Insomnia?/Tips for good sleep

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

My wife likes to listen to that low grade skanger crap talk show on FM104 at night (sorry I don't know it's name). It drives me nuts. Even when she uses ear phones I can still hear those morons.

I find it very difficult to sleep in advance of requiring it. Some people can do it. I occasionally start work at 4am which means getting up at 3am but I can only go to bed at the regular time the night before.

I have to b up at 5 and go to sleep at 11.sometimes not actually falling asleep until after one.
Shift work is a bitch. The second shift I usually fall asleep straight away.

con___manx1 wrote: »

I have to b up at 5 and go to sleep at 11.sometimes not actually falling asleep until after one.
Shift work is a bitch. The second shift I usually fall asleep straight away.

Ive read several times that long periods of shift work can lower your life expectancy. Highly detrimental to your health.

TP_CM wrote: »

Has anyone tried the 45 minute sleepcasts on Headspace? I'm absolutely loving those at the moment when I wake up at night.

Hi TP_CM. What's your favorite headspace one(s)?

TP_CM wrote: »

Sorry Worztron, I'm only seeing this now. My favourite ones are those "narrated by Simon". He has a David Attenborough type voice. The 2 I go back to are Slow Train and Botanical Gardens. They change it slightly every night to stop me remembering what comes next. Luckily I only need them once or twice a week these days. Last night it was slow train.

I see he also has one called Sandy Cove which i might check out next.

Cheers, TP_CM. I'll check them out.

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Edit: I see Simon is mentioned here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Headspace/comments/jazv10/best_sleepcast_narrator

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Edit: Is this the Simon guy that you mentioned?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OHvPNatlBc

Fathom wrote: »

Interesting article on box breathing.

Hi Fathom. I just tried that. It's great. When I opened my eyes at the 5 minute mark - I was incredibly relaxed. Thank you.

Strumms wrote: »

Certainly had a massive impact on my sleeping and overall wellbeing...

My body and brain hated shift work.. mentioned it before but I dropped about 6 or..7 grand in shift pay to get back on days

There are hundreds if not thousands of studies linking night work to increasing your chances of developing certain cancers, heart problems, strokes...it’s bad for your brain..and body..

No money, and I mean NONE, would entice me to do nights again. Not 100,000 a year.

Sleeping was fücked dot com, wellbeing and energy levels non existent, just couldn’t sleep.


What I found helps me now...

1. Exercising every day. Shortly before bed especially, just 30 minutes on my exercise bike and hit it hard...

2. Ensuring any worries or stresses are sorted and dealt with in my head before bed.. I could be a bit of a worrier so if there was a work or personal situation annoying me, that gets put away now, I’m not lying thinking about it.

3. Good diet, better diet...proven to help... taking your scheduled lunch break at work for the full hour duration regardless of whatever is happening... I used to have a habit of being ‘flexible’.. not now, health first,

Good for you, and I agree you cannot put a price on your health. Diet and exercise are the default things that everyone with sleep troubles should adopt but as we all agree are only a part of the overall puzzle. Find what works for you, Im sleeping a solid 6 hours a night now and I feel great from it, I have a bit of a weird routine now that comes from my the fear I had of getting into bed and rolling around. I fall asleep on the couch every night now then wake up soon after, not sure what time as I dont look and get to bed when I'm sleepy and conk out straight away. Not ideal I know but a whole lot better hat it was as I'm getting 6 hours or sometimes a little more of quality sleep every night.

Fathom wrote: »

MOD Caution. You should consult your GP before doing anything with melatonin.

"OTC melatonin has been banned for years in the United Kingdom (UK), European Union, Japan, Australia and most recently Canada. Exogenous melatonin is not outlawed by these countries but regarded as a medicine, available only by prescription."

Source:
Madeleine M. Grigg-Damberger and Dessislava Ianakieva. Poor Quality Control of Over-the-Counter Melatonin: What They Say Is Often Not What You Get. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 13(2): 163–165 (published online 15 February 2017).

It's openly available in just about every other country on the planet and it is most certainly not banned over-the-counter in Canada.

I posted here a while back because I was suffering from sleep maintenance insomnia. For 10+ years no matter what time I fell asleep (10pm/11pm/12am) I would wake up exactly 5 hours later and lie awake for 2-2.5 hours before suddenly feeling (and looking) absolutely exhausted. The Headspace sleepcasts helped a bit but I decided to try the sleep restriction.

So just as the mornings became brighter about a month ago, I decided to set the strict routine. - Bed at 11:10pm and up out of bed at 4:30am (5 hours after waking).

I tried to stay away from screens during this early morning time. So I got dressed and went downstairs and started studying a foreign language from an old book for about an hour. Then at around 6:30am, when I would normally become absolutely exhausted, I drank 2 cups of coffee and went for a long walk in the sun. I drank quite a bit of coffee then until 2pm.

After 3 days of this, the first thing I noticed was a crash at around 8pm-10pm. I was drunk tired and barely able to function. But I kept all lights on, I kept moving around and going for walks to keep myself awake. Definitely day 4,5, and 6 were very difficult in this way. Presumably the lack of sleep and a coffee/caffeine crash.

By day 7 I started to see results. I slept solid from 11:30pm until 6am. The next day was until 6:30am and eventually I started to sleep from 11:30pm to 7:30am eventhough I might be woken up during the night a couple of times.

It seems to work for me but I would still say that I'm a bad sleeper. A week or so ago, I went to bed after 12am and slept until 7:30 and started looking at emails on my phone in bed and the sleep maintenance insomnia started to happen again the following few nights. So again, I got up early around 6/6:30, and went for walks until it was back in order.

I suppose it's just something I need to be a lot more disciplined at than others. I'm sure bad habits will knock me back again sometime. I do know that lying in bed with my phone seems to really knock me out of a better routine.

Lessons learned -

- Better to do it during bright/dry mornings
- Have literally everything ready for those early hours - clothes/activity/even the coffee mug beside the kettle!
- Learn what time in the afternoon your body crashes - For me it was 5pm-6pm and 8pm-10pm
- No alcohol for those few weeks
- Find a good bed time snack. I have 2 slices of toast with butter about 45 minutes before sleep.
- No coffee after 2pm

I also have to stop myself sleeping past 7:30am to ensure I stay in the routine. Some days, particularly weekends, I find this difficult.

I'm sure I still have a bit to learn about this but these are my findings so far. Just wanted to share them here in case it helps anyone else who has sleep maintenance insomnia.

Counting sheep always works well for me. But it sucks when I wake up in the field early morning, frozen, soaked and covered in sh1t, with some mad farmer shouting in my face.