Hey everyone,
So, as you can probably tell from the title of this blog I've been fighting with insomnia again and unfortunately the insomnia is winning. I've gotten three hours of sleep total in the last three nights and none of those hours has been over the past two nights, unless you count a couple dozen sporadic micro-naps where I wake up a minute later but I don't think those even add up t half an hour total. I've tried everything I can think of but sleep just doesn't want any part of me it seems. I'm moody, I keep having stupid accidents (including aggravating my sprained thumb), and my brain is in no condition to write right now, let alone write a combat scene with two characters that aren't even mine. So it looks like there will be no MSPD this weekend while I try to get some damn sleep... again.
I'm off to crawl into bed and hope for the best. Good night and big hugs to you all.
Amethyst
Comments
Hugs!
Insomnia is no fun at all. :/ A friend takes Ambien occasionally when really desperate. It works but the side effect of then being mental mush for most of the following day isn't that fun either. Hope you are reading this after achieving some blissful zzz's...
-Erisian
Insomnia
I assume you've tries melatonin?
Of course there is always the old fashion way of physically wearing yourself out with a 10 mile walk.
Solved
My problem of insomnia was solved when I was diagnosed with a bad case of sleep apnea. A CPAP or BIPAP machine was the solution.
-- Daphne Xu
I don’t wish to ....
Teach you to suck eggs, but you have stopped all caffeine?
I suffered for ages till (36 hr days was a regular thing) (I’m a Pepsi addict) I switched to decaf and now I don’t have half the trouble getting to sleep.
HTH
SDH (socially distant hugs)
Sammi
Not always caffeine
When I was a courier, driving insane distances every day[1], I used to get through about two litres of Americanos a DAY. A number of times I'd do an 800-mile round trip to Scotland and back, arriving home between 2-4am, having imbibed the aforementioned coffee during that trip. I'd be asleep within four minutes of opening the front door.
Caffeine doesn't affect everyone the same way. I never have a problem getting to sleep after a coffee nightcap. Might I suggest that it is more likely the sugar in your Pepsi that was doing the business?
I stopped drinking any kind of regular colas a long time ago when I discovered what they were putting into them. Very, very occasionally I'll have a zero sugar variety if the alternatives are lame, but mostly I stick to herbal teas[2] and real coffee now.
Penny, whose brain has already moved to Summer Time.
[1] That's a tale for another time and maybe another place.
[2] I can't drink proper English tea, except when there is no alternative. Too much affects my stomach.
BTW - an "herbal tea" is an
BTW - an "herbal tea" is an oxymoron. "Chamomile tea", for example, is technically not a tea. It's a tisane. ('Tea' is a tisane made from the leaves of the tea plant)
Tea has become a portmanteau word for any tisane, much as 'coke' has become a generic word for carbonated beverages in much of the US. "What kind of coke do you want? I'll take a Sprite."
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Sigh
Two nations divided by a common language, etc.
I think I'd rather use a generic English word than a generic French one, which wouldn't be understood over here. Here a tisane is something Hercules Poirot drinks out of a glass. Tea over here means, apart from the more general use, anything made from leaves steeped in boiling water.
I thought that cola was the generic name for such drinks in the States, or is that only a media thing to avoid invoking a trademark?
As far as soft drinks go, I believe that y'all use soda for some strange reason. Try asking for that in the UK and you'll get sent to the kitchen cleaning department to look for washing soda.
I won't even get started about your use of the word portmanteau...
This is getting way off topic. The poor Original Poster just wants some shut-eye.
Penny
Not Cola...
In my experience, cola's only used for actual cola drinks like Coke/Pepsi/RC and the equivalent. (Google Search results suggest that it's not quite that clear-cut, but it's still very low among the options.)
Just encountered this survey map, which apparently has been around since the 1990s. As noted, "coke" is the most popular generic term in the Southeast, "pop" in the Midwest, and "soda" in the West and Northeast.
(I use "soft drink", myself.)
Eric (San Francisco)
wish I could send you a lullaby
on second though, maybe not, since I can't sing
If I had a cure for my own
If I had a cure for my own problem with sleeping, offer it. If you come up with a cure, please let me know!
Hugs!
Rosemary
Herbal helpers
Down in Paraguay both Camomile and Maracuja (Passion Fruit) are known to induce drowsiness and aid in sleeping. Both are use in herbal infusions, though the latter can also be found as juice.
You might want to try some herbal tea mix. Since I am not sure of your geographical location, I will name a few alternatives that I have used myself. In North America there is "Sleepy Time" by "Celestial Seasonings". And in Germany I have found "Einschlaf Tee" and "Schlaf- und Nerven Tee" by "Bad Heilbrunner" and some store brands.
I have also had very good experience using herbal teas for stress reduction and helping with some ADHD symptoms (e.g. Tension Tamer by Celestial Seasonings).
These are my 2 Cents worth of advice.
If it helps, as long as you
If it helps, as long as you stay still, and meditate or otherwise relax your body, you do get most of the benefits of a nights worth of sleep. You just don't get the REM sleep necessary to reorganize thoughts.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Good luck getting any rest
Might as well try Nyquil at this point. Works for me but I usually wake up with a slight headache. It is odd since usually everything works backwards on me, like Sudafed makes me tired, Benadryl makes me wired, and a black and white mocha cappuccino with a triple shot of espresso will knock my butt out. Be safe and take care of yourself /hugs
Two things, no make that three
work for me, sometimes I need all 3 to finally lose consciousness!
#1 - an empty bladder before bed
#2 - not going to bed hungry
and #3 - if all else fails a shot of neat Peach schnapps!
#1+2 are usually quite ample but if all else fails, #3 usually tips me over the edge.
There is a #4 - pick up a book you really want to read - I might go 2 pages....
Alternatively you could do a century ride then watch a documentary on cheese - if the first doesn't leave you too exhausted to keep your eyes open, the second will bore you to sleep.
FWIW, unless you drink/take prodigous volumes of caffeine, its effects re keeping you awake are pretty short term, a cup of coffee might have a fifteen minute effect. To get sufficient in your system for significant effect, the diuretic element will come into play instead, drink tea for hydration, coffee for a quick (and short) boost!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
NyQuil/diphenhydramine caution & CPAP 'bonus'
Diphenhydramine is not recommended (per 'Doctor Wikipedia') for those of us over around 60 years. My Mom calmly and lucidly described her hallucinations, and I forgot my name and where/why I was for about a minute ...
---
My former wife went on CPAP for sleep apnea. We both got a good night's sleep, and in the morning, she was not doing her (formerly) usual "Zombezie Ambassador" impression. (Zombies come from Zombezia, where else ...?)
Her acid reflux immediately went 95% away, so quickly and quietly that we didn't notice for a week (!)
Doxylamine Succinate is a
Doxylamine Succinate is a real 'knock you out' drug. It was one of the first antihistamines on the market, and was replaced with the 'non-drowsy' benadryl. (dipenhydramine). Yes, it's that drastic. That's why most of the sleeping aids now are dipenhydramine, rather than doxylamine. However, you can still find it. Cut the normal dose in half, and you're less likely to wake up three days later.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
That Last Sentence
Okay, thinking about it, you meant that with half the dose, one is more likely to wake up a lot sooner than three days following. It sounded to me as if one were more likely to stay asleep three days later.
-- Daphne Xu
Thanks everyone
Unfortunately I had no better luck sleeping Friday night. I got about three hours, but that was after lying awake until nearly eight in the morning. I've gotten about six hour each of the past two nights though it's been broken with me waking up every hour or so from nightmares. I don't drink caffeine, I don't eat much sugar, and I usually take melatonin and drink an herbal infusion meant to relax me half an hour before bed. I've tried relaxing music and meditation too but not much seems to help. Hopefully I'll have some success tonight.
*big hugs to you all*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
Other Wake-Up Features
Do you wake up with sweat? How about a sense of snoring? Combined, they are a sign of sleep apnea. Something back in your throat blocks your breath, you partially wake up and deal with it, then return to sleep.
Nightmares: maybe something in your mind is trying to tell you something. Maybe something in your mind is tormenting you. Maybe you have hidden anxieties and fears. I haven't figured out my own nightmares. With my brain pulling blatant reality-shifts on me, to make things bad, or searching out something I hadn't thought of in many many years and making it something I'm supposed to know in 12yo-HS math, something in my mind means it seriously.
-- Daphne Xu
I don't wake up sweating and
I don't wake up sweating and I talk in my sleep more than I snore. I have chronic nightmares, severe anxiety, and PTSD. There's nothing hidden about my anxieties and fears, they're kind of constantly with me and it's why I was originally put on meds to help me sleep and relax, but with no family doctor I cant do anything about that at the moment.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
Time to drag out the big guns then!
https://www.youtube.com/c/BobRossIncVideos/videos and listen.
Make sure to use 'autoplay'!
There's always BigCliveDotCom
There's always BigCliveDotCom on Youtube. A lot of people use his videos to help them sleep.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
The problem with being bored
Is that my mind starts getting even more active rather than settling down enough to sleep. That's part of the problem, my brain starts cycling about things as soon as my head hits the pillow and I'm not mentally or physically focused on anything else. And watching Bob Ross would make me want to paint while bigclive would probably make me want to tinker or at least think about the various things I could do.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3
Then definitely do one of the
Then definitely do one of the bigclivelive livestreams. Those are a minimum of 3 hours, and go for 5, and it's just sort of a 'conversations in a pub' type of talking. Listening to that should focus you on just his voice, as it's just conversation, and you can't talk back.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.