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What you describe Daf, is similar to what I experience. There’s a host of physical symptoms that come with not sleeping at all. In addition to the depression, anxiety and lack of appetite, I also experience nausea, intense headaches, over-sensitive and painful skin, pain in my legs, light sensitivity and related pain, weakness and heaviness.
Then there’s the mental side: emotional instability, overthinking, inability to concentrate, difficulty with speaking and memory (literally periods where I can’t remember what was happening from moment to moment or a stretch of days I remember nothing about), hallucinations etc.
And, just like you said, as soon as I get reasonable ( I won’t go so far as to say good) sleep, all of these things vanish and I feel normal again. You’re definitely not alone in feeling as you do.
When life seems very bleak as you describe, the way I tend to think is that all of it is temporary, and that even though it won’t be ideal, you will get at least a little sleep in the future.
Hi Martin. The reason why I say that I don’t think these techniques have worked is because I have yet to see any positive change with this latest run (so far going for 1.5 months), and because during the last run (approx. 10 months), I didn’t see positive change/results either. In fact, during the 10 month run, my sleep became significantly worse.
The sleep restriction window I started with was about 7.5 hours, which, based on how I felt in the morning, was completely inadequate. At present I’m looking at a window of about 8.5 or 8.75 hours. That’s somewhat better, but it’s still very much a struggle for me to function.
The question about stimulus control is a little trickier to answer. I would say that I have roughly four hours of “true” sleep a night. Following that four hours, I will come to full awareness, and then for the remainder of my time in bed, I will drift in and out from full awareness to semi-aware (for example I’ll be aware of sounds or of what’s happening, but it won’t disturb me/I will have strange thoughts or things almost like dreams that don’t strike me as strange until fully awake). I think that this is likely me going in-between being awake and Stage 1 of sleep, though I can’t be sure.
Because I’m not usually 100% awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering why I can’t sleep during these periods, I don’t get out of bed. However, if I am completely awake and unable to sleep – which also happens – then I will get out of bed. I would say that I would usually only get out of bed once or twice if that were to happen.
Do you have any ideas about why it not be working for me?
I had sleep apnea as a child because my tonsils were too big for my size – but I grew out of it. I think they wanted to check to see if anything like that could potentially be the cause. I believe the studies to come are meant to be looking in depth at my “sleep architecture,” and I think trying to determine how much time I actually spend in each stage of sleep.
I haven’t tried the more usual ones, no, but I suppose after the next study I’ll hear what the doctor says.
That’s okay, I appreciate the sentiment all the same.
The people who did the sleep study are primarily focused on respiratory issues and sleep, so they advised me to go abroad to a more comprehensive sleep clinic. I’ve done so, but all I’ve been told so far is I need to do more sleep studies – the take home ones that are less stressful – and to try CBT-I again in the interim.
That will happen sometime next month.
I understand that struggle. It’s really easy to feel embarrassed or like you’re overreacting to what’s going on when all you can say is “I’m tired.” People probably don’t understand that what you mean isn’t a missed night of sleep here and there, but an unrelenting lack of sleep.
I suggest telling them, yes, but making a particular effort to explain why it’s so hard for you. Ask them to imagine the least sleep they’ve ever experienced, and how awful it made them feel, and then to imagine what that must be like to experience constantly.
Maybe you could direct them to some resources that explain some of the things that insomnia can cause/what it’s like. There are a even a few helpful short videos to that effect.
I doubt you’ll come across as crazy. Good luck.
