Sleepless

[LittleBird]

I'm finding sleep difficult at the moment. Tend to wake up a lot in the night and in a hypervigilant state every morning. I'm feeling like my mind has been over processing. Causes so much stress at the start of every day. Not sure how to change that.

[Kat]

Ugh... I've been going through the exact same thing.  It sucks.  I'll find myself suddenly wide awake in the middle of the night and realize I must have been asleep, but it's hard to believe because of how awake I am in the moment.  I've awakened 3-5 times or more each night for the past week and a half. 

Sorry that I don't have anything to offer except commiseration.  I hope we both find rest soon.

[Rainagain]

I'm with you guys in the sleep deprivation Olympics.

Even when I do sleep I tend to thrash about and shout a lot, not good.

I have no clue how to deal with it but thought I would chip in to say I know how it feels.

[sanmagic7]

this is exactly what my t brought to the table for me today.  i'm going to keep a sleep journal for the next two weeks, a bit of mindfulness about what's causing me to wake up and not be able to get back to sleep.  some of it is years and decades of habit, so it might be a re-training thing.  i don't know, but it's scary.

no. 1 rule she made was not to be at the computer at night.  that's been my go-to for 20 yrs.  scary.

just sticking my 2 cents in, another sleep-deprived olympian.  i loved that.

[Dee]

Medication helps, but I still go back and forth.  I know any sleep I get is attributed to medication.  Sometimes it just isn't enough.

[Elphanigh]

I have been struggling with this too. I always have, but it is worse in waves... this is one of those. I do love your term sleep deprived Olympian.

[LittleBird]

I'm sorry to hear this is so widespread at the moment. I think I've become primed against relaxing the more I worried about getting the right amount of sleep and fought authentic resting.  My mind is just too active sometimes.

Medication can help, meditation I'm rarely relaxed enough for. I like focusing on the simplest things like breath and visualising something that makes me feel happy. That's how we win, I guess, staying calm.

I'm still tense the next day but the more I practice calming techniques effectively, the more space I'll have to calm down. Our brains are just muscles that need to be trained. Let's keep working at it 

[Rainagain]

Another night with around three hours of thrashing about instead of sleep.....

One thing that helps me cope is not to fret about lack of sleep, I used to panic that I wouldn't cope.

Easy for me though, I am unemployed and my kids are grown so I don't need to function properly any more.

[sanmagic7]

i'm with you on that, rain.  i've got time during the day to sleep.  i've just discovered today that i feel safer during the day, and have some of my best sleep during my naps.   no expectations or interruptions which i've had most of my life.  funny how that works.

[Rainagain]

Interesting San,
I am the same, hadn't realised it til now.

I'm not afraid of the dark but maybe my amygdala is?

Hmmm........

[ah]

A very big me too.
I'm very afraid of nighttime, well, not me. My body is. I hate nighttime. And I don't sleep. I manage to fall asleep thanks to medication, but I always wake up later and I wake up with the same high level of arousal as usual. Never a moment when my body is relaxed. I wake up with fight/flight already fully on and shouting its head off at me.
So no wonder we wake up during the night / barely sleep at all. Medication induced sleep isn't quality sleep. It leaves me exhausted during the day.
Meditation helps, it leaves my body more calm and usable. But it can be hard to sit still and be with myself in silence in order to do it.

[LittleBird]

 

[Blueberry]

I tend to lie awake in the dark though I'm not afraid of it, to my knowledge. I certainly don't feel frightened. Lights out = wide awake. So I tend to fall asleep reading and then the light is on all night. Probably not the most restful sleep, but better than none. I don't have medication.

[sanmagic7]

i'm not afraid of or in the dark, either.  i've just slept in chunks for most of my life.  my mom once told me that as a baby i had my days and nights mixed up, slept during the day, awake at night.  hmmm . . .

[Kat]

I called out sick from work today.  I just woke up a bit ago--it's almost 3:00 pm.  I went to bed around midnight.  I do this occasionally, but it's usually because I've gotten too blitzed the night before to go to work.  I didn't last night, but it only makes me wonder if the excessive drinking the times before was more an attempt to knock myself out than anything else.  Who knows?  At least this time I'm not waking up with the same level of shame and self-hatred.  I mean, I'm still feeling like I've done something "wrong" and that I should be ashamed for taking a day off, but it doesn't feel as severe.

Now I'm just feeling really out of it because the sun will be going down soon and I'm all turned around.  Ugh...