Insomnia Forum Posting

Posted by DJmaux on April 30, 2003 at 05:52:00:

In Reply to: Re: Possible ways to help your sleep!!! posted by Anne on April 29, 2003 at 18:45:22:

Hey. Well no I havnt actually tryed the method mentioned because I have only mild insominia with occasion severe insomnia.
All I know is that one of the problems I have is once my body has done a certain thing for so long it very quickly gets stuck that way.
For example if I set the alarm in the middle of the night and got up for 30 mins 3-4 days in a row I would then wake up every night at the same time for about 30 mins and it could go on for months unless I stayed up excercised like mad and slept the day after.
Ok im not an expert and Ive not used this method for sleeping problems where you ony get 3-4 hours a night but im sure you will agree that this idea has potential.
I mean do you at least agree with me that your body is conviced you want to only sleep 3-4 hours?
So logically the only way to stop this is to change you pattern!
Now the method I gave is only one idea. There must be other methods.
Ok here is another method that yet again is not easy but probably a lot easier than the other one see what you think!

Out bodies are used to summer and winter changes from the old days when dawn woke you up and sunset was bedtime meaning they are used to 4-5 minuite slides each day when the season is changing.
For example as winter aproaches the following would happen....
Day 1---6hrs 20 mins sleep
Day 2---6hrs 24 mins sleep
Day 3---6hrs 28 mins sleep

So you see how it slowly improves as you head towards winter.
Now the thing is if your body is subjected to 5 min increases everyday for say a week or two it will adapt to it until you body is sleeping 3-4 mins more every night. If you body is hooked on sleeping the same time every day then doesnt it make sense to try and get it to sleep slightly diefferntly every night?
So if you could trigger the "Its going to winter mechanism off" and keep it up for a few weeks you could get caught in a spiral where your sleep improves slowly over a few months by minuites each day.
This idea would be a more gradual increase but may be more productive.
So what do you think?
Well if thats what you wanted to do, here is a way you could try to achieve it.

Now the thing is you want to increase your sleep by something like 5 mins every night.
The only way to do that is to progressivly excercise more and do more mental work.
Yes I know this is hard but surly its better than my other idea and if you desparate why not try it!
I know a lot of you say you excercise to help sleep but do you realise if you ran a marathon or worked very heavily all day long you would get to sleep easier and sleep more?
But whos wants to do that everyday right?
But the point is you may say that you do enough excercise but more excercise = more sleep and easier to get to sleep, even if only a little but why dont we take advantage of this small increase and try something like the following:
Ok so how about the following (lets assume you excercise for 30mins a day normally)...

Day 1 30 mins excercise--sleep time 4hrs
Day 2 45 mins excercise--sleep time 4hrs 5min
Day 3 1hr excercise--sleep time 4hr 10min
Day 4 1hr 15 excercise--sleep time 4hr 15min

Dont forget to dim the lights 2-3 mins earlier each night to show you body the nights are getting longer! This change is deep in our DNA.
Now you may find that you need to step up the excercise more or less depening on how much it tires you out. Try to fit it exactly so that is as close to 5 mins increase as possible IN GENERAL. I apprecialte its not as black and white as above but if you try to match it as close as possible. Now lets say you eventually get close to your limit say 2hrs excercise in a day and sleep 4hrs 45 mins. Your body has now been subject to similar changes when its becoming winter where you sleep aproximatly 5 mins more a day. After doing this for a week or more your body should being to adapt to these changes so you can increase the excercise less and less like below

Day 1 2hrs excercise---4hrs 45 mins sleep
Day 2 2hrs 13 mins ---4hrs 50 mins sleep
Day 3 2hrs 25 mins ---4hrs 55 mins sleep
Day 4 2hrs 35 mins ---5hrs 00 mins sleep
Day 5 2hrs 43 mins ---5hrs 05 mins sleep

Now again I apreciate that what you get isnt going to exactly like the table above but you get the idea. The idea is that as you slowly drop the increase in excercise your body has adapted to the 5 mins or so increase everynight (2 weeks or so should really get it hooked) and still carries on even though you slowing the increase in excercise. After a few days you stop increaseing and leave it at say 3hrs and hopfully your sleep should on the whole carry on the increases of several minuites each day.
If not maybe you are moving to fast and your body needs more time to adjust. In which case you can suddenly go back to 30 mins which will mean your sleep might drop back to just over 4 hours but then you begin the cycle again so even though your sleep has droped you restart the cycle again with it increasing everynight, you see?
Maybe your body needs to have this hapen for 3-4 weeks. Try to understand your body and match what it wants to do and work out how long it takes to adapt. Be patient and dont give up too soon. If nothing has happened after 4 weeks then ok its not working but keep it up AMAP.
Lets not forget you got into this mess because you body's adapted to a sleep pattern. Use your bodies attack as your defence! Can you see how this makes sense?
Ok so you will have to do several hours of excercise a day to afew weeks but You will mentally be less tired. Let me say this I now do about nearly 2hrs of excercise a day 45 mins of VERY HEAVY excercise and 1hr 15 of moderate and I can go to sleep about 30 mins earlier than usuall.
If you excercise for 3hrs in a day (1 hr of intense cardio) and you dont sleep 5 mins more then ok this method doesnt work but I think its important to realise that doing several hours excercise every day should increase your sleep.
Its not like you have to do it for life. You can slowly start to bring the excercise down to a more comfortable level after a few weeks hpoing your bodies keep increasing 4-5 mins a day.
I inderstand when you have been up al night or two without sleep this is not really an option. I am talking when you have slept for 3-4 hours for the past 2-3 nights at least.
Of course another thing is try to do a lot of heavy mental work early on in the day to make sure you are mental tired as well.
A lot of reading on the net etc perhaps.
I know you might be unsure about this but like I said before in the old days when winter approached people slept like 3-4 mins more as each day pasted. Maybe this mechanism could help you. And if you body is good at having adapted to so little sleep maybe after a few weeks it will get hooked on 5 min increases everyday?
Its just the only way I can think to get this cycle going is to progessivly excercise each day.
I know its hard when you dont sleep much but you must give it a try! Have you got any better ideas?
Dont forget its best to excercise in 3-4 different stages, not all at once! And not closer than 5 hours to bedtime! 1hr at once is the most you want to do.
If you really really cant handle 2-3 hrs excercise a day (but please please try like hell!) you could trigger the cycle by trying a smaller cycle like the following which wont work as well buts its better than nothing:

Day 1 30 mins excercise---4hrs sleep
Day 2 45 mins excercise---4hrs 5mins
Day 3 1hr excercise---4hrs 10mins
Day 4 1hr 15 excercise---4hr 15mins
Day 5 1hr 30 excercise---4hr 20mins
day 6 30 mins excercise---4hrs 10 mins
Day 7 45 mins excercise---4hrs 15mins
Day 8 1hr excercise---4hrs 20mins
Day 9 1hr 15 excercise---4hrs 25mins
Day 10 1hr 30 excercise---4hrs 30mins
Day 11 30 mins excercise---4hrs 20mins

Etc you see? Hell even doing a 3 day cycle from 30 mins to 1hr is better than nothing.
Dont forget you may need to step it up more than 15 mins a day! And make sure 1/3 of the excercise is 160BP cardio if you can!
So you dont have to go up to 3hrs but you are still getting your body used to sleeping several minuites more each day.

I will further think this out to see if I can come up with any better ideas but I suggest you seriously try to understand that for a lot of you this problem comes from you body adapting to bad sleeping times. Therfore the best therory is to BASH it into adapting to something different.
If you continue to to the same thing everyday you will remain in the hole you are in now indefenatly. Get your running shoes on as soon as you have had 2-3 nights sleep and can just about excercise again! Good luck and if any one wants to try this please keep in touch and tell me how you go. I know my last idea was asking to much of you but if you dont try this one dont you agree its more to the side of lazyness than I just cant do it. I know its very hard but its not im,possible to do 3 30min excercise sessions a day assuming you havnt been up all night for a few days. Uness you couldnt try what I have mentioned with a gun to your head, please give it a go. If it works and you can post good results you could help many others.
If you have and further ideas/questions or negative comments about why this idea wont work please tell me but unless doing server hours excercise and more mental work doesnt even increase your sleep 1 minuite, it should work!
Good luck!

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