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Re: How's everyone?

Posted by Tom-N-Texas on September 27, 2004 at 16:09:30:

In Reply to: Re: How's everyone? posted by tomwithtwocats on September 27, 2004 at 13:19:36:

whew...Tom, I just had to post after reading your message.

I realize you are doing sleep restriction but 5 1/2 hours in bed seems to me to be VERY restrictive. You must have incredible discipline. I'm not trying to second guess your plan of action, but I just have to wonder if you spending enough time in bed. My small piece of advice is: don't assume that just because you're not improving at 6 hours per night in bed that LESS time is a better thing. You may be putting more unnecessary stress/pressure on yourself by doing this.

One other thing to consider is this: When I was having my sleep problems I would regularly have problems falling asleep. Thus, I might be awake each night until 2 or 3 am. However I could almost always count on sleeping between 3am and 7am. So.....if I were to theoretically start waking myself up at 5:00am I would in-turn be eliminating some of my regular sleep time....which (to me) is bad. If I WERE to have started sleep restriction, I would probably would have choosen to stay up later than to get up earlier -- since I usually sleep well after 3am.

You sort of seem the opposite. You said you have sleep maintenance problems after 3am. I'm just wondering if you tried going to sleep earlier --say 11pm -- (and still getting up at 5:30 am) if you would be able to natually sleep more.

Everyone's body is different. We all have differen't times when our bodies are more likely to sleep. I'm just wondering if you re-adjusted your sleep schedule if you might be more successful.

I actually never did sleep restriction. My schedule was 11pm to 7am. The reason I chose these times was this: I thought back to the years when I was sleeping completely normally.....before my insomnia ever started.......and then tried to remember what my average sleep schedule was. I assumed this was a good starting point because this was what my body was used to doing for many years.

Well, I know there are no easy answers to this whole sleep thing. There's so many questions I'd still love to have answers to regarding my own sleep, even though I do pretty well nowdays. Try to keep your head up....I'm betting things will turn around for you.... Tom



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