35:   SUNDAY NIGHT INSOMNIA                [Rev 10-10-2017]

This is one of the special categories considered in Step B. It’s probably a good issue to eliminate early on.

Some people only have trouble falling asleep at the end of a vacation period, typically after the weekend. This is also called Sunday Night Insomnia

35a. Schedule Changes

The problem may be due to systematic changes in the person’s schedule, which make it difficult to go to bed the last night of the vacation period, or to wake up the next morning, or both. Behavioral treatment (Glovinsky and Spielman,pp. 148-149) includes suggesting that the person…

  • not stay up so late on holidays, including Friday and Saturday nights.
  • not sleep later on weekend mornings.

The more consistent the person’s schedule, the less likely that there will be a problem of this kind

Cognitively, the person may need to examine his or her weekday schedule, to see whether there is a build-up of stress or an attempt to jam too much into each day. If he/she arrives at the weekend exhausted, there might be a temptation to make up sleep, throwing the sleep schedule out of order. Then re-instituting a stressful Monday schedule can be very difficult.

Psychodynamically, there may be many issues to consider, such as

  • The meaning of work or of this job, and reluctance to return to it each week.
  • Emotional stress from boring or exacting work can be exhausting and aversive.
  • Interpersonal relationships at work, which could be negative in many ways.
  • Issues to abandonment of family responsibilities and family members while away at work.
  • Issues of self-concept and judgments of self for having this job or doing this work.
  • Avoidance of responsibilities on the weekend

35b. Work Stress

The source of the problem may be stresses at work or school, that cause the person to lose sleep on week nights and need to “catch up” on weekends. If that is the case, it may be possible to examine daily stresses for some way to relieve them or to put them aside at the end of the day. Section 44 might be helpful here.

35c. Daily Stresses

It may be that daily life is stressful – the person’s living conditions, responsibilities, or interpersonal arrangements interfere with sleep. Evidence for this might include having more restful sleep when away from home or when another family member is away. Here, again, psychological exploration of the responsibilities, frustrations, and assumptions of daily life may be needed.

35d Weekend Catching-Up

It is also possible for a person to be a good sleeper but simply have a full week and lose sleep on weeknights. Such a person might need to catch up on weekends, seemingly because of a problem, when it is simply a life-style choice. If he/she wants to change, change should not be difficult (see Morin, 69)