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Mac, do you take any pills or anything to help you sleep? Prescription or OTC? I take melatonin and magnesium. Other than those, I am at the mercy of whatever my body allows me to sleep that night.
Deb and Mac. I am curious. What are your symptoms you feel after a bad night of sleep? I am weak all over, hard for me to concentrate and I tend to shake as well. I am trying to determine if the shakiness is due to lack of sleep or anxiety? I don’t want to go on pills for anxiety and I really believe the shakiness is due to the lack of sleep. Sometimes I get anxious at the thought of bed but a lot of times I look forward to getting into the warm bed in the dark of night. I just need more sleep.
Sorry to hear it Deb. When you say you had a drink, I presume you mean an alcoholic drink? Did regular CBT-i help you out any? I don’t mind lying in bed if I can’t sleep because I can usually practice meditation exercises and then drift off to sleep, even if it take 30 minutes to an hour to do so. But last night was bad for me as well as I am trying to get off of melatonin. I laid there doing meditation exercises for 2 hours. I finally took the melatonin and fell asleep within 30 minutes. But still, that only gave me about 4 to 4 and a half hours sleep so I am tired today as well. Good luck to you.
I will be starting a sleep deprivation program soon when I start my CBT-i classes this week. But it seems to me it would be hard for me as my sleep is not continuous. I wake up and have periods of non-sleep during the night. So if I do a 5.5 hour window, which is the least I can do, my 4.5 to 5.5 hours of sleep I am getting may fall within a 6.5 to 7.0 hour window. I am therefore cutting off some of the time I would be sleeping. This does seem counter-intuitive but I will give it a shot.
Good luck to you Deb. I really can’t wait for my ACT book to come. I figure I can read it while I am waiting for my bedtime to come. Right now, I haven’t been getting out of bed if I can’t fall asleep in 20 minutes. If I can’t fall asleep right away, I just keep doing my meditation exercises. (Mostly breathing and focusing on that.) Slowly, I will start to relax under the warm blankets and I will drift off to sleep. Sometimes this is 15 to 20 minutes and sometimes it seems to be an hour. Hard to really say as I try not to clockwatch. My real problem right now is the waking up. I feel if I can stop that, I’ll be in good shape. I guess I am getting better in some ways as in January, I couldn’t fall asleep hardly at all. Now I am falling asleep (eventually), but continue to keep waking up.
Have you tried the free insomnia sleep training Martin offers on this site? I am on Day 4 and at the least, it has cleared up some misconceptions about sleep for me which has probably led to some reduced anxiety about sleep on my part. Other than that, I can only tell you that we are all in the same boat here. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
I put in another post that it is very hard for me to judge how much sleep I am actually getting because I try not to watch the clock. My main problem now is that I keep waking up. I do go back to sleep after a little while but it means the sleep I am getting is not continuous and is broken up. I am trying to wean myself off of melatonin to see if the grogginess I feel in the morning is from that. (But it could also be just due to the lack of sleep.) I have managed to stop the time delay melatonin and am just taking 3 mgs of regular melatonin. I also take Magnesium Citrate before I go to bed. I have also discontinued Valerian Root but I might try that again down the road.
Eventually, probably yes. But as Martin says, you truly “don’t ever sleep”. The type of genetic condition you are talking about is very, very, VERY rare. It is called Fatal Familial Insomnia and only about 40 families worldwide have the gene that can cause this. And just because your family may have the gene, you still only have about a 50-50 chance of getting the condition. There are other pryon illnesses that can cause a person to never sleep such as picking up a human form of mad cow disease, also very, very rare. There also was an outbreak in England, back in the 1980’s I believe, of children who were given Human Growth Hormone from human donors who had the illness but once they figured out what was happening, only synthetic, lab produced Human Growth Hormone has been used. Therefore, that path has died out. Lastly, there was an outbreak of that type of disease from neurological instruments that were used in surgery on people who had illnesses of that type but once that was figured out, better sterilization methods were used and that path was also closed.
I know all about this because when I first started getting insomnia, I was convinced I might have this problem although nobody in my family ever had it. Also because right after I had a neuro procedure done, I started having my bouts with insomnia. When we first get insomnia, many of us start researching what possible medical condition we can have. I finally just realized after reading boards like these that I am far from alone and I most likely just had regular insomnia like a lot of other people on here. And when I say “regular”, I don’t mean to trivialize it as we are all suffering from something that has curtailed our lives.
I wish you success with your exercise. I always thought it helped me in that it tired me out so I would have to sleep. How old are you? I just turned 60. If I can keep my job a couple more years, I can retire and then I think this would be easier as I wouldn’t have to worry about getting up and going to work.
I first started having insomnia in late November of 2018. I just woke up after only getting four hours sleep and it got worse from there. In January of this year, I went four days on only one hours sleep. That’s when my doctor put me on Lexipro and Klonopin to help my “anxiety” and get me some sleep. I put that in quotes because I never really believed I had any. They just figure of you have insomnia, you must have depression or anxiety and give you the meds. I didn’t take well to the meds and didn’t want to risk addiction so I got off of them. I started to investigate CBT-i and put into practice some of the principals. I think that’s what got me back to the 4.5 to 5.5 hours sleep but I’m really guessing at that because I try not to watch the clock at night so I’m not really sure exactly how much I’m getting. Have you tried CBT-i? How many hours of sleep are you getting?
I don’t doubt what you say. I was wondering if I was just using it more as a crutch than an actual remedy. I’ll be interested in seeing the video.
I doubt he would try it on the first session but I’ll let everyone know how it went when he does.
I know what you are saying Martin but Melatonin does seem to get me over the hump of getting to sleep. I don’t know if that means I have other problems or not.
I did order the ACT book by Dr. Guy Meadows as I am interested in how it relates to CBT-i. I start CBT-i with a counselor next week. Thanks everyone for the info on what SRT stands for.
