Insomnia Forum Posting

Posted by DJmaux on April 29, 2003 at 16:20:11:

BAD SLEEP ADAPTATION and LIGHT AT WRONG TIME causing all your problems?
Please read this though as there are some very important issues here that could be causing your sleep problems!
Hey. Im new to sleepnet and I thought I would see if I could help any of you out.
I have mild insmonia but have had short bursts of very very bad insomnia.
One thing that I have been stduying is the way your body adapts to changes in sleep and how many of you here seem to suffer because of the way your bodies adapt.
If you are all asking why the hell am I only getting so little sleep then I think you should concentrate your energy here.
What I think one thing its all about your body adapting to less sleep too effciently! I think that is probably what nearly all you have a problem with.
For some reason my body over the past few years has got this very very fast adaptation to change in sleep.
I woke up an hour early two days in a row, the next day and the next I always woke up one hour early like my body adapts too fast to sleep changes.
I must of gone 4 weeks always waking up an hour early.
Then I decided to try something. I stayed up and didnt go to bed for one night and did 25 minuites moderate excercise every 5 hours (very important!) so that by the time I had been up for 40 hours I slept right through and even a couple more hours more and then the waking up an hour early thing went!
Now I want to know if there are any guinie pigs out there who want to give my theroy a shot!
For thoses of you who are only getting 2-5 hrs a night like all the time this might be for you!
You see the body adapts to fit changes in things but when the body adapts to efficently it causes problems!
I bet nearly all of your bodies of people who sleep terribly small hours, have simply adapted thinking your in the army or something and that thats what you need.
After all what if you were to join an army that was in a war where you could only sleep for 3-4 hours a night?
Your body would be doing you a favour! When some people would be dropping off to sleep never adapting to the short sleep and getting shot, your bodies would save you with this "Im tired and have only slept 3 hours but im wired and cant sleep thing" You would be praising your bodies thinking im so lucky and laughing about it!
But in the mirror world where your not in the army your the unlucky ones! Yin and Yang!
What you need to do is learn to break the bodies sleep pattern as hardly as you can.
You used to sleep more so you can go back to how it was!
So how can you reset your body clock and tell the little **** that your not in the army and you just want to get a normal nights sleep!
Well I cant promise you anything but what have you got to loose by trying the following?
It wont be easy but for those of you who have had no luck elsewhewre this may be your answer!

But before I explain how there may be a more simple problem! Read the below.

1. The easiest thing to change is the times you see light. Some of you might have all these problems because of getting too much light at the worng times!
Lets say you go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 3 am and get out of bed (which you should if you really cant sleep) DONT SIT IN A BRIGHT ROOM OR IN FRONT OF A BRIGHT TV SCREEN!
This is really bad. I dont know what you guys do when your awake but if you are in a too well lit room or infront of a bright screen this will make your problems far far worse if not cause them all in the first place! You should be in almost complete darkness during the time you should/want to be asleep which should be about 8-8hr 30mins.
When you get out of bed and should be asleep, turn the contrast and brightness right down on the TV/COMPUTER SCREEN (if you use them) till you can just about see the screen.
Dont look at a bright light even for 10 seconds in the toilet or any room! Get candles if you have no dimmers. Your body clock is very very sensitive to light and light at the wrong time will mess it up. The brighter the light is on when you cant sleep the more your body will get the message you dont want to sleep.
Any of you who dont have dimmers and sit in a fully lit room, well your trouble is 100% there. You sould be laughing now as you have found your problem!
For the rest of you who arnt silly enough to sit in fully lit rooms when you cant sleep and wonder what the problem is, (=oD)being in a moderatly lit room could still be too much and causing/adding to the problem.
Get the light down. Bettween 11pm and 7 30 am or when ever you would like to sleep ( Not more than 8hrs 30 though or you might be not get tired) you should be in near total darkness ESPECALLY THE 3-4 HOURS YOU CAN NEVER SLEEP.
Ok so your mood drops a little but its worth it! (WARNING...if you havnt slept AT ALL for long peroids like its your second night with no sleep in row dont drop the light quite as much or your mood can get very low by the early morning, but still keep it lowish)

If you were to wake at 3 am and watch a bright TV or sit in a fully lit room you are telling your body there is only 4 hours of darkness and you only want to sleep 3-4 hours!
In some country's like england where I live in summer there is only 4-5 hours of dark and traditionaly in old times, people would sleep 12 hours in winter and only sleep 4-5 hours in summer!
So if your getting up after 4 hours sleep and going into a lit room, your possibly english blood/DNA is like "Oh its just like old days! and only lets you sleep for a few hours"
If its in our genes from old times that in summer we sould only sleep a few hours it could be that old DNA thats triggering off. Even if not its still an issue.
So get that light right down when you are up so your body thinks its more like winter!. I bet in the olden days where there was little powerful atrifical light they didnt have these problems!
Finally when it gets to say 7 30am SLOWLY turn the light/TV contrast upto moderate level like dawn,not to suddenly. Then at 10 am ish You should whack as much light on as possible for an hour at least.
Try to buy a few very bright bulbs as bright as you can and sit in a room as bright as possbile for an hour. I recommend getting 2-3 200-400W light bulbs or something.
You see I have a powerful light box,you know the ones for SAD Sydrome and 3 hours after getting up (any more or less than 3 hours after getting up is bad trust me as 3 hours after up is like noon) I get a good blast of it. This then tells my body its about noonish and helps set it.
So promise me that all of you will do this because light sets your clock. If you dont get like 1hr of this bright light you body isnt as sure what time it is.
If you dont get this bright light 2-3hrs after up and you have too much light when you cant sleep on, BALM your body clock is screwed and probably thinks its middday at 4-5am or what ever and always summer, never winter!
So give this ago! It might solve 50% of of peoples problems on this page..
Oh yea and another thing. Dont use any very bright light after 8hrs before bed and make sure that 3hrs before bed you start to dim the lights. 1hr before bed the room shot be fairly dark and the contrast on the Tv screen/computer chould be quite low. 20 mins before bed the lighting should be so low you can barly see the TV/computer screen or anything in the room. I even spend the last 5-10 mins of the night in total darkness to get a melatonin headstart!

2. Ok so that didnt help then? Well even if it didnt DONT STOP DOING IT!!!!
Well maybe the light at wrong times started this problem but now you body is so used to 3-4 hours sleep it thinks its british summer all year round and the little begger wont be told other wise! So we have to slap our friend Mr Sleep Adaptation slily till he doesnt know what hit him! (as well as the light thing I mentioned above!)

For those of you who have had this problem for a long time, if you dont resort to something like what im talking about below you could seriously spend the rest of your life this way!
You have to do something like this!
There are many ways to try this, I will list one that you could try but I guess you could make your own up.

What you can do is something like this----
Instead of sleeping say 3 hours a night you can start increasing your sleep time by missing nights sleep!
So what you do is the next night you dont go go to bed, you stay up for 40 hours or whatever. Ok I know its hard but this may be the only way.
So the idea is after being up 40 hours and excerciseing for 2-3 hours throughout that time ( make sure your last excecise is 30 mins very heavy cadio exactly 6 hours before bed as 5-6 hours after your bodies have done this is perfect time to sleep) you should be able to sleep more right? Say you get 6 hours.
Then hopefully the next night you will get close to six hours again. Now if you lucky this could solve the problem and you end up on six hours.
If your not so lucky, you will notice that the next days or day after your sleep it will slip back to say the 4 that it usually is.
Well If you normally get 4 hours then the moment you get to close to where you were before (which could be the following night) You stay up again for 40 hours.
Then you should sleep 6 hours or possibly more as you will of only just recently done it and be even more tired! Then wait until it drops to 5 hours or less and do it again.
Now after doing this several times you will of had 4-5 nights sleep with more than 4 hours. OK so you will be really drained especially if you slip back to 4 hours very soon
but if you persist your body will start to adapt to getting 5+ hours you see? Its upto you how long you want to persist. If after 2-3 tries of this you hant even once slept more than 4hrs then give up I guess, but if you are starting to improve stick at it!!
After several atempts depending on how many times you are prepared to do this your body will adppt to more sleep. Hopefully the pattern could be something like this..

Night 1--no sleep Night 2---6hours Night 3---4hr 30hr RESTART Night 4--no sleep Night 5--6hrs 30min (because u are more tired from the last sleepless night)
Night 6---4hrs 50min RESTART Night 7---No sleep Night 8--7hrs Night 9--6hrs Night 10--5hrs 45min RESART Night 11 No sleep Night 12-- 7hrs Night 13--6hrs 45 Night 14 6hrs 30 Night 15 6hrs 10 Night 16 6hrs ........RESTART Night 17---7hrs Night 18--6hrs 45 Night 19--6hrs 35 Night 20 6hrs 30

Ok so you see how this might work. You end up where it's so long since you slept only 4 hours you body slips away from it.
As time goes on you stay up all night less and less often untill your body had forgoton.
Every so often you might only get 4 hours again but as soon as you get one bad night! BALM you stay up! If you got 2 nights in row of 3-4 hours then you would slip back down again. This is important!
But you see the idea of breaking the bodies cycle! Think about it!

Dont forget when up to keep the lighting correct and get that bright light 2-3 hours after getting up! A 10,000 lux box for $300 is best if you can afford one!.

Ok its like early morning hours for me and just specnt like 2 hours on this! LOL I will see your responses and post some more advice tommorow which I am to tired for now!
And keep looking. You could be sleeping only 4 hours and its all because of the light thing and the adapting thing I have just mentioned.
Dont give up looking for the cure. The best way to find the cure is find the cause!
Byeeee!

Follow Ups:

• Re: Possible ways to help your sleep!!! Andrea 20:01 4/29/03 (0)
• Re: Possible ways to help your sleep!!! Anne 18:45 4/29/03 (1)
  • Re: Possible ways to help your sleep!!! DJmaux 05:52 4/30/03 (0)

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