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Why Can’t I Sleep?

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Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#241

Post by koheripbal »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #235
koheripbal wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found something that works for me. One of the things that prevents adults from sleeping is worrying about life problems. Getting your brain to shut up about problems that you cannot fix at night is the problem. My trick is to listen (not watch) to old television shows ...all night. I selected a few hundred hours of old television that'd I'd seen many times before, got a pair of very comfortable ear buds to sleep wi…

7 years ago I woke up at 2AM to a commotion outside. It was my neighbors home - on fire - and by the time I got outside to check what was going on, the fire jumped to my home. Had I not heard the noise, I would've probably died in my sleep. Given that situation or any other possible emergency that may occur in the middle of the night, sleeping with earbuds playing old TV shows seems like a very bad idea... Be careful…

Luckily my wife wakes up if a pin falls on the ground. Also, the volume for my earbuds is quite low, and I can still here the kids going to the bathroom at night.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#242

Post by heroHACK17 »

For those looking for more info and practical advice on this topic: check out the Huberman Lab podcast. The host, Dr. Andrew Huberman, spends four episodes talking about sleep. He actually draws a lot of research from the folks at UCSF (mentioned in the article).

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#243

Post by hellbannedguy »

I've been seeing a Psychiatrist 30 plus years.

I have not asked him directly what causes insomnia, but from what from what I gather (He is very good in not making a situation worse with a dubious advice.) is they don't know. It's most likely stress from life? I go to bed worried, and worry throughout the day.

1. Melatonin worked for one night.

2. He states that many patients build up a tolerance to Ambian after three days.

3. I stopped sleeping through the night about 20 years ago. I can get to sleep, but wake up three hours later, and you know the drill. I've kinda given up. I tried antihistamines, but they only work sometimes, and the tiredness I feel lasts when I wake.

4. There are a few vary rare medical conditions, and Psychological disorders that can cause sleep disturbances. So rare, medically, I don't even know if I should mention them. I'll give the only one I heard that can cause sleep reversal in some patients. I heard it was cirrhosis. It's one more reason to limit drug/alcohol use? (I could have cirrhosis? The only way to know for sure is a biopsy, and why? I'm not getting a liver transplant over sleep.)

5. I have gathered they don't know why some people have such crazy sleep patterns.

6. Klonopin/bentzos helps with sleep, but you build up a tolerance pretty quick. (I take klonopin. If I had a do over, I would have never started them. I do know it's possible to get down to 1 mg daily without much discomfort.)

7. Heavy exercise at night can disrupt sleep. I know it's counterintutive.

8. My sleep has gotten to the point, I need to find a night job.

9. I wish employers would start work hours later for those with sleep disorders.

10. In my county, the town of Sausalito decided homeless will have to pack up their tents during the day. I remember reading this and thinking not one of those council members know what it's like to have a sleeping disorder.

11. Good luck--lousy sleep is getter than cancer, or death?

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#244

Post by oliv__ »

Call me crazy but my personal experience has been that whenever I am in a "high" (at least for me) electro-magnetic field environment, I have trouble falling asleep, my sleep becomes terrible, chopped up and I wake up feeling like I barely slept even though I might have slept for 7-9 hours.

In contrast, in a "low" EMF environment, I fall asleep almost instantly, sleep in one go, and wake up feeling amazing. It's literally night and day for me, no pun intended.

Just my 2c, but I'd recommend trying to turn off your wifi router and your phone at night, see if it makes any difference in your life. At best it will, at worst, you will just think I'm crazy and have "wasted" one night experimenting.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#245

Post by ravenstine »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #243

I've been seeing a Psychiatrist 30 plus years. I have not asked him directly what causes insomnia, but from what from what I gather (He is very good in not making a situation worse with a dubious advice.) is they don't know. It's most likely stress from life? I go to bed worried, and worry throughout the day. 1. Melatonin worked for one night. 2. He states that many patients build up a tolerance to Ambian after three…

Not eating or drinking before bed makes a massive difference for me.

A little water here or there is okay, but I find that if I don't eat or drink 3 hours before my bedtime then my sleep is more restful and I have much more REM sleep. It works very consistently for me and I can tell it works both through my experience and what my Oura ring tells me about my sleep.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#246

Post by epicureanideal »

rapsey wrote: post #59
Clampower wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take a multi every day, but I’ll try this.

Multi vitamins are generally a complete waste of money. Check how much magnesium and what type yours has. Magnesium oxide for instance practically does not absorb into the body.

> Multi vitamins are generally a complete waste of money.

I think we should be more careful about saying this. I've heard both professors and doctors say this, and then I've personally read the (reputable, mainstream) research papers showing that double digit percentages of people have various vitamin deficiencies.

I'll just Google real quick to see if I can find some examples of common vitamin deficiencies, but these are obviously just web articles, not research papers...

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfession...

"Dietary surveys of people in the United States consistently show that many people consume less than recommended amounts of magnesium"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10357726/

This one recommends 120mg of vitamin C, but I've seen another that recommends 200mg, and I suspect a lot of software engineers are not eating enough fruit on a daily basis to meet the recommended level.

Also, what's the harm in taking a multivitamin? At a cost of under $1/day, if you don't need the vitamins, it's a small cost (I agree that a multivitamin doesn't usually include enough magnesium or vitamin D, but that's an argument for adding additional supplements, not to stop taking multivitamins.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#247

Post by oliv__ »

Clampower wrote: post #4

Since about three weeks ago I cannot sleep. It’s very strange. I know the feeling of anxiety and how it leads to not sleeping, it’s something I’ve had in the past at very stressful jobs. I’ve learned techniques to deal with this, like breathing and mindfulness. But right now this feels different. I’m tired, I’m lying in bed, and I don’t have any stressful thoughts. Yet somehow I just don’t fall asleep. It feels like…

Since you mention it only started about three weeks ago, I would try to look at what's changed in your environment (if you haven't already).

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#248

Post by arcturus17 »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #243

I've been seeing a Psychiatrist 30 plus years. I have not asked him directly what causes insomnia, but from what from what I gather (He is very good in not making a situation worse with a dubious advice.) is they don't know. It's most likely stress from life? I go to bed worried, and worry throughout the day. 1. Melatonin worked for one night. 2. He states that many patients build up a tolerance to Ambian after three…

Also had permanent middle of the night wakings for no apparent reason. I don’t need to be stressed for this to happen, my body works like that.

1mg of benzos (lorazepam) has changed my life. No tolerance, works every single time. I take a few weeks off and sometimes I’ll skip a day or two on weekends. I’m thinking of trying 0,5mg but the pills I have are hard to split in quarters.

Matt Walker and the Virgin Mary could stage an intervention and they would not persuade me to quit. I’m disciplined, I’ve tried every other trick in the book, and nothing else works reliably.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#249

Post by corysama »

stronglikedan wrote: post #174
wruza wrote: post #149

Ironically, I fixed my moderate chronic insomnia succesfully by going to a doctor with a completely unrelated( citation needed ) set of symptoms. My CBT therapist wanted me to fall asleep during the appointment to perform another technique, but obviously I could not. He said to not worry and explained a routine which I’m happy to share to those who didn’t try yet: - lay, relax, comfort^ - do not move further - do not…

Ah, yes, Body Scan Mediation. It works wonders. I'm usually asleep somewhere between the waist and knees. I prefer to listen to a soft-spoken guide (guided meditation) when doing this technique. Plenty of resources online for that.

Yep. I saw some article about "British naval vets share how they fall asleep anywhere instantly". TLDR: Body scan + mindfulness meditation. I'm sure being exhausted helps in their case too!

Body scan: Lying still in bed, you are relaxed, right? Not so much, actually. Start mentally checking individual body parts and you'll find a bunch of muscles tensed up for no reason at all. Let each one go loose one by one. Then check again and you'll find they can still go looser. It can take several passes to get to the point where your muscles are actually hanging loose.

Meditation: Yep. We're going to do the "Clear your mind and don't think about anything" routine. Never works, right? That's OK. The point is not to succeed in thinking about nothing. All you need to do is notice you're thinking about stuff and go back to thinking about nothing. Over and over. You don't need to "win". Just fail and restart again and again and again. You can repeatedly fail, can't you? ;) As long as you keep restarting, you're good.

Re: Why Can’t I Sleep?

#250

Post by dmd »

oliv__ wrote: post #244

Call me crazy but my personal experience has been that whenever I am in a "high" (at least for me) electro-magnetic field environment, I have trouble falling asleep, my sleep becomes terrible, chopped up and I wake up feeling like I barely slept even though I might have slept for 7-9 hours. In contrast, in a "low" EMF environment, I fall asleep almost instantly, sleep in one go, and wake up feeling amazing. It's lite…

I'll bite: you're crazy.

You're crazy enough that I will, personally, bet you any amount of money you like, up to a limit of US$500000, that in a blind test with and without any number of wifi routers, cell phones, or other computing equipment operating, you cannot discern the difference.

Email in profile.

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