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For years I was blessed with being able to sleep anytime, anywhere, as long as you leave me in peace and quiet for a while. Sometimes that included public transport or dentist's chair. I'd sleep 8 hours a night, and if I had to wake up early, I'd have a 30 minute nap in the afternoon. Then I got a kid and I he started calling the shots. Still, I would sleep 8 hours in the off chance if I was given the opportunity. Then, a few months ago, I started getting insomnia. I'd go to bed at midnight and wake up at 5 or 6 and couldn't sleep, even if the kid was still sleeping peacefully. It progressed, I'd wake up at 3 or 4. Sometimes I'd manage to fall asleep again, more often not. I was stressing out about it, which made it even worse. I'd go to bed worried that I won't sleep. I kept waking up earlier and earlier, to the low point when one night I couldn't fall asleep at all. We happened to have xanax at home (for the dog) so I took it that one time but normally I stick to bromazepam, which I take occasionally and in low doses. There are a lot of addicts in my family so I'm extra careful with medicine that can cause it. I find that if I wake up at night, bromazepam won't put me back to sleep, but if I take it before going to bed, my sleep will be sounder. The worst period is thankfully over and these days I sleep 5-6 hours at night and 15-20 minutes during the day. It looks like it's my new normal. Some issues persist. My sleep is disconnected from my need to sleep -- I don't sleep any better after a hard day's work than after an easy day. Also I often can't tell if I slept at all. I'll look at the time and see only 5 minutes passed, or maybe 90 minutes -- I can't feel the difference. I spoke with some friends and turns out most of them have sleep problems. Goons, how much do you sleep, and do you think you need more? tl;dr Man rambles about his sleep patterns and wants to poll other users.
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Sep 27, 2020 11:34
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I feel like as you get older you just sleep shittier. Maybe it's because your brain is filled with toxins from just being alive for so long. I used to sleep fine up through my 20s, but I slowly started sleeping less. Started waking up at night too like from what you're describing. I tried exercising, not using screens late, meditating, none of it seems to really matter. I find sticking to a routine is important. If I change up what I'm doing before bed I always sleep worse. Drugs are an ok band aid if you'd had a rough couple nights and really need some sleep, but they are a trap for sure to fall into in regards to needing them.
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Sep 27, 2020 11:46
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bromplicated posted:I feel like as you get older you just sleep shittier. Maybe it's because your brain is filled with toxins from just being alive for so long. Truth, I slept like a dog until my late thirties, now I fall unconscious at nine and wake up at three, very annoying, especially on days when I have work early and can't go back to sleep at six like my stupid brain wants me to.
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Sep 27, 2020 13:56
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A big cause of sleep problems is lighting. Not enough exposure to sunlight means less melatonin is produced. And too much electric light at night like from staring at a phone or monitor makes your brain think it's still day time.
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Sep 27, 2020 14:19
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f.lux or some other blue light filter helped out with stuff like this, it can be a godsend.
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Sep 28, 2020 00:12
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yaffle posted:especially on days when I have work early and can't go back to sleep at six like my stupid brain wants me to. Yea, this for sure. I start to feel sleepy when it is time to get up. I tell my brain it's his fault for doing this to us. He doesn't seem to give a gently caress though.
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Sep 28, 2020 00:36
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Besides the usual advice of make sure you diet and exercise are in check, you can also look into cognitive behavioral therapy, it's what I used to fix my insomnia. You should speak with a therapist, but the gist is that you deal with the anxiety first by stopping the negative thought loops and re-learn how to relax.
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Sep 28, 2020 00:46
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I've found that the things you do before you go to bed can affect your sleep significantly. Which sounds obvious, but it's not just immediately before bedtime, but a couple of hours before that affects it. I noticed it when i was playing video games in that time period. I gave myself a cut-off time and it did help.
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Sep 28, 2020 01:19
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Gophermaster posted:You should speak with a therapist, but the gist is that you deal with the anxiety first by stopping the negative thought loops and re-learn how to relax. I don't really have negative thought loops, but more like there will be a song I heard earlier in the day playing in my head on loop while I'm trying to sleep.
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Sep 28, 2020 01:28
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I used to have awful insomnia as a teen. Then in my early twenties, I got a job in assisted living. You could technically sleep at night once everything was done but I could never sleep away from home so sometimes i would be awake several days straight and then crash for the rest of the week. I can now sleep pretty reasonably but I am still a light sleeper. My husband snores, but not loudly. If I don't fall asleep before him or if I wake up , I'll usually end up sleeping on the couch. Amazon Alexas ambient sounds app has been a huge life saver. I'll put it on rain or forest noises.
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Sep 28, 2020 03:40
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I was getting terrible sleep for about eight months, waking up exhausted, having trouble avoiding yawning in meetings etc. I was at the dentist and they said I should get checked for sleep apnea- while I'm overweight, I'm not a giant 300 pound person, and after talking to the sleep doc I realized that eight of my family members have apnea too. I have a CPAP now and my sleep is so much better than it used to be. Apparently apnea is chronically under-diagnosed and it's not just a fat person problem.
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Sep 28, 2020 17:48
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I sleep like a baby, OP. I poo poo myself and wake up screaming. But, seriously, the few times I've experienced bad insomnia, the solution is this: bust a nut. Yeah, it's inconvenient, but after you've been tossing and turning for four hours, just accept there's something in there that wants out and take care of it.
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Sep 29, 2020 23:56
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I have two diagnosed sleep disorders: narcolepsy without cataplexy and obstructive sleep apnea. Prior to treatment, I was constantly tired and headachey. Sometimes I would fall asleep for 1-6 hours and wake up alert. Sometimes I could get 6-8 hours of sleep before my office job, but other times I would feel too alert to fall back asleep. Invariably, I always felt exhausted the following day. I never fell asleep without control, but I often napped in my car over my lunch break. I would feel a little alert for about half an hour after these naps and then I would go back to feeling exhausted. I tried melatonin, restricting screen time, different sleep aids, working out, adjusting my diet, restricting caffeine, getting bloodwork... Nothing worked until I got properly diagnosed and treated. For the OSA, I sleep with a CPAP. I want to note that I've lost 100 pounds and had two surgeries to remove obstructions from my airway (septoplasty with turbinate reduction and a tonsillectomy with adenoidectomy), but I still manage mild OSA. For the narcolepsy, I take a nighttime medicine called Xyrem twice a night. I also take a wakefulness promoter to help me stay awake during the day. I usually wake up feeling rested and I don't have awful headaches as much anymore. I'm really shocked by how miserable I felt for so long. If anyone reading this thread feels constantly tired and exhausted and miserable no matter what they do, I recommend seeing a doctor specializing in sleep medicine. Usually this will be a neurologist but it can also be a pulmonologist. Usually doctors will request an in-lab overnight sleep study so they can see how your brain, cardio-respiratory system and muscles are performing during sleep. One of my friends had a stroke in his sleep in his early 40s due to untreated sleep apnea so it can become pretty serious if you wait on it. Plus, people feel so much better after getting their sleep issues fixed. EDIT: If this would be of interest to anyone, the obstructive sleep apnea thread is over here! A while back I started a narcolepsy thread in A/T that a few other goons with narcolepsy joined, but it became inactive after a few weeks and is now locked. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2020 01:37
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I also have apnea, and in addition to what the other people in here are saying (CPAP greatly helps quality of sleep, etc.), if you are in America, I just want to warn you that even with insurance, sleep labs and CPAPs are not loving cheap. They're likely to make you first do a take-hope sleep evaluation that involves hooking yourself up to this crazy-rear end machine (if you have any, shave your body hair in the areas you attach the things to; the welts left by the tape lasted for loving days) that really just made me sleep much more poorly than I was used to, then had me do an in-lab sleep study (see above regarding shaving your body hair in the areas they attach to). I think all told it cost me in the realm of $1000-$1500 for the sleep studies, and another $120/month for the CPAP rental on top of that, plus supplies (my insurance is supposed to cover this, so I'm having to fight over it). Also, the company that supplies your CPAP will seem shady as gently caress; this is apparently perfectly normal.
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Sep 30, 2020 02:01
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The book “Why we sleep” and the Joe Rogan podcast with it’s author helped me out a lot. https://youtu.be/pwaWilO_Pig The cpap didnt work too well on me, so now I sleep with a mouth piece and tape my mouth shut to breath through my deviated septum nose while I sleep https://youtu.be/zWQxNoqKE6E
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Oct 2, 2020 20:03
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Hi OP, I've struggled with insomnia for years. I'm not sure if you're looking for advice, but these are great suggestions:shirunei posted:f.lux or some other blue light filter helped out with stuff like this, it can be a godsend. PT6A posted:I sleep like a baby, OP. I poo poo myself and wake up screaming. Maybe not necessarily jerking it, but if you can't sleep then the best thing you can do is stop trying and stop stressing it. Get up and do something else for a while, then try again later. I also saw a major improvement in my ability to sleep when I disassociated my bed from anything besides sleep (though I've fallen out of the habit recently). If I wanted to lay down and play on my phone I'd go to the couch, and only physically lay in bed when I was ready to actually sleep.
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Oct 3, 2020 02:07
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PhysicsFrenzy posted:I also saw a major improvement in my ability to sleep when I disassociated my bed from anything besides sleep (though I've fallen out of the habit recently). If I wanted to lay down and play on my phone I'd go to the couch, and only physically lay in bed when I was ready to actually sleep. Yes! Sleep hygiene is so helpful for getting good quality sleep. Medical professionals who are familiar with sleep medicine wil frequently advocate and ask about sleep hygiene habits. Anyone interested in accessing consistent sleep can learn more about sleep hygiene here. People living in regions that practice daylight savings time should pay attention to the bullet point about gradual, incremental adjustments to sleep scheduling/bedtimes. The upcoming "fall back"/"gaining an hour" tends to be easier on people than "spring forward"/"losing an hour" but if you want to adjust your sleep schedule to avoid getting tired "early" in the evening after the time change it might be a good idea to start adjusting your bedtime soon. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Oct 3, 2020 |
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Oct 3, 2020 05:31
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I was never able to sleep in any kind of transport and even unfamiliar places were sometimes a problem the first night, but my own bed was never an issue. I'd just lay down and 15-20 minutes I'm out until the alarm wakes me up. But I slowly drifted to going to bed way too late (like 1am) and getting to work on time started to become a challenge. I slowly started adjusting back by going to bed earlier but now with this covid and general poo poo I've been having some anxiety and really lovely sleeping. I probably only got a few hours of proper sleep the last two nights.
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Oct 3, 2020 16:26
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i am able to fall asleep pretty easily in a lot of situations but i also wake up often and rarely sleep more than 2-3 hours without waking up needing to drink water or pee or both
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Oct 3, 2020 20:50
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I usually have no problems falling asleep. I tend to wake up a few times to toss around though, and with age my lower back gives me issues when I lie in bed too long. I have heard that stuff like smartphones, computers and media make insomnia worse, but the easiest, sure fire way to get me to sleep is to lie in bed and watch something on youtube on my phone, just prop the phone on a pillow and watch. I'll be fighting to stay awake inside 10 minutes. And yes it can be something I find interesting and want to watch. The opposite of sleep hygiene basically.
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Oct 5, 2020 16:54
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yaffle posted:Truth, I slept like a dog until my late thirties, now I fall unconscious at nine and wake up at three, very annoying, especially on days when I have work early and can't go back to sleep at six like my stupid brain wants me to. 9-3 is six hours though which is actually not a terrible amount of sleep for someone in their forties. Maybe you just need to go to bed later. Geisladisk fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Oct 5, 2020 |
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Oct 5, 2020 17:38
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I haven't been sleeping so good recently. Probably because I got promoted to a full-time position. It's a great position in a great job, but it has its stress. Also, I've finally started getting work dreams. And they've been so weird I can't even remember most of them. Maybe I need a bit better sleep hygiene (doing sleepy things like ASMR an hour before sleep), but mostly I think I'm a bit too lazy with weights and working out. I should be doing more weights more times a week. But I convince myself that I'm too tired to exercise, even though I'm not.
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Oct 13, 2020 17:01
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I have central congenital hyopventilation syndrome, a severe and rare form of sleep apnea. In layman's terms, the part of the brain that basically makes breathing automatic for most people is a manual process for me. So I chronically underbeath. If I go to sleep without my Bipap, or am knocked unconscious or pass out, that could be a deadly situation for me. While there are many forms of sleep apnea and some people with it can sleep some nights without their vent, or that it only assists them in breathing, for me, the machine breathes for me at night. That said, I am relatively healthy otherwise and I've always slept really well except for the past year or so. About a year and a half ago, my vent settings (unbeknownst to me, at least I don't believe this was clearly communicated to me by my doctor) were adjusted below what they historically had been around the time I got a new Bipap. And I started to sleep in. At one point I bought it up to my doctor and he said sometimes people adjust sleep patterns as they age but to let him know if anything further develops. A few months later I start feeling fatigued during the day and am even dosing off at my desk, something I never used to do. I kind of write it off as just not getting enough sleep...at some point, I start bloating up from water weight and my wife purchased an oximeter, and my oxygen levels were in the loving 60s. Trip to the ER, they give me diuretics for water weight and oxygen. Bipap settings adjusted back to historic rates, and I'm still on night time oxygen but hope to be back off that soon enough, and I'm back to waking up early much to my wife's disappointment.
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Oct 15, 2020 20:17
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I posted this in goon doctor so I thought I'd just link it instead of pasting or rewriting it. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3943823#post508895016
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Oct 16, 2020 23:17
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With one eye open Gripping my pillow tight
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Oct 17, 2020 07:31
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I've been living with chronic pain for the last 3 years. I get very little sleep
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Oct 17, 2020 18:40
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I sleep pretty great, in bed by 10 or 11 and up around 5 for work. But then there's my hiking days. I'll be up around 3am, drive 3 hours, hike anywhere between 15--32 miles with thousands of feet of climbing, go home, and get absolutely lovely sleep. Last week I got one hour on Sunday night. And then maybe once every two months I just won't be able to sleep on a work night. I sleep pretty well but I often find myself falling asleep at work around 1pm. Maybe I need more regular exercise or something
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Oct 17, 2020 20:52
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I'm super jealous of people who can just fall asleep. I've gradually figured out that I'm just not very good at recognizing when I need to sleep - I can spend half a night tossing and turning, while other times I'll lie down for a rest after dinner thinking I'm totally awake and suddenly wake up 8 hours later, fully clothed. Things that have helped me: -Getting everything ready for bed ahead of time. If the urge to sleep comes, I'll drop everything and do it. If I have to get up to brush my teeth, I'll start doing something and stay awake for another couple hours. -Cutting down on alchohol increased the quality of my sleep a hundredfold. -Not working nights -Reading books and articles that are only a little interesting. If it's a proper page turner, it'll keep me up. Every couple weeks there's a night where or two where I just can't sleep. Anxiety probably, but there's only so much that can be done - life is never stress free. Good luck OP! E: Melatonin helps reset my sleep schedule, but it's very dose dependent. Usually half a pill is right, too much and my sleep cycle gets all screwy and I wake up/pass out like 10 times in a night. Seen the same result in friends, the dosage depends on body weight, I think. Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 18, 2020 09:07
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Fruits of the sea posted:I'm super jealous of people who can just fall asleep. Growing up, when I saw people do that on tv and in films - for years I genuinely thought this was just an on-screen convention (like people not locking cars) that didn't reflect the reality because I'd always take at least an hour or two, often more, to fall asleep.
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Oct 18, 2020 19:28
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for my entire life (im 33) ive been a light switch. go to bed, out within 5-10 minutes every night. my problem is that often i wanna sleep for 10 or 12 hours
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Nov 3, 2020 10:28
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I am usually a really sound sleeper. I can, in theory, also fall asleep withing 10 minutes no matter how stressed or anxious I am. Having a newborn kind of threw a wrench into that for the last couple of months. But even before that I would, for a couple of nights every month, be almost totally unable to sleep even if I was dead tired because of how, for lack of a better word, "uncomfortable" my legs felt. I have always been utterly unable to describe the feeling to another person accurately, but it is as if my legs are in an uncomfortable position no matter what I do and I have this constant maddening urge to move them. This sometimes lasts hours. It sounds almost exactly like Restless Leg Syndrom except that I have it nowhere near as often as I should if I actually had it.
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Nov 3, 2020 16:28
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I sleep all right when left alone, but the problem is that I'm not left alone. Most nights my sleep is interrupted by this horrible noise. It takes me a couple seconds of grogginess to realize that it's my alarm clock. It seems like it would be simple enough to just prevent it from going off, but it turns out that if I don't keep this torture device in an active state I will, in due time, lose my livelihood.
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Nov 3, 2020 22:25
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So, my work roster is unusual; every month is two weeks of morning shift, two weeks of evenings. Mornings means waking up at 05:30 for a 07:00 start, and usually that's fine. But finally I'm a full-time contracted employee, not a casual, so that's every day for two weeks getting up early. So that's fine. And two weeks of sleep ins for evening shift. But I've worked here for three years, and it's only once I became full-time that I started getting Work Dreams. And they're not really that bad. Just work poo poo. But I feel like, if I have to deal with work poo poo, I should at least be getting paid for it. Because that poo poo interferes with my Adventure-Dreams, which are loving gold. Seriously, I'm building up wealth here. I plan on retiring within the next 20 years. I don't want my retirement-goony life to be hosed with work-dreams. I want to be playing computer games until I die, and dreaming Adventure-Dreams where I can save-scum out of teeth nightmares, not worrying about stupid work poo poo. To answer your question though, I think my saving grace is walking to and from work. It's about 2.5 km, and that's not that much, but it's nice, despite the fact there are always cops around this one area. Add those 6k steps from my commute, to all the running around I do at work, and I average 10k easy. So once I get home and work out for a bit, I can just fall asleep.
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Nov 6, 2020 14:59
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I’ve always had sleep problems but it’s only gotten worse lately. I have the most issues when it comes to getting to sleep, and also typically wake up at least once during a normal rest period to use the bathroom. I’m pretty sure most of my problems can be attributed to diet / weight, though I was told by my parents it was an issue even when I was a baby so who knows. I find myself using sleep medication fairly frequently and it always tends to mess me up the following day. I also use earplugs and blackout curtains which I’ve found can help me out, especially living in a noisy apartment, though also wonder if they contribute to sleeping in more often than I should. Out of curiosity for those who have gone through the process, how did you schedule a sleep study and how much did it cost you? I have some fairly minimal insurance so I’m sure it’d be out of pocket, but the idea is tempting if it could correct my issues.
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Nov 20, 2020 10:50
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I've always done fairly well at falling asleep. With the birth of our child 5 years ago, I changed my sleeping habits from around 12-7am to match his waking time (between 5-6am) which was roughly going to bed between 9-9:30pm which I've maintained since. Despite him sleeping more reliably toward 6:00am these days, years of getting up at 5am for him "trained" the loving cats to pester me so I still get up at that time to feed them them. During the week I have to start doing morning work/daycare stuff at 6am, so I just stay up after feeding the cats. This eventually catches up with me and after putting our child down at 8:30, I'd say there's a 50% chance I'll be tired enough to just go to our bedroom and turn in for the night. On the weekends getting another hour or so before child wakes up is becoming more reliable. Also on weekends I LOVE to nap. I feel refreshed (like I'm actually doing something important to recharge myself on my day off) and it's not even a big time commitment. Its rare for my body to allow me to sleep more than an hour, so if I can get in a nap on each day off, I feel fantastic. The biggest problems that affect me are some kind of stress about work or a project that of course, affect me after waking up for a 3am pee. One thing that has seemed to help in the past year, despite increased work stress, is drinking water (around 8 oz cup we keep in the bathroom) before I go to bed and after I pee. In 47 years, I've never done this before, but I feel like something about being better hydrated must play a role in staving off that "3am and your brain is UP" poo poo. I swear I can feel my body absorbing it and feeling a relief I never quite knew it needed. Finally, if I'm tired, I'm loving tired and no amount of TV, light, or even caffeine from coffee will keep me awake. If I allow myself to get invested/interested in TV/browsing/something I can stay up beyond my normal bedtime, but I seem to have developed a remarkable way of controlling that which I take for granted that many others don't have.
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Nov 22, 2020 19:22
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Nanomachine Son posted:I’ve always had sleep problems but it’s only gotten worse lately. I have the most issues when it comes to getting to sleep, and also typically wake up at least once during a normal rest period to use the bathroom. I’m pretty sure most of my problems can be attributed to diet / weight, though I was told by my parents it was an issue even when I was a baby so who knows. Please don't be hard on yourself about diet or weight. It's difficult to make major dietary/exercise changes, especially if you aren't getting good quality sleep. I know I consume much less sugar and caffeine now that I'm actually having restful sleep at night. I also want to note that even after my 100-pound weight loss and getting two surgeries to remove obstructions from my airway, I still have a mild form of obstructive sleep apnea and narcolepsy. I will say that making diet/exercise changes was much easier for me AFTER I got both of my sleep disorders properly diagnosed and treated. I always feel so bad when I see people talk about how they should change their diet before they go to a sleep doctor because I remember how much harder it was for me to control that stuff when I felt constantly exhausted. quote:Out of curiosity for those who have gone through the process, how did you schedule a sleep study and how much did it cost you? I have some fairly minimal insurance so I’m sure it’d be out of pocket, but the idea is tempting if it could correct my issues. Unfortunately I don't remember how much my tests cost me. There was one overnight sleep study where I paid ~$1200 out of pocket because insurance refused to cover it, but for the others I think I only paid the copay. (I'm not a medical professional of any kind so someone please correct any inaccuracy in the below text! I'm just a patient. Please check with your medical team about the best option for your situation.) There are a few kinds of sleep studies: - at-home overnight sleep study: In my experience this is the one more likely to be covered by insurance but it doesn't pick up nearly as much information as an in-lab sleep study. The doctor might have the study kit at their office and will send you home with it, then tell you to bring it back at your follow-up. I haven't had one of these in several years, but from what I remember it had something to track my pulse that connected to my finger, and plastic tubes to put near my mouth/nose to track my breathing. Please note that while the test is inexpensive, it might not pick up on certain sleep disorders. For example, this test did not detect my mild obstructive sleep apnea. I also don't think it would be able to detect narcolepsy or certain other sleep disorders because it can't track brain waves. - in-lab overnight sleep study/polysomnography: In this study, the sleep technician can observe your heart rate, breathing pattern, snoring, brain waves, eye movements, blood oxygen level, body position and chest/abdominal/limb movement. I've heard some health insurance policies will cover the in-lab sleep study if the at-home overnight sleep study doesn't detect anything (the idea being that the expense is now justified for the more sensitive test) or if your doctor pushes them to cover the study from the get-go. My GP and ENT had me make the appointment myself at one of the sleep centers in their hospital system. When I switched to seeing a neurologist specializing in sleep medicine, he worked at a clinic that had its own sleep lab on-site so I just made an appointment with his receptionist. - MSLT: you stay in the lab the next day after your in-lab so your doctor can gather brain wave data as you take 4-5 naps. (note: I think this one is typically only done when the doctor is concerned you have narcolepsy or idiopathic hypersomnia) EDIT: some doctors might ask you to wean off certain prescriptions (mainly stimulants and certain psychiatric meds) for two weeks prior to a sleep study. This is because certain medications can affect your sleep (for example some antidepressants can reduce the amount of REM sleep you have at night). Please know that some doctors will allow you to take the test without weaning. I myself couldn't stop my antidepressant so I'm glad none of my doctors asked me to stop it prior to my overnight sleep studies. legsarerequired fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Nov 24, 2020 |
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Nov 23, 2020 03:41
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I haven't slept more than a couple hours at a stretch for fifteen years, maybe twenty. I'm just too on edge and alert, I have crazy good hearing and a brain that won't shut up. I pop awake at the slightest provocation. My wife turns over? I'm up. Cat jumps on bed? I'm up. Strange noise anywhere in the house? Oh you bet I'm up. It's independent of activity level or exhaustion. My body would love to pass the gently caress out after days of working at the barn or whatever, but my brain just doesn't go for it. It makes me want to sleep for twelve hours because the quality is so poor, I feel like I gotta make up for it in quantity and I've literally never awoken feeling rested. Actually I have, the two times I was put under with propofol for endoscopies, lmao. It felt incredible to wake up. Dangerous, probably.
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Nov 23, 2020 05:53
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As far back as I can remember into childhood, even before I was school age, I've had issues falling asleep and staying asleep at night. I went through most of school on somewhere between 2 and 4 hours of sleep a day because it usually took me until 4 or 5 am to fall asleep, which resulted in me spending a lot of my class time getting poo poo done as fast as possible so I could spend the rest of the hour sleeping at my desk, though I have also fallen asleep in the hallways etc. I pretty much can't quiet my mind no matter how much I try poo poo like meditation or various "the military totally swears by it!" sleep bullshit so that's probably related. It's extreme enough that even going 24 hours or longer without sleep then trying to sleep at night doesn't really make a difference, I either will be unable to sleep despite being incredibly tired, or I'll get an hour or two and wake up feeling normal. It doesn't really matter how tired I am standing up or sitting down, once I lie down that stops immediately. For whatever reason, if I go to sleep at or near dawn I sleep better, possibly related to the light, and usually end up getting between 4 to 6 hours, though as with Gunshow Poophole I never really feel that refreshed feeling people say is supposed to happen so sleep just kinda feels like a chore that I hate having to do since regardless if it's actual sleep or a nap I still feel drained once I wake up, so it just ultimately feels like a literal waste of time. Never done a sleep study, though I have tried sleeping medication (doesn't help). Never had insurance that covers a study nor spare money to pay for it, I pretty much just accept it as a fact of life for myself and approach anything other people have to say about how easy or great sleep is with extreme suspicion. Mostly I just tailor my life around a fairly solitary nocturnal schedule and that allows me to sleep in what I can only assume is my natural, day-sleep pattern without torturing myself trying and failing to sleep a night pattern. Shima Honnou fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Nov 23, 2020 |
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Nov 23, 2020 11:34
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Shima Honnou posted:As far back as I can remember into childhood, even before I was school age, I've had issues falling asleep and staying asleep at night. I went through most of school on somewhere between 2 and 4 hours of sleep a day because it usually took me until 4 or 5 am to fall asleep, which resulted in me spending a lot of my class time getting poo poo done as fast as possible so I could spend the rest of the hour sleeping at my desk, though I have also fallen asleep in the hallways etc. I pretty much can't quiet my mind no matter how much I try poo poo like meditation or various "the military totally swears by it!" sleep bullshit so that's probably related. It's extreme enough that even going 24 hours or longer without sleep then trying to sleep at night doesn't really make a difference, I either will be unable to sleep despite being incredibly tired, or I'll get an hour or two and wake up feeling normal. It doesn't really matter how tired I am standing up or sitting down, once I lie down that stops immediately. Man, falling asleep at school brings back bad memories for me. I remember I'd get this distinct feeling of failing to keep myself awake and typically run into a problem during at least one morning class. It served more as something to be chastised over rather than get anything looked at either. I think one of the consistent things I can find about keeping myself awake is it's highly dependent on having something meaningful to do like go to the airport, work, or driving. It was always the moment that I'd need to sit down for a meeting or lecture that I'd get that sensation of drifting off. Weirdly I still can't manage to fall asleep in cars or planes, the only times it'd actually be useful. legsarerequired posted:There are a few kinds of sleep studies: This is really helpful info, I had assumed most of the studies involved a much more drawn out process, let alone having anything that worked at-home. My Dad had one done several years ago, ending up with a BPAP machine - while he was incredibly reluctant to use it he admitted it was the best level of sleep he'd had in memory.
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Nov 23, 2020 14:01
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 11:23 |
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I've always slept poorly due to anxiety and sleep apnea, even as a kid, and it only got worse when I became a teenager and my night anxiety really kicked in and the apnea ramped up. I was very poor in high school and college so both went completely untreated, which, in retrospect, is totally insane to me because the amount of suffering I went through was extreme. I had agonizing headaches most days, I was almost always tired, and my general mental health was terrible, depressed and on-edge most of the time, and at night when I couldn't sleep I would spiral into violent panic attacks. ACA meant I was able to access sleep therapy, and was given a CPAP, which literally changed my entire life overnight. The headaches went away, I could think clearly, and I could get through an entire day unfogged and energized. A couple years later, I moved to Canada, and one of the first things my doctor did was prescribe me Zoloft, which, with the CBT I'd been doing previously, lifted a huge amount of mental stress off my shoulders, mostly by giving me the ability to process my emotions before reacting to them. Now, if I can't sleep, it's more of an inconvenience. I can feel the irritation, but instead of exploding immediately into boiling rage, I can rationalize it and just get out of bed for a bit, or put on a chill youtube video, etc. I think the primary collective effect of sleep therapy, mental therapy, and Zoloft is that I now have the mental wherewithal and actual physical energy to take better care of myself, which in turn allows for better sleep (and a better life). The amount of suffering people go through because they don't have access to these things is so loving sad. Over a decade of my life was arbitrarily handicapped by two health problems.
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Nov 24, 2020 18:50
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