@RivkahChaya: Have you tried taking melatonin in the evening? Sometimes the brain does not make enough melatonin. Start with something like 6mg at 8 pm and see what happens, though of course you should get your doctor’s approval first. I take a 12mg tablet at 9 pm and can usually sleep by 11 pm for a few hours. Also any source of light is discouraged when you are taking melatonin - the intent is to prompt your brain to make its own melatonin, which only happens in the dark. Strictly no TV or even a smartphone during the sleepy hours.
I do hope you get over this miserable condition. Good luck.
I’ve been taking a crapload of melatonin in the evening for years. I take two kinds-- a sustained release, and an immediate release. I take the SR about 1/2 hr. before bed, and the immediate release right before I lie down.
A new one for me last night. A semi-lucid dream about having insomnia. Fucking horrible. I knew I was dreaming, but couldn’t stop dreaming of not being able to sleep.
Not sure I’m doing this right, addressing this to a particular person without using the PM feature.
I finally got desperate enough to try the weighted blanket, and it is making a difference.
Thank you.
It isn’t Lourdes water, but I look at everything I try, including the medications I use, and pebbles damming a river. This is a pretty nice couple of handfuls of pebbles.
It somehow makes it easier to stay in bed when I’m having one of those “fits and starts” nights. I have a lot of nights when I sleep in 30-90 minute blocks with anywhere from 10-30 minutes between blocks. I usually itch to get up out of bed when I’m awake, but with the weighted blanket, it’s a lot easier and more comfortable to stay in bed in one position while I wait to fall asleep again-- and as a result, the intervals are shorter. No more 30 minute intervals, mostly 5-20 minutes.
I’m having fewer nights when I get less than four hours sleep, and more nights when I get closer to six.
Six is actually enough for me, as long as I’m not doing something like going on a long highway drive, so this is helping a lot.
I try to go to bed early-- like 7pm. That way, if I get lucky, I can get 6 or 7 hours in, because I’ll manage to mostly sleep until 3am. Usually not, but going to bed early is my best chance of getting some sleep. My worst time for being awake (or “best” depending on how you look at it) is midnight to 4am. If I don’t have to work, I can go back to bed around 5 or 6am, and sometimes sleep until 7, or even 9am, depending on whether I take medication (which in turn depends on how high-functioning I’m feeling).
Driving hypnotizes me. I will drive home from some place for 10 minutes, after a night when I slept 3 & 1/2 hrs., and be fighting sleep like it’s the hydra, and think “I’ll go to bed as soon as I get home,” and I do-- and I’ll even take melatonin and Klonapin-- and then lie awake for 30 minutes, finally fall asleep, and sleep for an hour. Go figure.
My experience is I cannot fall asleep when my mind is awhirl on some issue (can be a lot of things). Falling asleep requires me to quiet my mind. A little relaxation technique (think about relaxing muscles one at a time) usually rounds it out.
For quieting my mind I just try to daydream. Anything but thinking about real life.
I’m so glad it’s bringing you some relief! Disturbed sleep is a terrible thing indeed! The weighted blanket was an eye opener for me, and I added more weight when the effect appeared to diminish, don’t hesitate if it happens for you!
My problem was not falling back into restive sleep, the weight changes that, so I’m not getting tons more sleep, 45-90 mins, but as I’m getting back into actual restive sleep, it means I feel way better.
Something I picked up here, from such a discussion, can’t remember who said it, but basically they pointed out that when waking and feeling you can’t go back to sleep, your perception is quite possibly incorrect. This seemed unlikely to me but I gave it a shot. Get back into bed, NO ‘To do’ listing or day planning! Get back into bed with the intention of just resting, clear your mind and just relax for a few minutes. And it REALLY did work! I found I could, in fact, get another stretch of restive sleep!
Between the weighted blanket, and this technique, I have successfully shifted my sleep pattern to something much healthier, more restive! My doctor also impressed upon me that ‘sleep is a pattern!’ This is important, do not focus on the individual nights, work on a pattern. She was right! It shifted my thinking and I was able to build a pattern instead of nightly success/fails!