Question:
During the past 5 nights I have had no more than 1 hour sleep each
night. I usually spend all my night downstairs doing crosswords -
reading everything in the newspapers including the small print !
How long can this go on ? I now know that there is no point in going
to bed - I will not sleep - OK I know I have now conditioned myself.
I have tried a walk before bed, a night-cap of whisky, a warm milk
drink, a bath before bedtime - all no use.
Any ideas??
Answer:
are you napping during the day, perhaps in front of the Telly?
A friend of mine has the same problem, but she is somehow in denial
about the naps. One must be realistic with one's self, whether or not
with anyone else.
You didn't mention if you are tired and sleepy during the day. If not,
you are either getting enough rest, operating on adrenalin, having a
side effect from drugs, and/or heading for a crash. I suppose there
are other posibilities, too.
Reccommended to me: No exercise or eating after early evening.
Find a quiet, dark, soft place to hybernate when it is bedtime.
Then, if sleep is needed, it comes.
Sorry if this is no help - but it could accidently be.
how many hours of sleep did you get before this started? Also, do you
have a history of insomnia? I take 1 mg Klonopin on Saturday & Sunday nights,
Monday night 1/2 mg, then 1/4 mg until Saturday night rolls around again. I do
this every week plus I do reflexology which helps. I have a history of
insomnia so if I say something works, believe me, it works!
I am nearly 70 years old.
Retired in 1995 but still keeping my hand in as a consultant on
accountancy work for a medium sized company - no more than 8 hours per
week. Not at all stressful, in fact, just the opposite.
No worries either matrimonial or financial - nothing to keep me thinking
about at night.
As long as I can remember I have had some problems at times with
sleeping but these have consisted of going to bed at, say, 11pm and
still being awake at 2am - this used to happen for a few days and then
sorted itself for a couple of weeks before it started again. But I have
then always seemed to drift off into sleep at , say 2am. The awake all
night syndrome has only just started. I am writing this at 5am and I
have not managed to get off to sleep yet.
I occasionally suffer from 'restless legs' but a physio told me that my
calf muscles were tense and to rub in some embrocation if they started
giving me problems at night - this seems to work ok and the restless
legs don't worry me so much.
I try not to 'nod off' during the day but occasionally, if I have not
slept at all the previous night I may doze for 30 minutes after my meal
around 6pm. I have tried giving in to this and having a sleep in a
chair and also fought it and not slept, hoping this would help me to get
to sleep. The thing is that I don't know which is the best - have a
short nod off or fight it?? During the day I seem to be OK as long as
I have something to do but when I sit down and relax tiredness hits me
I mentioned the problem about not always having a good nights sleep to
my doctor about 3 months ago - at the time I was lying awake until 2 or
3am every night. He gave me a small supply (7) of Temazepam to try to
break the rut I had gotten into They were useless - I still lay awake
and two nights I went down to read the paper but I was half doped and
just flopped around the kitchen making a sandwich and hot drink until my
wife came to 'rescue' me and take me back to bed - I really didn't know
what I was doing. I did sleep but it wasn't a natural sleep and I felt
terrible next day. Five out of the seven nights they had no effect at
all !!
The problem in the UK is getting a doctor to do anything about insomnia
- they give plenty of advice about taking exercise, getting to bed at a
reasonable time, having fresh air in the bedroom, having a bath, hot
drink etc but no pills. They say that they don't want patients getting
hooked on sleepers. I can understand that but they ought to realise
that some of us are sensible enough to watch what we are doing.
The sleep problems seemed to disappear about a couple of months ago and
I started having good sleeps from around midnight until, say, 8am.
Then this present 'no sleep' at all crept in just over a week ago.
Sorry for all the detail but I am determined to tackle this problem - I
now believe that I have created a monster in that I know before I go to
bed that I will not sleep and I need to get this feeling out of my mind.
