Insomnia.

Ridiculous twitching in sleep. Should I be worried? Any obvious remedies?

I'm in love with the sleep w/me podcast, don't know why it works on me but it does. I also use sleep phones (wear them round my eyes so it doubles as a mask). I still don't get great sleep as I always wake up & have trouble getting back to sleep.

I'm not great at limiting exposure to screens just before bed, as I expect is the case for many of us. Also the advise is usually not to have a tv in your bedroom, use the bedroom only for sleeping & other rooms for waking activities &c, which always makes me think "well that's me fucked then" since my bedroom is my sitting room

quiet, boring podcasts and longreading in bed worked for me, which i realise arent two of the big recommendations

Djh - whole body twitching or just legs?

Whole body.

If you're still using the magnesium oil and it's not helping the twitching, maybe give your dr a call

My brother-in-law had bad leg cramping in his sleep. It turned out their well water had high amounts of heavy metals. They installed an expensive filtration system and underwent a metals detoxification program for six months. I have no idea if this has any bearing on your twitching problem, but decided I ought to mention it to let you know that the source of physical problems it isn't always obvious without seeing a physician.

Thanks for the advice.

Has anybody ever tried melatonin in the morning? Apparently if you take it after the sun comes up it actually helps you wake up. I have not tried this because I am worried it would have the same effect it has at night. Or, if it seems to work, my brain will compute that all melatonin is bullshit placebo sugar pills and it will stop working when I need it to help me sleep.

What does a sleep study actually involve (in the UK)?

?

Anyone find white noise helps for insomnia? I use it for anxiety and it helps greatly. Some online suggest it works wonders for sleep as well

Insomnia has been so bad over the last few nights I'm dreading even trying to go to sleep. Fucking fuck.

What have you tried so far?

Lots of things over the years. I'm kind of used to poor sleep but every now and then I'll have a spell that seems intolerable.

"Sleep hygiene", alcohol, no alcohol, sensible coffee drinking (helpful), magnesium spray (usually helpful), Z-drugs (waste me the next day to the point of ... pointlessness), silence, music, sounds. Not quite sure what is out of kilter.

i dont usually have full blown insomina but i do have trouble getting to sleep sometimes. a GABA supplement has really changed that. i actually fall asleep against my will sometimes. no idea how/if it's working or just a placebo but there's definitely been a change. worth a shot if you're desperate.

xps are you still suffering from the body-twitching?

have you tried weed? or a sedative prescription from your doc yet?

Twitching is bad at the moment.

Not a massive fan of sedatives (just feel groggy the next day); have occasionally found them useful to get back into a sleep pattern but resisting for the moment.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why-lack-of-sleep-health-worst-enemy-matthew-walker-why-we-sleep

rip ilx

I think I've lost the ability to sleep without drinking. I've twice taken a day off recently and been up all night. And my dog mocks me by loudly snoring by my side all night...

try taking more than one day off -- idk how much you are drinking, but alcohol is very disruptive to the length and quality of your sleep even if it seems to plunk you down into sleepsville faster than nothing.

I'm an alcoholic - it has just been a long time since I've gone without. I managed six months a few years ago, but a manic episode felled me. Which is actually what I think is going on now - there's a bunch of stuff I'm noticing that tends to happen when I'm manic. Hopefully just a bump, though.

Sorry, I just need to vent. I woke up at 2:30 this morning. About an hour and a half before my alarm at 4. Laid there in bed for half an hour before I decided to drop a melatonin and reset my alarm to 4:30. Melatonin never really kicked in even though I washed it down with some chamomile tea. Decided to get up at 4 anyway. Finally on the bus into work around 630 I started feeling sleepy again, but couldn't give in and let it wash over me. Now I'm just sitting here at my desk slothful and miserable.

fucking hell

i haven't slept through the night in weeks

idgi

I listen to podcasts — it takes my mind off of stressing about not being able to
sleep and also I feel like I am learning something. Right now I’m listening to The Fall of Rome but I always fall asleep in the middle of an episode and am not sure where I should start again. This one is pretty straightforward but I’ve listened to more creepy/ engrossing ones and it still worked. I often get really interested and then the next thing I know I can barely stay awake.

GP has referred me to a sleep clinic and I have the options of "Home Sleep Studies" at the Churchill, Oxford or "Overnight Sleep Studies" at the John Radcliffe ... Genuine question: what's the difference?

This comes with the usual disclaimer of: I know here isn't the right place to ask this.

For me - home sleep study = self-placement of all the monitor electrodes (upper torso/neck/head), bad night's sleep in my own bed; overnight sleep study = technician placement of all monitor electrodes including leg monitoring, semi-decent but short night's sleep in a hotel room-like setting.

gaaaaah

Jesus fuck I am going insane.

Never been a problem in my life before now. the problem is multi-faceted:

1) I cannot get my brain to settle down enough to go to sleep. I lay down and a myriad of issues and worries just flood it, which even despite me being an anxiety patient, never happened pre-COVID. it's like a stream of permanent dread and sadness.

2) Sleep aids, which used to be the solution, have outright stopped working. half the time they do nothing.

3) time of sleep doesn't help either. I go to bed early, I go to bed on time, I go to bed late, it makes no difference...it still takes me until very late to get to sleep if it happens at all

4) i have a real hard time pulling myself away from things at night to go to sleep, as well. I become a news junkie at 12 am. sometimes I have to find articles that put my mind more at ease.

5) Part of it is also that I don't do things anymore to tire myself out. I was a night owl prior to the pandemic, so in a given week, I used to go out 4-5 times, if not more. concerts, movies, hangouts with friends, bars, etc....so I'd be mentally and physically spent. now, it's just...sitting in my room working, not much else. I think i'm going to try exercising before bed to tire myself out.

any other suggestions?...I'm going on like 3-4 hours of sleep in 3 days.

do you meditate? do you go for long walks to exhaust yourself like a dog (i do)?

learning some meditation practices and focusing on breathing is the only thing that has worked aside from drugs, and if they don't work anymore i would suggest trying to practice some meditation techniques to re-focus your brain on rest.

also exercise helps

or even having a sleep cue, like the smell/taste of a certain type of herbal tea or an essential oil. you're trying to retrain your brain to read the cues so you need to establish some cues that indicate to your brain TIME 2 REST NOW

Sympathy, I have this very badly right now too and it's the same dynamic... I sorta stopped fighting it for a bit because that's even more draining. I just stay up until I drop from exhaustion. I'm lucky in that I talked to my boss about it and have the sort of job where I can work any 40 hours in a given week so she is OK with my random schedule. For me it's just hopeless to address it until the election is over and the course of COVID-19 is a little more clear... those external stressors are just too strong. I'll revisit attempting to "fix" it in January.

I also figured out if I go out for a walk there are places outside (on our college campus mainly) that I can sleep for an hour or so. I can't really sleep in my bedroom anymore.

also be careful exercising before bed, it can have the opposite effect. calm, slow stretching works very well but as a runner, I learned that going for a run less than about four hours before bedtime means my body is still too jazzed from aerobic exercise to fall asleep.

Yeah, some of the things people always recommend (exercise, meditation, stop screen time well before bed, don't drink coffee after at certain point on the day) do seem to work. You mention sleep aids, do you mean prescription/otc stuff? Because I find melatonin to be really effective, but that seems to differ from person to person. And alcohol is bad for a good night's sleep, period, but we all know that, too.

Re: exercise, sometimes just a walk is enough, just to let your brain settle. My wife has stopped running but goes for a 2-mile walk every morning (and sometimes at the end of the day) and she swears by the effects.

One trickier solution that sometimes works is a change of scenery. I've never had insomnia, but I have a good friend who suffers from anxiety, which leads to insomnia, and she said a trip they just took as a family really helped her catch up on rest, because it forced her to take a break from many of the things/triggers that cause her anxiety. But that's another different strokes/folks sort of thing. A trip with my family is the last thing I would want right now.

Interesting and counterintuitive, I find that if I feel tired and go to bed too early I actually not only often wake up in the middle of the night but have trouble waking up in the morning. But when I go to bed later, I generally have less of a problem waking up earlier, even if I get fewer hours.

I can't really sleep in my bedroom anymore.

Huge bummer — time to rearrange the home for a reset. That’s the worst feeling, to be triggered by the idea of sleeping in xyz area and I relate. I have to reset myself a lot!! I’m very easily conditioned :(

the thing that has worked for me honestly has been finding some podcasts I can listen to as I “go to sleep”. It keeps me from ruminating on myself/life and kinda promotes a sort of semi-hypnotic state. before I started doing this, I would generally just fill up with existential despair anytime my head hit the pillow. I would stay up way too late because it was the only way I knew to “get sleepy”. The podcast listening initially just helped manage the obsessive thoughts, filled in the empty space. But soon enough I started falling asleep like 15-20 minutes after turning the light off (at which point I groggily take my earbud out and stab the pause button on my iphone before conking out)

the worst part... (does this happen to anyone else?) is when you notice yourself getting sleepy and get so excited at the prospect of sleep that... you are no longer getting sleepy

well that’s not the worst part

I have another friend who has trouble sleeping who often successfully winds down and falls asleep to audio books. Typically non-fiction.

thanks everybody, I will try all of these things. did try melatonin once, it had mixed effects on me, but i wouldn't be opposed to another round.

the weird thing is I don't have a gauge on how tired I actually am because I do so little in a given day now.

Have you tried doing the thing where you keep a notebook by the side of your bed and write down the things you're stressing about so you can deal with them at another time? I've never tried it myself, but I've heard it helps get your brain off the hamster wheel.

I've also read that part of the purpose of sleep is to let your brain sort through memories from the day and forget the unimportant ones. So when I'm lying awake stressing about something little that happened that day, I try to tell myself that I don't even know yet if it's worth thinking about, because my brain hasn't had a chance to do its overnight sorting and processing. This may not work for you but I find it weirdly comforting.

Forgot to mention one of the most effective things I have tried --
the weighted blanket!

When I go to the dentist (where I have a lot of problems), I always wear the lead x-ray vest the whole time, and it really helps. Turns out a weighted blanket is like that only huge. I just put mine back on the bed and it's really helping me fall back asleep when i wake up at 3am with my mind racing.

There are some cons: it can be hot and they aren't exactly cheap. But that's it! Otherwise, I love mine and it really helps.

Ugh

yeah this shit is making my life impossible basically

I’ve managed to avoid it for a long time but tonight’s the night tonight. I’m kind of emotionally high for various reasons, and in my head I am having a future conversation I am looking forward to, this internal dialogue which I can’t turn off, an old habit I long ago broke myself since it’s the kind of expectation that brings disappointment, or so I’ve heard, oh wait, actually experienced firsthand many times.