It Didn't occur to me before But since my B.I. 15 years ago, my sleep pattern has gone through the roof. Most days by mid afternoon I need asleep. I DON'T go straight to sleep when I go to bed around 11pm . I usually play on my phone, Which is Contagious.
EVERY Morning I Find it Difficult to get Motovsted and I hate it.
Does Anyone else feel the same?
MUST write this point down so I can explain it to my O.T. Maybe She Will Produce the "Magic Wand" I have been waiting for / wanting for SO Long!
Have a Good Day People. Be CHEERFUL
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Janye
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I know that 'Sleep Hygiene' is what we're supposed to aim for (no screen stimulus before bed i.e. TV, laptops, phones etc.) but personally I've found that if I obey my body-clock, which means sleeping from 2am to 10am, my sleeping is no longer a problem. And I'm usually on my laptop or doing a crossword 'til light-out.
In the days of turning out the light before midnight I would lie awake, often 'til morning, or wake up too early & be unable to settle again. Of course on days like tomorrow, when I have a hospital appointment at 8.30am, I'll be pretty sleep-deprived, but I'll get over it.
It makes no difference to me what time I get up ; the motivation for getting out of a cosy, comfy bed doesn't improve. Since the BI, I have no guilt whatsoever and, being retired, I can at last do whatever I please !
I wouldn't hold my breath for a magic wand Janye, I believe lethargy is what most of us are left with after brain injury. I usually plan, the night before, a project for the following morning and I have a friend who rings me each morning with a pretty brisk phone call, in case my motivation has sunk below zero !
janye 4am sometimes 9 10 or 11 am before im up and about. look at the word lethargic...... boring thats why we find it hard . we have a brain injury and its the old thing day in day out ...boring boring boring, i could put it other ways but it would still come back to being lethargic.
I have a similar issue with the sleep-pattern being out-of-synch, Jayne, but mine's the other way around.
Prior to my haemorrhage, I would usually stay up until about midnight, and then find it near-impossible to drag myself out of bed when the 6am alarm clock went off.
Initially, after the surgery, the exhaustion was massive, and I would, quite often, have to sleep in the afternoon, unable to stay awake any longer. Afternoon naps weren't an option when I returned to work full-time, but my brain/body still needed more sleep, so I ended up putting myself to bed early. Really early. Sometimes before 8pm.
The knock-on of that is that I wake up early. Most days it's manageable, for me, around 4am, but there are days when I'm bolt-upright, wide-awake at 2.30, or something daft like that, and I just can't get back to sleep... that leads to another early-night, which usually feeds into another wake-up-while-it's-still-dark. Ridiculous.
I'm rational, I know I'm perpetuating the cycle, but I don't suppose it's hurting anyone or anything.
I saw this poster it said ' There are ten reasons I can't be bothered....1.)......) and that was it.
Anyway, there was no number 2.) or number 3.) It kind of amused me.
It's 2pm and I am in my dressing gown. So yes, it's common. Fit nice things into each week or day and get a structure going, even if it's 'leave house and go buy papers/ walk dog/ get milk by 10am.' Do you have a structure for your week? How do you fill your time?
Like Cat said, being under a warm duvet is lovely, and it is very tempting to stay there once you have had a brain injury as our brains function differently now.
But if you are fatigued, it is your body telling you to rest. (As I am today.)
I've posted on this topic before and is the bane of my life.
Well when I say of my life, it doesn't bother me, as I'm quite happy prioritising for what I feel is most interesting to me, if not THE most important thing to prioritise for my wife. This frustrates her incredibly and feels taken advantage of as I don't share the burden.
I have said that I would prefer to pay for help but this goes against her principles which leaves me feeling an abject failure and my wife feeling like she has to do almost everything.
After my ABI 8 years ago I have changed my interests and activities so much as I find I lack the concentration or find things pointless and unengaging.
In short you're not alone xx
Yes it did take them over a decade to get to the bottom of my excessive sleeping! All it needed was a cheap and simple kit to wire me up overnight - all the expensive scans had shown nowt...
Apparently the centre lower back area of the brain (medulla?) that was bashed in my accident also controls the nerve stimulus to breathe. When it doe not do its job the blood oxygen level falls and the brain wants to shut down and demands 'sleep'. My then job involved a lot of talking - one must breathe to talk so it was only when I finished work and drove home that the fatigue was so overwhelming that as an Advanced Motorist I knew it was not safe to drive! Blood oxygen levels are easily monitored. Now I am on oxygen and it is much better. Oh and when the nasal catheter came out after I had had a tad too much alcohol at a celebration dinner (and hence did not wake up!) I had a grand mal seizure. My ex-army neurologist is surprisingly uninterested in the effects of brain injury - I get the impression that tumours are much more his thing... This test is so easy and cheap to assess but it can only be requested by a respiratory consultant apparently.
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I can measure things - correctly now
I have things that I need and want to do but dont have it in me to do them
Covid isolation and lack of social development.
Cognitive Function or lack of!
Lack of sleep 😴
