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Improving sleep

vincelwt.com

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Re: Improving sleep

#111

Post by throwbipolar »

nunez wrote: post #101

Four things that doing six months of CBT-i (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) taught me are: - Routine is EXTREMELY important (I.e. getting in bed and waking up at the same time, every day, even weekends) - The best way to associate the bed with sleep (and, thereby, falling asleep more quickly) is to ONLY use the bed for sleep and sex, - You're gonna have bad nights, but the key to preventing the insomnia fr…

Just to add on this: having really bad sleep issues can be a symptom of an underlying mental illness, so consulting a therapist is a good idea if thing don't get better by only resorting to lifestyle changes.

What just seemed like "I have trouble sleeping and struggle with my emotions" to me turned out to be type 1 bipolar disorder.

Since I've started to take quetiapin, I'm finally getting proper sleep and all other issues improvee, too.

Re: Improving sleep

#112

Post by IanOzsvald »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #110
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All decafs I tried tasted like ass. And I buy quality beans from the hipster roasters.

Maybe see if one of those roasters mentions the Swiss water process. IME it makes for quite good decaf (and I too have a hipster’s taste in coffee).

In the UK I use Redber for beans, I drink decaf (Swiss Water prices) fresh ground in the afternoon and have 2-3 caf cups in the morning. Redber had a wide selection and several roast levels. No caffeine after noon. I use a 2-cup espresso Bialetti stove top, the second smallest.

Re: Improving sleep

#113

Post by mharig »

What worked for me, when I had bad sleep due to too many thoughts: Vitamine B1, 300mg

Already the first pill had an tremendous effect.

Re: Improving sleep

#114

Post by bradlys »

I like the table of trying things.

Personally, I’ve found the majority of my sleep issues come from one problem and only one problem: stress. It’s almost the most easily correlated thing I can find for my sleep quality. I’m a light sleeper naturally but I am lighter the more stress I have. Outside of that, I found when I am particularly upset, I will wake up at very early hours and just be way more wide awake than I want to be. I can go to bed at 2am and wake up at 4:30am feeling quite awake but obviously very tired.

If I am able to lower my stress then I find sleep gets much better and so does everything else.

At the current moment, I am actually finding my body is getting progressively more sore everyday because I’m unable to get enough rest to recover from my workouts! Due to poor sleep, my lifts are incredibly unpredictable. One day I can do about four sets of ten then the other day I can only do two sets of 7. Sleep is hugely impactful for getting enough volume when in the gym. I can feel when my muscles just won’t respond to the signals I’m sending - or that my body won’t send the signals I’m asking for - whichever it is.

Highly recommend making sure your stress is low because that has always been the biggest by far contributor to sleep for me. Everything else seems worthless in comparison.

Re: Improving sleep

#115

Post by boppo1 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #4

Biggest improvement to sleep quality I had was giving up caffeine, which isn't mentioned in this article. I'm inclined to bet, most people in the west who self report suffering form poor sleep, can narrow it down to caffeine over-consumption, since it leads you slowly to this march of death burning the candle at both ends where you drink coffee to compensate for poor sleep and you sleep poorly because of too much caf…

I'm down to one cup a day in the morning. If I quit entirely, how long until I should notice the benefits? A month?

Re: Improving sleep

#116

Post by bjornasm »

Tenoke wrote: post #10
bjornasm wrote: post #8

I think the biggest detriment to the quality of sleep is to start trying to improve sleep. It should not be a performance with self monitoring and evaluation.

The everpresent bad advice to get 8-9 or more hours of sleep definitely ruined my sleep experience for years when I'd keep trying and fail to do so.

Yeah agreed. You can get hung up on an idealization of a perfect nights sleep that is 8-9 hours, falling asleep at once, and not waking up untill morning, which is very rare and not at all nessesary for a good nights sleep. This will set you up for failure and lots of frustrations.

Re: Improving sleep

#117

Post by garrickvanburen »

Lewton wrote: post #26
vincelt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, failed to mention that I never drink caffeine after 2pm. I never understood how some people can have a coffee in the evening and go to bed just fine.

2pm might not be early enough. Depending on genetics the half life of caffeine in your system can vary by a lot. Even if you're in the normal range, a half life of 4-6 hours means that ~25% of the caffeine would still be in your system by midnight... If you're that worried about sleep quality, it's baffling you have not tried cutting out caffeine altogether

No caffeine after 10am here.

Re: Improving sleep

#118

Post by lacoolj »

This is something I never think "anyone else is going through" and find out I'm completely wrong. It's all the things I experiment with in my head and keep to myself and here he's taken them all out and tabulated the data.

I would like to add to his findings that alcohol (any amount at all) changes sleep quality for me very consistently (not staying asleep/lack of morning after "rested" feeling). Strange to me that it's not an item on his list but maybe he doesn't drink to begin with.

Re: Improving sleep

#119

Post by lacoolj »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #4

Biggest improvement to sleep quality I had was giving up caffeine, which isn't mentioned in this article. I'm inclined to bet, most people in the west who self report suffering form poor sleep, can narrow it down to caffeine over-consumption, since it leads you slowly to this march of death burning the candle at both ends where you drink coffee to compensate for poor sleep and you sleep poorly because of too much caf…

don't know if it was after your comment or not but he has caffeine listed here (mentioned not drinking after 2pm)

Re: Improving sleep

#120

Post by lacoolj »

erictd wrote: post #109

I don't want to give up caffeine, but I have my two shots before 7 or 8am and that's it for caffeine. You didn't mention alcohol, maybe you aren't a drinker? Giving up alcohol for ~4 days definitely improves my sleep - no 2am wakeups, more dreams - but then it's the weekend again, whoops. If I can't fall back asleep after around 15-30 minutes, I get up and read for an hour; that always works. I try to think in terms…

haha I should have scrolled before commenting. I brought up the alcohol thing too. totally agree.

the sleep mask/something over the eyes was a huge thing for me about 5 years ago (that lasted about 5 years prior) and even now I have blackout curtains, though they don't fully block light on the edges. but if you're like me, you'll eventually ween off the eye covering without noticing why.

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