Thirty hours of snow and wind and still it flies past the window, still is sighs in the chimney. Massive wave-shaped drifts in exposed places, no snow to speak of on my car in the shelter of the house.
The sleep adventure continues. Averaging less than four hours all week I was taking sleepiness to a whole new level, and not just in the evenings. Fortunately yesterday the blizzards closed our school so I got a very welcome day of rest. A bit two-edged though as I was falling asleep reading, falling asleep in the bath, falling asleep doing the sudoku, falling asleep colouring, falling asleep watching programmes on the iPlayer. The only antidote to stand up, move about, dance. Then last night my body rebelled and I developed vertigo around 10.30. Not acute, but enough to tell me it was time for bed. I went at 11.30, an hour before my 'sleep window' and slept! 5.5 hours at this point seems a treasure trove of repose. The vertigo is still here, but not too bad this morning, and I am a little less abjectly exhausted and at least not sleepy just yet. Beginning to take this thing into my own hands. I think 11.30 will be the new bed time as 5.5 hours in bed was running me ragged with sleep deprivation, far far worse than when simply suffering from insomnia and that can't be right. 6.5 hours I can work with.
6 comments:
That's not bad at all. And it will get better, patience, patience. When I went through this, I used to walk up and down the stairs and once around the garden and back up and down the stairs and so on to stay awake.
What about rituals? Hop/valerian tea at 10:30 pm, drinking and listening to the world service, foot bath at 11:00 pm, diary entry at 11:30 pm and so on? You can do that for many nights in a row and not feel too bad about it.
Good luck, ggod luck, good luck!!
All that snow on top of the sleeplessness seems definitely a bit much!
Your accounts of how tired and sleepy you feel are really making me think, since I quite rarely sleep for more than 3 or 4 hours - I guess I no longer recognise extreme tiredness as that, but only berate myself for not having much energy.
Comparisons are meaningless, really though - everyone's metabolism is unique.
Hoping for a near future featuring less snow and more sleep.
Forgot to include this, I followed it religiously during the weeks of no sleep at all. If anything, it calmed me down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aoOlUWO_ak&playnext=1&list=PL05046AEB9F79228A&feature=results_main
I suppose it's something a bit like sleep whispering: instead of chasing after sleep which eludes and escapes you all the time, you turn your back on it, push it away, so it comes looking for you, banging on the door and begging to be admitted! But it seems worrying to be in such a state when you have to drive and otherwise function safely. Glad you had the day off. Saw the pictures of the snow drifts in your part of the world, awesome, and rather scary!
I'm going back on the melatonin as I have slithered into not sleeping till the small hours again.
Do you take a calcium/magnesium supplement? It can be helpful. I really notice when I forget to take them for a while.
Sleep whispering is great! Watch for a post of the same name...
Suffering the sleepy end of the day now but two nights of 5.5 hours have helped the overall tiredness. Driving has been ok so far, though just on the edge of not alright on Thursday, so glad of the day off on Friday.
Thanks for ideas and shared experience Sabine. I have a bodyscan recording from another source. Great for making me fall asleep!! Mostly I never actually hear it. I have Kabat Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living, which I have only dabbled in so far, but I like him.
Signs, ok maybe I should try that. Used to take multi vit and mineral but stopped to save money...
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