The Sleeping Disorders Thread

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:10 pm

What you got?

I got sleeping paralysis.

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:15 pm

Can't fall asleep
Can't stay asleep
Can't sleep in

I miss my ambien prescription. I should pick up another one of those.

Salty · Post by **Salty** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:24 pm

Chicat wrote:Can't fall asleep
Can't stay asleep
Can't sleep in

I miss my ambien prescription. I should pick up another one of those.

That's rough.

Have you considered jogging or adding some exercise?

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:41 pm

Chicat wrote:Can't fall asleep
Can't stay asleep
Can't sleep in

I miss my ambien prescription. I should pick up another one of those.

What about just plain ol' Benedryl? My doctor said I can take that every night forever with no bad consequences.

77HoyaCat4Ever · Post by **77HoyaCat4Ever** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:44 pm

Perpetual insomniac here

brought on by years of taking call

I sleep 4-5 hours max a night

Haven't had a nap since the Nap Thread died

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:46 pm

Longhorned wrote:
Chicat wrote:Can't fall asleep
Can't stay asleep
Can't sleep in

I miss my ambien prescription. I should pick up another one of those.
What about just plain ol' Benedryl? My doctor said I can take that every night forever with no bad consequences.

I don't like the Benedryl hangover. I'm foggy for hours. I wake up from Ambien ready to kick ass.

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:47 pm

We'll have to bring back the nap thread even if it's just for you and me, Hoya.

Salty · Post by **Salty** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:49 pm

77HoyaCat4Ever wrote:Perpetual insomniac here

brought on by years of taking call

I sleep 4-5 hours max a night

Haven't had a nap since the Nap Thread died

The Nap thread... Oh boy

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:49 pm

Chicat wrote:
Longhorned wrote:
Chicat wrote:Can't fall asleep
Can't stay asleep
Can't sleep in

I miss my ambien prescription. I should pick up another one of those.
What about just plain ol' Benedryl? My doctor said I can take that every night forever with no bad consequences.
I don't like the Benedryl hangover. I'm foggy for hours. I wake up from Ambien ready to kick ass.

Re-fill! Re-fill! Re-fill! Re-fill! Gooooooooooooooo drugs!

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:50 pm

Better living through chemistry.

JMarkJohns · Post by **JMarkJohns** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 8:51 pm

It's very easy for me to not go to bed. I have to literally force myself to go to bed. I can easily veg out on TV, movies, etc until the 2/3/4 am marks. Can be mood based, but can literally hit in the midst of a TV show and all of a sudden I can't sleep until I've watched an entire season. I often times fall asleep on the couch or recliner and wake up at first light.

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:00 pm

JMarkJohns wrote:It's very easy for me to not go to bed. I have to literally force myself to go to bed. I can easily veg out on TV, movies, etc until the 2/3/4 am marks. Can be mood based, but can literally hit in the midst of a TV show and all of a sudden I can't sleep until I've watched an entire season. I often times fall asleep on the couch or recliner and wake up at first light.

That's what Seinfeld described as the impulse for entertainment as the only thing that sleep can't overcome. Sometimes I feel like I'm too tired to get myself ready for bed, and it 's easier just to keep watching Netflix.

Salty · Post by **Salty** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:02 pm

Read a book. That helps me too.

JMarkJohns · Post by **JMarkJohns** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:22 pm

Longhorned wrote:
JMarkJohns wrote:It's very easy for me to not go to bed. I have to literally force myself to go to bed. I can easily veg out on TV, movies, etc until the 2/3/4 am marks. Can be mood based, but can literally hit in the midst of a TV show and all of a sudden I can't sleep until I've watched an entire season. I often times fall asleep on the couch or recliner and wake up at first light.
That's what Seinfeld described as the impulse for entertainment as the only thing that sleep can't overcome. Sometimes I feel like I'm too tired to get myself ready for bed, and it 's easier just to keep watching Netflix.

Yes... Plus I've always been an active thinker at night, even in bed. Late night threads at the old site all those years ago didn't help. And now I have TiVo, Netflix, Amazon Prime, OnDemand, HBO, Sports 24/7.... Not to mention my own DVD collections.

I'm driven by curiosity towards entertainment, wanting to see whatever piques my interest. I Binge on them. This past Spring while teaching 4 courses, running two labs, and sitting on two committees plus program meetings, I managed to watch the entire series of The Shield (7+ seasons), Justified (5 seasons), Game Of Thrones (3 seasons), Californication (3 seasons), How I Met Your Mother (8 seasons), Archer (4+ seasons), and I watched the BBC Sherlock seasons. That's in addition to almost every UA Basketball game, most Suns games, and random films, re-run TV, and starting multiple series and abandoning them.

I function well, but I wish I slept more.

JMarkJohns · Post by **JMarkJohns** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:26 pm

Salty wrote:Read a book. That helps me too.

Doesn't help. Prior to this a TV binge I book binged.

It's like if I start something I literally can't stop until I'm satisfied or my eyes pound in time with my heartbeats. Sometimes I swear I don't fall asleep so much as pass out from mental fatigue.

JMarkJohns · Post by **JMarkJohns** » Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:40 pm

JMarkJohns wrote:
Longhorned wrote:
JMarkJohns wrote:It's very easy for me to not go to bed. I have to literally force myself to go to bed. I can easily veg out on TV, movies, etc until the 2/3/4 am marks. Can be mood based, but can literally hit in the midst of a TV show and all of a sudden I can't sleep until I've watched an entire season. I often times fall asleep on the couch or recliner and wake up at first light.
That's what Seinfeld described as the impulse for entertainment as the only thing that sleep can't overcome. Sometimes I feel like I'm too tired to get myself ready for bed, and it 's easier just to keep watching Netflix.
Yes... Plus I've always been an active thinker at night, even in bed. Late night threads at the old site all those years ago didn't help. And now I have TiVo, Netflix, Amazon Prime, OnDemand, HBO, Sports 24/7.... Not to mention my own DVD collections.

I'm driven by curiosity towards entertainment, wanting to see whatever piques my interest. I Binge on them. This past Spring while teaching 4 courses, running two labs, and sitting on two committees plus program meetings, I managed to watch the entire series of The Shield (7+ seasons), Justified (5 seasons), Game Of Thrones (3 seasons), Californication (3 seasons), How I Met Your Mother (8 seasons), Archer (4+ seasons), and I watched the BBC Sherlock seasons. That's in addition to almost every UA Basketball game, most Suns games, and random films, re-run TV, and starting multiple series and abandoning them.

I function well, but I wish I slept more.

I just added this up. On the low side, it's about 23-25 hours a week, not counting sports, films or TV reruns of any kind.

Seems low, but I'd guess I could easily double that with sports, films, TV.

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:32 am

JMark, I have a simple cure for you...

Have a kid.

JMarkJohns · Post by **JMarkJohns** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 7:05 am

Chicat wrote:JMark, I have a simple cure for you...

Have a kid.

I don't even have a dog because it's too much responsibility.

Alieberman · Post by **Alieberman** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:49 am

Chicat wrote:JMark, I have a simple cure for you...

Have a kid.

I used to sleep well.

Then came the kids.

Then came anxiety / depression

Then came the dog that insists on going for a walk at 530am.

I am now always tired but I can never sleep for long periods of a time.

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 9:58 am

How about this one?

Merkin · Post by **Merkin** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 12:05 pm

Just wait until you all get older, sleeping through the night is really tough.

Ambien only helps you fall asleep, doesn't keep you asleep, which is great since it doesn't leave you groggy in the morning like Benedryl. They say Ambien is not addicting, but I sure need it.

Salty wrote:Read a book. That helps me too.

But not in bed. Bed should only be for sleeping. And sex, and that's a good sleep aid too.

If you read in bed, your body gets confused on whether you want to sleep or read. So get a nice comfy chair near your bed for reading.

77HoyaCat4Ever · Post by **77HoyaCat4Ever** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:45 pm

Salty wrote:Read a book. That helps me too.

That's part of my problem; I read until 2 am. Have to get up at 545 or 0600.

Daryl Zero · Post by **Daryl Zero** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 3:38 pm

Alieberman wrote:
Chicat wrote:JMark, I have a simple cure for you...

Have a kid.
I used to sleep well.

Then came the kids.

Then came anxiety / depression

Then came the dog that insists on going for a walk at 530am.

I am now always tired but I can never sleep for long periods of a time.

Similar situation. I am more of a night person and so it is hard to wake early. However, I am someone who completely wakes up when I get up. I have never drank coffee and seldom have tea. I can get to sleep okay mostly but will wake during the night. Sometimes can't get back to sleep. By the time I have to get going, I really know that I could sleep if I had the opportunity. My brain sometimes will not turn off and thoughts just fly around in my head. OTOH, I have written songs in my dreams or come up with book ideas. Too bad I don't keep a journal because I forget them pretty quickly.

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 5:23 pm

Oh I wake up singing those songs. My wife sings them back to me until I can record them. They're horrible.

PieceOfMeat · Post by **PieceOfMeat** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:13 pm

insomnia, circadian rhythm disorder, etc. etc.

oh and ...GWH...

ghostwhitehorse wrote:How about this one?

what the hell is that?

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:35 pm

If you're over the age of 30, chances are you've got one of those living in your colon.

PieceOfMeat · Post by **PieceOfMeat** » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:56 pm

Longhorned wrote:If you're over the age of 30, chances are you've got one of those living in your colon.

Just the one, right?

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:31 am

So, your eyes pop open in the middle of the night or way too early in the morning and you can't fall asleep again, bringing on the ills of an underslept day. This is working for me: Third-stage imagination dream re-entry.

First stage: Close your eyes and imagine a place, like a backyard with a grass lawn and a wooden fence in the morning sunlight, for example.

Second stage: Then you imagine yourself in that place with your eyes open while imagining something else, like landing an airplane, for example.

Third stage: While you imagine yourself in that place imagining landing an airplane, you enact the imagined act in the first-stage imaginary place. For example, holding a toy airplane and slowly bringing it downward to land on an imaginary runway on the imagined lawn. Land it multiple times in different ways. Now you're so deep in the subconscious that you segue seamlessly into the space of dreaming, and you're asleep.

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:39 am

Is that the moment when someone implants the subconscious suggestion that you should sell your Fortune 500 company?

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:14 am

Chicat wrote:Is that the moment when someone implants the subconscious suggestion that you should sell your Fortune 500 company?

Only if you forgot to destroy your old hotel room keys.

Alieberman · Post by **Alieberman** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 10:47 am

I only seem to sleep well if I have sex before bed.

I usually don't sleep well.

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Sun Jul 19, 2015 11:12 am

Alieberman wrote:I only seem to sleep well if I have sex before bed.

I usually don't sleep well.

Here's the problem as I see it. For some reason, my wife (and I suspect other wives) holds to this eternal belief that seduction is as required several years into marriage as it was at the start of the relationship. What this means is that the frequency of sex, and the good sleep that follows, is actually entirely in our control (and not just in our hands) if only we put forth thoughtfully creative and time-invested seductions with frequency, as in multiple times a week. The reason why we don't is because that's ridiculous.

Seduction is against our nature. Between the evening hours of 8:00 and 11:00, what we need is to slouch on the couch in a stained T-shirt while watching TV. We really, really need it. And then, without additional effort, we need to go straight to sex at 11:00, and then straight to sleep at 11:12. We really, really need it.

But we can't have those things in that order.

I would argue that it would be worse for us to give up the stained T-shirt time for the sake of seduction in order to have frequent sex. We'd be sexually satisfied and well-slept, but we'd go insane if we went to work every day and then came home to act like we're some kind of romantic, sensitive cognoscenti.

In fact, I think we wouldn't be able to turn it off and it would drive us over the edge. Women at work and in restaurants would start to find us almost unbearably attractive, but yet in an abstract, completely resistible kind of way -- like as a model for how the men that they actually want to sleep with (not us) should strive harder to be. The result would be alienation and unresolvable emptiness, an imprisonment of the endless cycle of seduction and monogamous sex. A French director would probably make a movie about us and our decision to lock ourselves in a walk-in refrigerator.

gumby · Post by **gumby** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 2:02 pm

Longhorned wrote:
Alieberman wrote:I only seem to sleep well if I have sex before bed.

I usually don't sleep well.
Here's the problem as I see it. For some reason, my wife (and I suspect other wives) holds to this eternal belief that seduction is as required several years into marriage as it was at the start of the relationship. What this means is that the frequency of sex, and the good sleep that follows, is actually entirely in our control (and not just in our hands) if only we put forth thoughtfully creative and time-invested seductions with frequency, as in multiple times a week. The reason why we don't is because that's ridiculous.

Seduction is against our nature. Between the evening hours of 8:00 and 11:00, what we need is to slouch on the couch in a stained T-shirt while watching TV. We really, really need it. And then, without additional effort, we need to go straight to sex at 11:00, and then straight to sleep at 11:12. We really, really need it.

But we can't have those things in that order.

I would argue that it would be worse for us to give up the stained T-shirt time for the sake of seduction in order to have frequent sex. We'd be sexually satisfied and well-slept, but we'd go insane if we went to work every day and then came home to act like we're some kind of romantic, sensitive cognoscenti.

In fact, I think we wouldn't be able to turn it off and it would drive us over the edge. Women at work and in restaurants would start to find us almost unbearably attractive, but yet in an abstract, completely resistible kind of way -- like as a model for how the men that they actually want to sleep with (not us) should strive harder to be. The result would be alienation and unresolvable emptiness, an imprisonment of the endless cycle of seduction and monogamous sex. A French director would probably make a movie about us and our decision to lock ourselves in a walk-in refrigerator.

I keep trying to read this, but I always fall asleep before I'm finished.

I suspect I have apnea. Anyone use this?

I never sleep on my back, so ...

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 2:11 pm

I haven't had back to back good nights sleep in over 6 months.

gumby · Post by **gumby** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 2:25 pm

I struggle. My issue is not being able to fall asleep without watching TV, which diverts my brain from deeper thoughts. Can fall asleep all right, but when I awake in the middle of the night, I have to watch more tube. Can't sleep in, regardless of how the night went.

Napping on the weekends is a breeze, and I've come to value those. One hour, and I'm good.

Longhorned · Post by **Longhorned** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 2:38 pm

gumby wrote:I struggle. My issue is not being able to fall asleep without watching TV, which diverts my brain from deeper thoughts. Can fall asleep all right, but when I awake in the middle of the night, I have to watch more tube. Can't sleep in, regardless of how the night went.

Napping on the weekends is a breeze, and I've come to value those. One hour, and I'm good.

In my experience, that problem creates the long-term cycle. If I break the cycle, the problem doesn't come up again for a long time. I break the cycle by taking two Benedryls. The doctor says that's a fine drug abuse. Half an hour later I'm asleep through the whole night. I have to stick with the Benedryl for a few weeks, and then I quit and have no sleeping problems again for a long time. Then it happens again either because of stress, or because of a time zone change. Nothing but the Benedryl will break the ensuing cycle.

gumby · Post by **gumby** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 5:55 pm

That's it. Little pink pills for me. Thanks.

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 8:29 pm

Bennies make me feel fuzzy in the morning. I just ask my doc for Ambien.

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:05 pm

The doctor prescribed Trazodone today. Anybody here have any experience with it?

EOCT · Post by **EOCT** » Wed Aug 05, 2015 11:07 pm

4:30PM--- a couple of volleyball games, a 45 minute gym workout, or a long walk. Bed at 10, 45 minutes of reading, ready for sleep or sex. Works.

Once in a while a problem, so take one Gabapentin at bedtime for a few nights. A very innocuous prescription med which works.

I find meditation really works well on the few times I have trouble getting to sleep. A streamlined process: Count backward from 20 to zero one number at a time, starting at 20 at normal volume---then reducing volume slightly with each number until 1 is a light whisper. A surefire method.

Also---another subject---the backward count at declining volume is also a practical approach for any day or night time point you wish to coax your brain activity from left to right to do creative work, especially visual arts. I do this before painting, drawing or (trying) to write creatively. It works. I have artist friends who also use this or other methods.

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