Sleep journal/anxiety

[wantokporo]

Just a suggestion: I keep a sleep journal to try and track triggers, drug response histories, etc. One thing I added in the last year was tracking how good my days were--not just my nights--the day after when I note sleep duration/arousals. An unexpected result was that my anxiety about sleeping went down significantly when I saw that not sleeping well is not equal to a lousy day. I have had many fine days after poor sleep. This helps me relax when I am up walking the floor and waking up over and over, taking mid-nite baths, etc.

[Madlegs1]

Very good point. We often get so fussed about the " good night's sleep" that it overwhelms us.

Thanks for posting that gem.

[Todge]

Great idea!!! I should start the same! Thank you for sharing!!!

[silkyreg]

My RLS made my life hell and I often couldn't sleep for 30 to 40 hours. Therefore I had to spent 3 months in hospital to get me back on track cause my doctor diagnosed my "biorythm" as "biodrama" that couldn't be set back at home but needed a long term stay in hospital.

But this experience of sleep deprivation, I worked full time anyways, gave me a kind of resiliance. I am now in the position that it doesn't matter how early I have to get up, how much sleep I had, what day- or nighttime it is that I have to do something, I am able to be right on the spot and do whatever I have to do no matter what time or when I slept last for how long. A good long sleep is a blessing as a regular biorhythm is, but you can also live without it. That's what RLS tought me.

[Amrob in reply to silkyreg]

Silkyreg, can you share how you re-set your biorhythm? Which i understand to be your body's natural biological cycles, primarily circadian rhythms.

[silkyreg in reply to Amrob]

I had to spend three months in the hospital under strict regimentation. Fixed sleeping and waking times and meals at fixed times. If I couldn't sleep at night, I wasn't allowed to watch TV or sit at my laptop, but I could read books or knit in the lounge. The first weeks I always sat up late into the night until I was finally tired enough to sleep. But in the morning at 7 o'clock the night was over because we were woken up by the nurses, no matter how much sleep I had. I would catch up on sleep during the day, but not much because we also had an activity program. After about 2 months my body had a normal day/night rhythm again. Since then, I stick to going to sleep around 10pm and to my fixed meal times.

[Amrob in reply to silkyreg]

Thanks, that's really interesting, albeit hardcore!I have insomnia as well as periodic limb movement so this sounds like something to try. Can you watch tv or do any screen based activities before bed these days or is that still a no no?

[silkyreg in reply to Amrob]

Yes I can watch TV or sit at my laptop until bedtime but I have to be careful that it doesn't get out of hand. In the past, TV and PC captivated me so much that I didn't want to go to bed. That was one of the reasons why my biorhythm got out of sync. Today I have this "addiction" under control and can "switch off" at 10 pm. Even if I can't fall asleep right away, I don't stress myself out about it anymore, but tell myself: "You don't have to sleep, just lie down for a bit and rest your eyes." That helps me a lot. Because I no longer take medication against RLS, there are also nights when I can't sleep at all. If I still lie awake in bed after 1-2 hours, I give it up and sit down at the PC again. I have learned from my extreme sleep problems from before that a sleepless night is not a drama. You survive it, you can still function throughout the day and then the next night sleep comes again. But even after a sleepless night, I make an effort to stay awake until 10pm and not sleep during the day so my biorhythm doesn't get out of sync again.

[Amrob in reply to silkyreg]

Thanks for sharing your experience.I tend to wait until i'm really sleepy until i go to bed because i find that laying awake contributes to any anxiety i may feel about not sleeping.

Much of what i've read about sleep hygiene suggests that if you're already in bed and not feeling sleepy, get up and do something like a crossword puzzle. So, i do this too sometimes - or have something light to eat.

[silkyreg in reply to Amrob]

I know this fear of not being able to sleep that's why I told you what I do about it now, that I don't put myself under stress to have to sleep but say to myself that it's already good if I just rest.It is exactly this fear of not being able to sleep that makes you stay up longer and longer and thus shifts your day/night rhythm.

The doctors in the hospital didn't care if I was afraid of not being able to sleep. 10 o'clock was bedtime, lights out, flap closed. If I couldn't sleep or didn't want to go to bed my only option was to sit on one of the hard plastic chairs in the lounge and bore myself to sleep with something like reading a book, knitting, painting something, etc.

Well I guess they thought in the beginning that only the activity on the PC would tie me up so much that I wouldn't get to sleep, but had to realize over the weeks that it wasn't because of that and I sat in the lounge for hours every night with some boring activity and still complained that I suffered from trouble falling asleep. I tried to sleep at 10 o'clock but couldn't. So at some point I got up and went to the common room. After a few hours, I went back to bed and tried again. Couldn't and I got up again. Some nights the nurses would let me out of the hospital at 5am so I could take a walk in hopes that it would make me so tired and I could finally sleep. Didn't help either.

[Munroist]

It’s great that you’ve removed that source of stress and like other people posting are able to look neutrally at the problem. Being able to experience problems without judgement is an important skill in meditation and not always easy to do, but reacting negatively to issues often makes them worse. Thanks for posting.

[wantokporo]

The benefit of tracking the quality of the days, after either good or bad sleep, is that it is scientific. I don't have to talk myself into being relaxed, or whatever, if I am having a bad night. I just KNOW that it will not determine how the next day will be based upon looking at how this has played out for me. It would not work for you if you should track your daytime quality and bad days correlated with bad sleep.