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Re: Amitriptyline & Melatonin?

Posted by DJmaux on May 01, 2003 at 05:08:14:

In Reply to: Amitriptyline & Melatonin? posted by Jay on May 01, 2003 at 03:36:46:

Hey.
I read that you wake up many times in the night.
I have had the same problem and I found out something very useful to break the cycle!
I know many people on here say they excecise but how much?
I was excerciseing 30-45 mins a day on average in 2 sessions. One 15mins when I got up and one HEAVY cardio 6 hours before bedtime.
The other night I excecised 2 hours by doing 3 40 min sessions throughout the day (last one being very heavy cardio at 160-170BPB+ about 6 hours before bedtime.
Not only that but I did excessive amounts of mental work in the first 2/3 of the day. Reading for hours and working on as much stuff as possible.
Then 1 hour before bed I dimmed the light to almost nothing and did resting/meditation.
I dont know if any of you know about this but meditation clears your mind but wakes you up which is bad before bedtime. So what you do is you mediate but on the in breath you open your eyes and feel alert then on every out breath you relax and close them. This is like repeatedly wakingup/falling asleep as you meditate. The closing the eyes and totally relaxing on the out breath means the meditation doesnt wake you up as much so it helps you sleep. Then after 25 mins of that I have the TV on low contrast/brightness on something WITH NO ACTION WHAT SO EVER, which is very hard I know but find something or do something else 100% relaxing. I have found that what you do in the last 1hr of the night is far far more important than what you do in the last 2-3. Even 1 minuite of an action scene on the TV can mess things up!
Now on top of the relaxing medatation which I sware by, 30 mins before sleep I spend 10 mins doing slow stretches almost like yoga. I find that it makes you more comfortable in bed when your muscles are relaxed.
Again when you stretch you can perform a similar action to the meditation. On the stretch you tense up and its uncomfy right? then after 15-20 secs stretch you slowly move back relaxing, really slow and smooooth. I find this proccess of tensing up A LITTLE then relaxing SLOWLY is far more helpful then simply relaxing.
Ok now because you have relaxed/meditated and slwoly stretched in the last hour before bed your mind should be much calmer which will help you stay asleep.
Back to the excercise. If you ran a 5 hours marathon everyday, believe me you would sleep without wakinhg up as much! Ok so thats too much but the thing is (I know from experience) once you wake up serveral times in the night your body gets used to it and thinks you want to wake up so you need to spend 2-3 days not waking up to break the cycle dont you? Well the best way is to do what I said about relaxing but more importantly, over excercise for a few days! It worked for me! Yesterday I did 3 40 min sessions and the last once really heavy and I slept right through which over the past week hasnt happened once! If your body is really tired and needs repairing it wont want to wake up as much. You might say yeah yeah I do like an hour of excercise thats enough surly, but its not! Trust me!
Try excerciseing about 1hr 30 tommorow (so you warnt sore cause you increase to fast) then the next day do about 1hr 45 min and the next 2hrs.
See if you wake up less as you increase. If not keep increasing 15 mins a day.If you get to about 5hrs excercise (yes that much!Dont be lazy!) and still you wake up just as much then ok its not gonna work. But if you dont give it a try because its too much effort to excercise that much how will you know? It not like you have to do it more than a few days!
I often tell people this advice and the normal respose is "several hours excercise? I cant do that much surly an hour is enough!"
Well its upto you. If you really want to break the cycle the only way is to excessivly excercise. Then after a few days you can drop the excerise back to normal (slowly is better i guess).
I am now doing 3 30 min sessions a day and the last is very intense. Thats 1hr 30 mins.
I find if I only do 45mins I wake up a lot more!
I would recomend to all of you to do 3 30 min sessions a day at least! One as soon as you get up asnd the last 6 hours before bedtime.
The moment you have a bad night again, the following day do AT LEAST 2hrs excercise (possibly more if it doesnt work) and you should be ok.
If you cant be bothered excerciseing that much then your sleeping problems cant be that bad can they?
Sorry to sound unsympathetic but im just warning you that 2-3hrs excercise temoraraly and 1hr 30 normally is a very good way to stop waking up as much if at all and its only very heavy for temporary period to break the cycle of your body thinking you want to wake!
I recomend buying a second hand gravity walker or something so you can watch TV etc whilst you excersie! I cant do that much excersise with no TV in front of me!

Good luck!

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