Insomnia.

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.

Past the point where I will vet even one four hour REM cycle. Hello walls!

Zero hours of sleep last night, fun fun fun. I can take the brain derangement but the constant feeling like I'm about to have a heart attack is, well, killing me.

Nytol works well for me, you can get it over the counter without prescription. Weirdly the other thing that works for me is the Calm app in which you have various soothing-voiced people (even Matthew McConaughey pops up) to read you a bedtime story.

Is that the free or premium version of that app?

Premium

There's a great podcast called The Maritime History Podcast that used to knock me right out. It took me months to make it past Hammurabi. But then my brain got used to that, and started a new trick: letting me go to sleep for about an hour from midnight to 1am, then waking me back up again for the rest of the night. The night before last I didn't sleep at all and eventually got up at 5:30.

It definitely helps me to get some exercise during the day and not eat late at night, and to avoid alcohol. But those things only help. They don't guarantee sleep.

“Nytol will help you get your zzzzzzzzs” = jingles u will never get out of your sleep deprived head

Come on over to this thread, LL: Thread for random old TV voiceover/announcer phrases that pop into your head

it's baaaaaaaaaack. but now I have an anxiety-cause to some of it. pretty much for the majority of the year, some nights I try to go to sleep, and feel like every time I start to go under, I jolt awake, and my heart races and it repeats over and over for an hour or so until finally I fall asleep (or don't). it only started when I acquired an assload of stress and usually on nights when I have a lot in my head at bedtime.

also it's long past time I do a sleep study. i am 99% sure I have apnea, p much everybody in my family does.