I haven't had night terrors in a while. I'm happy about it for multiple reasons.
However, just like when I had night terrors, I'm waking exhausted like I was working while sleep.
I tend to not take the Trazadone that was prescribed to me, as I don't make it to bed till I'll have (maybe) 6 hours of sleep and I don't want to risk not waking for work.
I am unsure of what to do. Or how to get a spark of energy in the morning.
Parasomnia disorders like night terrors tend to accompany poor quality sleep. Even if you solve the most obvious symptoms it doesn't mean you are getting useful sleep. Unfortunately the most common sleep aids tend to reduce deep or rem sleep for light sleep that is already the problem for many. Trazodone is one of the better options and plenty of people use it as a daytime medication for anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders. It is not specifically a sedative and not everyone will feel extremely drowsy on it.
On 6 hrs sleep though you are always going to be drowsy and everything that will improve quality of sleep to make you less drowsy the rest of the day is likely to make mornings extremely difficult. Many things that improve restfulness end up with complaints of drowsiness even if people have more energy and alertness a few hours later and don't feel tired as early in the evening because it's harder to wake from deeper sleep than lighter sleep stages. You feel worse and less rested when you wake up and it's harder to get out of bed but then you feel better the entire rest of the day. Whereas spending long periods of time in lighter sleep makes it more likely you'll be able to get up whenever you need to but you'll always feel somewhat tired and rapidly lose energy during the day.
There is no good solution for someone that can only get 6hrs of sleep to prevent feeling tired unless you are among that handful that due to genetics only need about 6 hrs sleep. Otherwise you either have to figure out how to get more sleep, learn to live with your current level of sleep deprivation, or potentially slightly improve your sleep and energy levels at the expense of having to find better ways to wake yourself up. Over half the adult population of the UK and US are constantly sleep deprived and it contributes to many chronic health issues, psychiatric disorders, and a shorter lifespan.
My psychiatrist said one person with a sleep disorder that frequently caused him issues waking up installed bright flood lights over his bed, put it on a timer, and was never late for work again. I used a saltwater aquarium light for awhile because the old high output fluorescents and halogens that had the problem of also producing a lot of heat were being sold off for nothing when leds took over the market. You can buy daylight therapy specific lamps that aim to mimic noon day sunlight as well as sunrise alarm clocks that will slowly light up the room to encourage your body to go into lighter stages of sleep so you'll wake up easier when the alarm goes off. I find light much more useful than sound. Partially because you don't have to rush to turn light off like a loud alarm you don't want bothering others or is extremely stressful for you.
Along with helping you feel less drowsy in the morning and during the day light also works well as a signal throughout the day to remind you what time it is both consciously and trigger natural responses to light changes. Light turning on/brightening or going off/dimming makes it more likely your body will be ready to sleep or wake at a specific time. It's even easier now with smart leds that you can put in any existing light socket and setup on a phone or tablet app instead of needing to install separate lights and timers.
You can't avoid being sleepy if you don't sleep. No one is going to have a solution that can make 6hrs completely equal to 8hrs or bypass the need to sleep enough and well enough every night. You can feel a little less run down and a little more able to get things done without a full night of sleep if you can improve your sleep quality through light exposure, diet, supplements, activities/behaviors, or medication. Your body can make up for less sleep to a point but it will never be completely effective. You will always have to fight to wake up and find the energy for things through the day if you can't find a way to get enough good quality sleep.
That was definitely a lot of information to take in, but i thank you 🙂 I understand that I basically need to find ways to incorporate more sleep at night. I like the light idea as well, but I don't sleep alone and that would be a major inconvenience for them since we're on different schedules.
I will take everything you said into consideration though. Thanks again!
If you can manage to wake up enough without waking the other person you could use some of the more targeted daylight therapy devices to prevent falling back to sleep and help you get going in the morning. Potentially even while still in bed since they have visors and glasses (much more expensive) with sunlight simulating lights shining down on your face. You also might be able to find lights that specifically only give off the portion of the blue spectrum known to induce wakefulness but is not perceived as being as bright according to what we can see. It won't seem like you are using a bright light in the room but it will have the same impact on your brain. I have seen some daylight therapy options that include more of that spectrum than is in typical sunlight instead of matching sunlight as exactly as possible but so far I have not come across blue light only ones. It has to be a specific spectrum and not just any blue light.
There are also bone conduction sound devices now. They send the vibrations of sound waves through the bones in your skull to your ear drums so no one can hear what you hear. That allows you to listen to anything at any volume without disturbing anyone else. I'm not sure yet if there are specific devices for use during sleep and that could be set to help you wake up without disturbing someone else. It was only the past few years the technology improved to produce clear enough sound that way. You might have to find your own comfortable enough pair of bone conduction headphones that will connect to an app you can put a timer on for playing sound.
The only real solution may be figuring out how to go to bed sooner or get enough sleep at another time of the day. If you can't fit a solid 8hrs into one specific part of the day you might try splitting it up. Long "naps" are not a bad thing.
Biphasic sleep with 2 broken up sleep times instead of trying to sleep 8hrs straight has actually been more normal for people throughout history until relatively recently. Most people are biologically designed not to sleep in a single nighttime block and will need less sleep and feel more rested if they break it up. It became the most efficient way for most modern jobs to function so most people were forced into a single sleeping period until it became our normal expectation for daily schedule. Even when most countries passed labor laws restricting how many hours straight or per day someone can be forced to work society merely added requirements onto our early evenings and kept the single sleeping period. Now people are made to feel lazy if they don't cram their sleep into the society approved time period. Despite the fact many are incapable of getting as much or as good of quality of sleep all at once.
People used to find they were most creative between sleeping periods and would often make use of that time even if it was the middle of the night for artistic or written works. Today many high level tech company workers or worldwide companies that may need to function during various time zones have made use of a variety of modified sleeping schedules and methods to improve how much deep and rem sleep they get during shorter periods spread out over the day and night. It allows them to do higher quality work at any point in the day or night without having to take an entire 8hr minimum break and avoids the usual problem of spending half the day too tired to concentrate or problem solve before sleeping again. Not everyone is capable of that level of flexibility in when they sleep though and it can require extensive knowledge of sleep and wakefulness triggers to be able to sleep exactly when you need to as long as you need to every day. Many do already feel tired at various times and can easily fall asleep during parts of the afternoon or early evening and then do activities again before sleeping more without issues. It's still fairly common in some countries for everyone to live that way. It just depends on the person if any alternative sleeping schedule works or not for them and their lifestyle or daily demands.
dreams.co.uk/sleep-matters-...
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