hours (broken up into 3-4 hrs)

8/8 - 2 hours

8/9 - 4 hours

I don't know what I am doing wrong. But I have been trying not to panic, I truly and really am not. I have kept a good sleep schedule. I haven't had any caffeine for about a week, I've started taking melatonin at night, I listen to meditation and try to relax myself.

But it seems like these last few nights have been really horrible. I hadn't had many issues with hypnic jerks since the first few nights when this all began but now I just jerk and jerk and even when I try to ignore it and fall back asleep I cannot. I then lay there and drift in and out of sleep, "dozing" as it were for like 10-15 minutes before waking back up. 

I am so scared. I have been trying over and over to convince myself and to tell myself that I don't have SFI, that I cannot have it, but the fact that it's been getting worse makes me terrified. I don't know what to do or who to turn to.

11

Hi Sebastian,

You need to get immediate help. You're clearly suffering from severe health anxiety, which is one of the more intractable forms of OCD. You need to address this as soon as possible with your doctor, before it becomes entrenched. No one on a forum can help you. Health anxiety is a very serious condition, which wrecks lives.