Sleep -issue?-

JaydedMiss wrote: »

gotta say im loving this visual. Ill take a look at a few stores next time im in the mall and see if i can find one. It cant hurt to try. Sleep is stupid important i dont like the weird super high energy mixed with super low energy. I want my relatively stable energy levels back

JaydedMiss wrote: »

Thoughts appreciated.

Im not quite sure if this is a problem or not but iv noticed for the past month or so iv fallen into a weird sleep pattern. I go to bed around 10-11 relatively fine, And wake up at 6-630 fine. Dont even need an alarm because the thing is and i stress this part, Im waking up every hour and a half. Like exactly. I generally go pee or whatever and fall asleep again fast, But i am wide awake for a few minutes every hour and a half.

Im not necessarily tired, I wake up feeling energy in abundance but it seems to go away faster. A bit weirded out by exactly how precise it seems to be and im not sure why its happening. Iv tried not drinking water for a bit before bed incase its need to pee waking me, Iv taken melatonin, Iv tried exhausting myself completely with a super busy active day. Without fail im still waking up exactly every hour and a half.

I used to sleep for hourssss easily and i was up all night, but now it seems like im wide awake after a few hours and sort of just choosing to sleep more 1.5 hour cycles until 6-630 comes around. And again i stress its nightly its every day now not just occasionally. Its just super weird.

Any thoughts on why this may have started happening or if it may be good/bad?

I have similar issues with sleep. But then again, have had insomnia issues most of my adult life. Started when I was 18. When I lay down in bed generally my heart will race faster for a while. Causes me to stay awake. Since high school I counter it by just watching TV in bed. Within 30-45 minutes the fast heart beat goes away. WPW also runs in my family so it's a genetic heart condition. Mine has never been bad enough for medication, so I just deal with it. My heart is pretty healthy these days. Resting heart rate is low 50's sometimes high 40's and I can easily max out during workouts and heavy HIIT at 160-165 bpm without any issues. I'm guessing my actual max is in the 175 range before I assume I'd pass out lol. For a 48 year old that's not too shabby.

Before I lost my weight I'd stay up super late, usually midnight to 1am or so, get up by around 6:30-7am and go to work. After I lost the weight and ended up at my goal weight I started getting up at 4:45am to work out so I could be more consistent with workouts. I start around 5:15-5:30 and finish with my workout around 7am, shower, eat a quick breakfast and out the door. My point is this makes me tired earlier in the evenings but the insomnia issue is still there. Sometimes it's very annoying because trying to go to bed earlier means it takes me that much longer to fall asleep even if I am overly tired.

I have allergy issues so I've taken Benadryl most of my life off and on. I started taking 25mg in the evenings about a half hour before bed along with a 250mg magnesium tablet and it usually knocks me out and keeps me asleep most of the night. However, there are some nights, especially those that I don't take anything before bed that I'll fall asleep normally but be up every stinking hour. Last night was like that. Took me til midnight to go to sleep, was up at 1am, 1:30, and somewhere around 3am and 5am. Finally got out of bed out of frustration with it about 5:15am for my workout. Energy levels were good, and the workout was a good one, but my guess is this evening I'll be super tired from lack of sleep.

I do drink a pre-workout first thing in the mornings on days I do work out, and the evening after a rest day I usually have to take melatonin along with the Benadryl and Magnesium to get to sleep (because I slept in that morning because it was a rest day). Overall it works out but the odd thing about it is the longer I spend at a normal weight and active (I work out 4x a week) the more I have those nights that I wake up every hour to hour and a half. It's annoying as hell. I do sometimes think I miss out on recovery and optimal muscle development due to lack of sleep.

If you find a solution to staying asleep all night let me know lol, I have not found one. I'd say 50% of the time I wake up every hour to hour and a half these days. Right now I'm avoiding a doctor because they'll just want me to take a sleeping pill and I have a feeling it'll make me drowsy in the mornings and screw with my workouts.

I had a similar issue last year I have tried a few things to help:

• cutting out caffeine after 3pm
• blue light filter on phone 24/7
• Blackout linings for curtains to reduce light and noise
• the bra for eyes lol - they are very comfortable
• Magnesium supplements - worked great by the way.
• 3g Melatonin supplements normal kind
• 3g Melatonin time release supplements

I have found the best thing for the recurring waking periods is taking the Magnesium supplements (I take ones with Calcium & Vitamin D but only take 2 out of the 3 recommended) and I take one time release Melatonin. I liked the normal melatonin but I would wake up about 5am with those, I'd get back to sleep easy enough but when I switched to the time release kind I sleep right through. You can pick up both off iherb for a couple of dollars.

I wonder why those of us with sleep problems seem to wake up at the same hours,1-1:30 and 3? I had this issue and did go to the doctor she just gave me melatonin,it doesn't work that great so I take 1/2 of a unisom with it,I'm pretty sure mines hormone related tho,just try not to stress cuz the more you worry about lack 'o sleep,,the worse it is

whitpauly wrote: »

I wonder why those of us with sleep problems seem to wake up at the same hours,1-1:30 and 3? I had this issue and did go to the doctor she just gave me melatonin,it doesn't work that great so I take 1/2 of a unisom with it,I'm pretty sure mines hormone related tho,just try not to stress cuz the more you worry about lack 'o sleep,,the worse it is

There is an issue with Melatonin. Our bodies supposedly make far less of it on a normal basis, yet most supplements have up to 10x that amount so that they work quickly. Problem is, taking it long term in high doeses can leave you immune to its effects and sometimes cause sleeplessness during the night like some of us describe. For that reason I try to only take it on days after a rest day when I've had more sleep than normal but still need to get to sleep early so that I can get up early and work out the next day. That reduces it to a 1-2x per week that I take it. The supplement I buy at the store has a whopping 10mg per dose, so I break it in half, and sometimes in quarters.

Just as an observation: There are multiple types of insomnia (different symptoms), and multiple potential reasons for each type. In a thread like this, it can help to be as specific as possible about what symptoms you have, and what the cause is (if you know).

In particular, the causes/solutions for "can't get to sleep/can't get back to sleep" types of insomnia tend to be quite different than those for "wake up often and go right back to sleep" types. There's some solution overlap for some people (e.g., drugs), but not total.

With the sleep interruption type, unknown cause, a number of things did me personally no good at all (and I should have included a list of these in my initial post on this thread.

Things that didn't work for me: Eating/not eating before bed, changing caffeine consumption, hot milk before bed, herbal teas, lavender or other aromatherapy, limiting pre-bed screen time, standardized sleep/wake times, yoga before bed, hot baths before bed (with/without Epsom salts), melatonin, manipulating bedroom temperature and/or blankets, several different sleeping drugs (OTC and prescription), meditation, sleep apnea treatment, the sleep clinic experience generally . . . and probably some other things I'm forgetting.

I didn't particularly have faith in some of the things I tried - I thought they were ludicrous woo - but I was desperate. I would've tried anything that sounded safe and legal, and did. Unlike some who've reported here than waking every 90 minutes is OK because you still get quality sleep, I was a walking zombie.

You mentioned PCOS. Get a hormone panel. I dealt with this after losing weight and lost my period. no PCOS but estrogen and progesterone remained super low so I didn't get periods for years. My sleep was very similar to yours. The only thing that has helped is increasing calories to maintenance or close to it. Large deficits (the leaner you are, the more extreme your body detects hundreds of calories below maintenance) will make your brain jerk you awake to "hunt for food". It's a survival thing. If you don't have a regular period due to low hormones and not just PCOS you will likely have issues with sleep as hormones regulate everything. If your hormones look normal then ignore all this

Another magnesium recommendation - when I'm stressed/dieting/training, I find my sleep becomes irregular. Magnesium gets me to sleep through the night.

I've thought about buying the weighted sheets or blankets that are being used for anxiety. I think my issue is that my stress level is high so I don't relax enough to stay asleep.

Spliner1969 wrote: »

The only thing for certain that has helped me to get a full nights sleep is prolonged rest. What I mean by that is I generally work out 4x per week pretty consistently sometimes 5x per week, as in always. The last time I got a full nights sleep, and even managed to sleep for about 9 hours I was sick the prior week and took about 5 days off in a row from exercising. Might have been exhaustion, or the fact that my body got in a slump of no energy from the flu. Who knows.

I'm too much of an exercise addict to try that again and test the theory but it was the best sleep I've had in likely a year. Most of the time when I wake up at night it has to do with temperature regulation, I wake up in a pool of my own sweat and then can't get back to sleep. Wife can be freezing to death and I'll be sweating lol. Been that way most of my life. I'm one of those people who like it cold as *kitten* in the room so that I can stand to have blankets on me, or even to have a fan running on me at night. One year she bought flannel sheets and I about died. Since then (I made them disappear and bought her new cotton ones lol) I have banned flannel sheets in the house. ;P I'm surprised she's put up with me for 26 years. lol

My OH and I have such completely different sleep environment needs that separate bedrooms is the only way for us to go.

I will try the magnesium. My insomnia is really fun. I can be tired (droopy I call it) at 9 pm and then with every passing hour I become less tired. This can happen even after not sleeping for 48 hours. That part I have under much better control and it is manageable but it is very sensitive to big changes like diet and weather.

At one time I struggled with my mind racing but my nighttime techniques have pretty much wiped that out.

Drinking ginger tea helps a lot with my sleeping. I am barely an adult and have terrible bags under my eyes from lack of sleep. I usually wake at about 5 in the morning and don't sleep until 11 (sometimes 12)! It's a bad habit, but I also suffer from anxiety and sleeping issues since I was a child. I would get up at 3 in the morning trying to wake my mom up sometimes because I got scared of the dark XD.

I can't take medicine to help me sleep because it triggers suicidal thoughts, and melatonin pills just give me awful nightmares (same with codine cough syrup, but I only took it because I was sick).

What calms you?

svel713 wrote: »

This is going to sound weird but I had a similar issue. Then I started watching anime online for ideas for my artsy hobby for 1-2 hours before bed, sitting in bed, and suddenly I started falling asleep like normal and staying asleep.

I realized my problem wasn't looking at a lit screen in bed. My problem was listening to opposing opinions that were basically telling me I was a horrible person (politics, religion, etc) right before bed on my phone or computer. And that stress would stay with me for hours, keeping me awake. Now I intentionally avoid discussion forums an hour before bed. That includes these forums, just in case.

So if you can, find a mindless escape within some kind of TV show, preferably something more for kids and teens so that stress topics that can be opinionated are avoided. Doesn't have to be anime, but definitely no opinion late night talk shows, no reality shows, etc. Find something fun and upbeat.

And for reference, I just watch anime on Crunchyroll for free.

It doesn't sound weird at all. I watch old TV shows that I know really well and are completely safe. I avoid phone calls from certain people after 7pm and I avoid anything else that will get me worked up. If necessary I create a fictional problem and I allow myself to try and solve it so I don't get invested in solving a real problem. These techniques have worked for me for 7+ years now. They at least solves one of the issues I have.

There is some growing interest (University research) into inulin - found in veggies like leeks and you can buy as a supplement - and its role in helping the body regulate its sleep hormones.

(It is coming out if the body of 'proper' research into gut bacteria and their impact on health - as opposed to 'woo'! But I guess I will get woo-ed at anyway. Hey ho.)