Anxiety and insomnia

[Dfekwkhe]

Dh has for the last 2 years had at best 4/5 hours sleep a night. This last 3 weeks he’s in an other MH crisis and is barely sleeping at all! He’s on 40mg of duloxetine (he had stopped taking anti anxiety meds before this crisis) and will take beta blockers occasionally when the physiological effects are overwhelming and sleeping tablets a couple of times a week. With sleeping tablets he might get 3/4hrs at present. He takes magnesium glycinate. Breathing exercises and sleep apps are just too overwhelming for him. It’s a horrible cycle to be in and I just don’t know how to help him. I have a severely disabled child at home full time and dh is self employed and hasn’t worked for past 3 weeks and this doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Any advice would be so much appreciated

Take the pressure off. If he's lying down in bed, doing nothing, it's almost as good as actually sleeping. Once he stops worrying about not falling asleep his sleep hormones will take over and he will nap/rest or simply drop off.

As someone who has had insomnia but not as bad or long as your husband that lying in bed doing nothing advise advise I've heard is very unhelpful. Excersice is good. For me qutiapine helped get me out of the spiral, but it's a sedative so beggining of my sleep was artificial and not as restful as natural sleep. I now follow the 10-3-2-1 rule, may be worth looking at if you haven't allredy.