[Steve]

I mentioned in another post that every time I think I am turning the corner on insomnia, something happens to set me back. However, another good thing (I think) happened last night that makes me think that. Some background first. My insomnia started in late October of 2018 and the low point of it was the first week in February when I went four days on one hour’s sleep. For a month, the doctor’s had me on all sorts of sleeping pills, benzos and anti-depressants. However, they either didn’t work, worked only a couple days, or they didn’t work well enough that I wanted to risk long term addiction. I slowly started coming back to where, by early March, I was getting 4 to 5 hours of sleep. It took me awhile to fall asleep and I woke up several times during the night but it was sleep. Also, I would wake up for the final time at 4:00am and could never get back to sleep.

The first bit of good news was starting a week and a half to two weeks ago, I started sleeping to 4:30 to 4:40. That extra 30 to 40 minutes helped a lot. Last week, I even fell back asleep and the alarm woke me up. That hasn’t happened in ages. So I take that as a good sign that I am able to sleep past 4:00am now.

The second good thing happened last night. As I said, I still wake up several times during the night and when I do, I am fully awake and have to start going back to sleep from scratch. It never really took me as long to get back asleep as it did when I initially fell asleep but the key was I was fully awake. Last night, I again woke up several times but I wasn’t fully awake. I was in that half sleep/half awake phase (semi-comatose?) state of sleep. That kind of suggests to me that my sleep arousal was only slightly stronger than my need for sleep (I forget the term for that – sleep buildup?) and that if the former was slightly less or the latter was slightly stronger, I might have been able to stay asleep. I also slept again to 4:30am before waking up for good. So, I think I am improving some. Hopefully.

[delv-x]

Glad to hear! Hopefully the trend continues. There will be good nights and bad. If the good nights get more frequent that’s great. One step and one night at a time.

 

 

[Daf]

Steve,

Have a read of my recent comments on the thread, “How do you feel after a night of nil sleep”

May help you.

[Steve]

Well, the sleep got a little better last night. I did get up after an hour and fiftenn minutes to go to the bathroom but during that time, I may have been in Stage 1 sleep. Then it took maybe 10 minutes to fall back asleep for real with dreams and I slept for maybe a half hour. Then I fell asleep for maybe 4 and a half hours. I might have woken up once during that time but I’m really not sure. if I did though, I fell back to sleep pretty quickly. So I woke up at 3:30 and was afraid that that was all the sleep I was going to get but I did fall asleep after about 5 or 10 minutes and slept till about 4:50. So all in all, I think I got about 6 hours of sleep which is my best yet in a long time. I do not really watch the clock at night but when I have to get up to go to the bathroom, I do see it. I also see it when I wake up just out of habit. But if I’m lying there awake, I don’t look at it most of the time. I am a poor estimator of time so I’m kind of glad I do look at the clock now and then. Otherwise, I would have no idea how long I slept. Even though I got about 6 hours though, I’m not sure it was a deep sleep as I am really fatigued this morning compared to yesterday when I got a little less sleep. I also had an ocular migraine this morning but that could have been because I had to face a very bright sunrise driving in to work. Also, I have to remember that before the insomnia hit, I was really tired at the end of the week anyway. I would just sleep in Saturday to catch up some. Can’t do that anymore. Still, I think I am making progress.

 

The ACT book was delivered yesterday so I am starting to read that. Not sure I can read too much of it tonight as I have some plans but will get to it Friday.

[Author]

Posts