Sleep deprivation...: stumbleupon.com/su/6LaUfw/:... - Headway
Sleep deprivation...
Respectability at last for we owls ? I've always been a fumbling wreck in the mornings but a fairly high achiever later in the day/eve/night.
And failing to be up & alert by 7.30 ish has always been stigmatised ; never mind that you might have risen just before noon and worked solidly 'til midnight.
Pity it doesn't fit with the 9-5 ethic................................ 
My weekdays are up at 0400 and bed by 2230 except at weekends; Saturday 0630 and bed? Anytime after midnight. Sunday up any old time before 0930 and bed 2200.
I don't sleep properly; never have since my TBI and interestingly I discussed this with the neurologist when she correctly suggested that I probably didn't sleep well due to the site of my damage.
Apparently, when I lay there awake all night I achieve around 60% sleep but don't notice it. [Slept last night 3 x Chang's and 2 x Singha's dealt with any non-sleep].
I'm rarely knackered in the morning but my eyesight is blurred when I arise.
I'm exhausted all the time and find that I am short tempered with people at work. I feel that the article explains why this is.
The article is good and doubtless takes a broad view - one size fits most I fancy.
For a year or so after my TBI and op I was always knackered and very irritable too.
Now, 48 years on that's gone.
xx
Oddly I was a night owl in my younger days, but I flag during the day so tend to be asleep early thus tend to more the mourning now.
I've always been lethargic in the mornings, then come about 2pm and I can (and did) move mountains. The later it got the more focused and efficient I became ; I swear I have the DNA of an owl.
Even my employers allowed me to start later and finish later because they saw how productive I was, if a little unconventional !
Like most of us I have had a long journey to piece together how the injury causes the effects that it does.
At a headway session one of the councillors mentioned that short term memory and day time experiences are stored in a specific part of the brain and that overnight these are converted to long term memory. So if we have any damage in the short term memory storage area or don't get enough sleep then preserving memories just won't happen.
Recently I found out from a "sleep doctor" that the sleep function is controlled by the frontal lobe. Apparently, head injuries (and ageing) cause sleep problems. What is also interesting is that poor sleep causes memory loss, balance issues, mood swings, fatigue, loss of sex drive etc. Sound familiar.
I found it really hard to work our why I couldn't get beyond a certain point in my recovery. Having the pieces fall into place as to how the mechanics worked really helped. Interestingly the advice from the "sleep doctor" was to lose some weight and and take more exercise The same thing most of us have been told at some time and usual accept with a passing nod. This time the doctor explained why - the more fatty tissues you especially around your neck and face the more likely your sleep will be disturbed as tissue can constrict the airways. Walking for 90 minutes continually in the afternoon raises the oxygen level in the system (and brain) and mentally relaxing.
Now I understand what is happening I feel strangely at ease
" .............. loss of sex drive etc."
Not necessarily so. I have suffered from an unwanted heightened libido thanks to my TBI. It is a miserable problem as much as others might not see it as such.
Whilst I try to control it it can cause me concern [and others].
At 65 it is a problem!
Although far from being an expert, what I have read is that sleep issues and head injuries closely overlap and that libido can swing either way too much or too little. People tend to have the same problems with dealing with people either too introvert or so can make wildly inappropriate comments.
Head injuries seem to be a condition that effects everyone differently
Interesting.
I sleep more since my SAH, I'm in bed by 10pm, when, previously, I'd still be blithering about after midnight. I'm still up at 6am, sometimes earlier, BUT I notice I'm far more productive early in the day, all the housework is done in the mornings at weekends, because I 'flag' later in the day.
I control my sleep better now, because I have to, my brain needs rest, probably always did, I just didn't let it have enough before. The husband and son are still awake and active well past midnight, but I'm not staying up to be 'sociable', because I never really was. I could sleep through an earthquake, and I'm grateful for that, I did have one period of irrational anxiety, where I just couldn't get to sleep for a few nights, ruminating over the most pointless things well into the early hours, but, generally, I'm asleep once I'm in bed.
I've had a couple of late nights, up beyond my 'bedtime' with no lasting lag, but I wouldn't want to test the theory for a prolonged period, I remember all too well the period of shouting out inappropriate things in Mothercare just after my son was born!
I still have the irrational thoughts, but mostly I just Tweet them, instead of verbalising them... Twitter as therapy, it's great.
My libido is exactly as it was prior to the BI, so sleeping properly hasn't had an impact on that...
That's just me- I've just realised I'm over-sharing again, but I was in one meeting for FIVE HOURS today, my poor old brain is fried.
I wake 9/10ish normally asleep by 12 though can varie wildly sometimes I'm staring at the walls at 2am others I'm asleep by 7pm I sleep a lot, tend to start flagging by lunch time. So try to do things before that.
Definitely a morning lark now, chirping happily with coffee while others doze on. Then ok energy wise all day (brisk 40 minute walk to work in the coastal air) and then flag by about 8pm and can easily go to bed then. Often awake in the night for an hour (it`s 2am now) lovely and quiet and I can just chill and gather my thoughts. Used to be a definite night owl pre ABI but now, nah...
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