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I preface this post by saying that I've been seeing doctors and have tried a variety of over-the-counter and prescription sleep medication, but am simply looking for alternative ideas from you fine people.
I sleep very irregularly. Sometimes I sleep for 3 hours, other times for 14, and often times not at all.
The doctor says much of this has to do with clinical depression, but I'm on my third trial medication, and that stuff takes of weening on/off doses to see if they work. First it was Paxil, then it was Prozac and now it's Effexor, all of which have drowsiness as a side effect but don't seem to make me tired.
I've tried the old tricks- Read a book in a different room for 30 minutes, run a few laps around your house, take a warm shower, drink a glass of milk, etc. They work on rare occasion, but when I discover I'm still awake at 2am and have to wake up at 5, it's almost not worth trying to sleep anyway.
I'm open to any ideas. Usually I just get Starbucks in the morning if I've encountered a sleepless night, but you can imagine that may be an expensive alternative (and maybe screwing my sleep up even more.) I'm not pulling my hair out or anything, thankfully- I can operate pretty well when I'm tired- I just wish it wasn't so.
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I had similar problems,I had then consulted a doctor and i was told that i have a anxiety disorder/depression/mood disorder. all of this was affecting my sleeping in one way or ther other. i strongly suggest you speak with a doctor asap.
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United States24741 Posts
Most doctors can't help you with this issue. Most people shouldn't use medication to improve their sleep in the long run.
I wrote a guide on this topic a while back that I received a lot of positive feedback on. I still get messages to this day from people telling me it greatly improved their sleep without the use of medicine, supplements, or major lifestyle changes. I strongly recommend you read this.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=95375
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@footymd - Reading must be hard 
@Micro - reading now :O
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I just masturbate on my bed, pee, and sleep. But I used to have a regular sleep cycle before midterm season.
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Lol, I have extremely erratic sleep, tried everything and nothing works.
except disconnecting my internet....then I get bored and go to sleep at normal times.
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United States24741 Posts
Oh just to give a bit of perspective, in high school and college I had a lot of sleeping issue... name them I probably had them.
When I started working for real it was becoming a major issue... for example, I wrote a blog about how I was worried I would fall asleep at the wheel in the morning:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=61025
Then I read a book 'say goodnight to insomnia' where I learned about ways to improve your sleep. I am now fairly energetic in the morning (no coffee required) and getting reasonable amounts of sleep. My guide is based on that book, which was written by one of the few published people on the topic who actually seems to know what he's talking about.
There's tons of information about sleep that is completely misinformed unfortunately. Just reading my guide to correct some misconceptions alone can result in somewhat improved sleep.
On November 03 2010 16:06 sob3k wrote:
Lol, I have extremely erratic sleep, tried everything and nothing works.
except disconnecting my internet....then I get bored and go to sleep at normal times.
Yeah it's pretty easy to just remained engaged in browsing the web until late at night... and this is one behavior your have to work on specifically until you develop better habits which allow you to go asleep right after using your computer.
I've learned I can't go to bed right after playing a game of sc2 but I can right after doing certain other things on my computer like watching an episode of something. It all depends on the individual.
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On November 03 2010 15:58 Nokarot wrote:
I preface this post by saying that I've been seeing doctors and have tried a variety of over-the-counter and prescription sleep medication, but am simply looking for alternative ideas from you fine people.
I sleep very irregularly. Sometimes I sleep for 3 hours, other times for 14, and often times not at all.
The doctor says much of this has to do with clinical depression, but I'm on my third trial medication, and that stuff takes of weening on/off doses to see if they work. First it was Paxil, then it was Prozac and now it's Effexor, all of which have drowsiness as a side effect but don't seem to make me tired.
I've tried the old tricks- Read a book in a different room for 30 minutes, run a few laps around your house, take a warm shower, drink a glass of milk, etc. They work on rare occasion, but when I discover I'm still awake at 2am and have to wake up at 5, it's almost not worth trying to sleep anyway.
I'm open to any ideas. Usually I just get Starbucks in the morning if I've encountered a sleepless night, but you can imagine that may be an expensive alternative (and maybe screwing my sleep up even more.) I'm not pulling my hair out or anything, thankfully- I can operate pretty well when I'm tired- I just wish it wasn't so.
I also went on Paxil, and then Prozac, and then more Prozac, and then more Prozac, and then Prozac with Seroquel, and then Prozac with more Seroquel. My sleep never improved, and depression only improved for the first week of each dosage change. Drug tolerance sucks.
As far as your sleep goes, I recommend taking a few nights and really dedicating yourself to trying to sleep.
Keep the lights low/off when the sun goes down. Take a warm bath, and then lie down and watch a relaxing movie that you've seen before. Something like A River Runs Through It. Personally, the anime "Mushishi" I find is highly relaxing and helped me sleep. Take some melatonin, as well. Make sure there are no little LEDS or illuminated clocks in your bedroom, and if there are, turn them off or throw clothes over them.
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There's a fine kind of herbs that at least helped my sleep issues. I'll leave it at that.
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United States24741 Posts
On November 03 2010 16:15 Zerokaiser wrote:
As far as your sleep goes, I recommend taking a few nights and really dedicating yourself to trying to sleep.
Keep the lights low/off when the sun goes down. Take a warm bath, and then lie down and watch a relaxing movie that you've seen before. Something like A River Runs Through It. Personally, the anime "Mushishi" I find is highly relaxing and helped me sleep. Take some melatonin, as well. Make sure there are no little LEDS or illuminated clocks in your bedroom, and if there are, turn them off or throw clothes over them. I edited out the first thing you said, but in general I should point out that people who have issues other than sleep-specific ones often need to treat those before their sleep will improve (emotional issues that aren't caused by lack of sleep, physical problems making it hard to sleep, etc).
To respond to some of your suggestions I just want to offer an alternate: I recommend against lying down and watching something, since it's easy for you to associate lying down with wakefulness. Also I don't suggest taking melatonin in your quest to correct your sleeping problems. On the other hand, every suggestion I or someone else makes can be good or bad depending on the person.... sleep is all about figuring out what works for you.
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try some weed. once u get past the high stage, u feel rly tired and hopefully that will get u to sleep. i know its illegal, but i believe that the drugs u have been taking are causing ur sleeping issues. its well documented, although rejected by the government, that weed treats over 200 known medical problems, maybe even the stuff that u needed those pills for
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i wouldn't take those drugs if i were you... but that's just me.
what i find works best to go to sleep is attempt to wake induce lucid dream. i always fail but it puts me right to sleep lol.
just lay there and don't move. seriously don't move at all and look into you eyelids eventually you will see images. watch these images like the awesome trip they are until you fall asleep. if you are still having trouble sleeping, luckily you haven't moved for 1 hour or so. so you don't feel very comfortable. now move into the most comfortable position you can maneuver into. what i find is after not moving my body is asleepish or something and it feels so damn good to change into some new position. doesn't that feel great? oh god it does this new position so primo. now repeat.
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On November 03 2010 16:22 ulszz wrote:
i wouldn't take those drugs if i were you... but that's just me.
what i find works best to go to sleep is attempt to wake induce lucid dream. i always fail but it puts me right to sleep lol.
just lay there and don't move. seriously don't move at all and look into you eyelids eventually you will see images. watch these images like the awesome trip they are until you fall asleep. if you are still having trouble sleeping, luckily you haven't moved for 1 hour or so. so you don't feel very comfortable. now move into the most comfortable position you can maneuver into. what i find is after not moving my body is asleepish or something and it feels so damn good to change into some new position. doesn't that feel great? oh god it does this new position so primo. now repeat.
i actually do this all the time. prob is that when im laying in bed, my mind just doesnt stop racing. its especially hard to achieve a state where my brain isnt thinking anything at all. surprisingly, if i put listen to something thats not music, i can sleep in under 30 min.
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On November 03 2010 16:18 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 16:15 Zerokaiser wrote:
As far as your sleep goes, I recommend taking a few nights and really dedicating yourself to trying to sleep.
Keep the lights low/off when the sun goes down. Take a warm bath, and then lie down and watch a relaxing movie that you've seen before. Something like A River Runs Through It. Personally, the anime "Mushishi" I find is highly relaxing and helped me sleep. Take some melatonin, as well. Make sure there are no little LEDS or illuminated clocks in your bedroom, and if there are, turn them off or throw clothes over them. I edited out the first thing you said, but in general I should point out that people who have issues other than sleep-specific ones often need to treat those before their sleep will improve (emotional issues that aren't caused by lack of sleep, physical problems making it hard to sleep, etc). To respond to some of your suggestions I just want to offer an alternate: I recommend against lying down and watching something, since it's easy for you to associate lying down with wakefulness. Also I don't suggest taking melatonin in your quest to correct your sleeping problems. On the other hand, every suggestion I or someone else makes can be good or bad depending on the person.... sleep is all about figuring out what works for you.
I agree that treating the underlying condition is the most important thing, but for people struggling with chronic depression finding a trick to get them a good night's sleep now and then is fucking invaluable.
Insomnia and depression feed eachother. If you can fix one, the other becomes a lot easier to manage.
As far as associating lying down with sleep, I know there's evidence to support that. Personally, it doesn't bother me at all. Again, the "lying down for a movie" as I recommended is intended to occur late at night, after a bath and the lights have been down for a while and you've been relaxing.
********* DRASTIC AND AWESOME OPTION BELOW **********
About 6 months ago, before I graduated highschool, I went on a polyphasic sleep cycle (AKA the Uberman sleep cycle).
Take a 20-minute nap every 4 hours.
The idea behind the Uberman is that by forcing yourself to take such short naps, your brain learns to go straight into REM sleep. Instead of 8 hours of all 5 sleep stages, 1.5 hours of REM sleep, you get 2 hours of solid REM sleep.
Of course, there's downsides and obvious drawbacks to this...But as far as wakefulness goes, it does work if you have the lifestyle that can support it. By no means do I recommend it, but, if you're interested you should do some reading. There's a lot of information online.
PS: I quit the Uberman after 3 weeks because my parents got tired of me being awake all the time. Besides, I don't have enough of a life to fill 22 hours a day.
PPS: You say background noise works well. Do you sleep well during storms? I recommend trying to fall asleep to a fan or some other white noise, if not just a soundtrack of rain.
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United States24741 Posts
I don't see any advantage to that nap every four hours plan since it's not at all adaptable to a change in lifestyle (even in the day to day sense). Ideally someone can change their lifestyle on a day to day basis and still bounce right back with their sleep within a couple of days.
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Some of these.. stranger suggestions aside, I do think depression is my major underlying problem that I need to get help with first. Don't really have the mental stamina to read that whole guide at this moment, micro, but it certainly looks interesting thus far.
Unfortunately, tonight is one of these nights. Right now its 3:30 and I leave for school at 6:00. Was laying in bed restless between 11-3. I think I'm just going to watch something and attempt to be productive this morning, rest up out of sleep deprivation tonight, and try to finish reading that guide on Thursday.
Edit: I've always fallen asleep with a fan running for as long as I remember, Kaiser, but it doesn't really help with my current problems. 'Uberman' doesn't sound very appealing to me, but its interesting nontheless.
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On November 03 2010 16:33 micronesia wrote:
I don't see any advantage to that nap every four hours plan since it's not at all adaptable to a change in lifestyle (even in the day to day sense). Ideally someone can change their lifestyle on a day to day basis and still bounce right back with their sleep within a couple of days.
Yeah, that's one of the huge problems. If you get in a situation where you can't sneak away for 20 minutes, missing that nap REALLY fucks you up, a lot more than missing 2 hours of sleep would.
Uberman is really ideal for...somebody like an online poker pro. The type of person who can get up and do his thing on his own time whenever he wants to without it impacting his job.
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well, do something that wont get u depressed. and get off those meds like seriously.
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On November 03 2010 16:37 Lightswarm wrote:
well, do something that wont get u depressed. and get off those meds like seriously.
Aside from the OTC sleeping pill (Unisom, non-addictive apparently) that's really not going to happen. My depression is a long winded problem for perhaps another blog post. Rest assured, the cure to clinical depression isn't "do something that isn't depressing"- there are chemical imbalances that need to be fixed, lifestyle choices that need to be altered, etc etc.
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On November 03 2010 16:33 micronesia wrote:
I don't see any advantage to that nap every four hours plan since it's not at all adaptable to a change in lifestyle (even in the day to day sense). Ideally someone can change their lifestyle on a day to day basis and still bounce right back with their sleep within a couple of days.
Uberman style sleep cycles were developed for military application, trying to get the most alertness out of troops on the least downtime is obviously big for them. For everyone not in combat its really a shitty way to sleep, plus its pretty uncomfortable and it can cause depression after extended use.
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EPT
