Posted by Scott M on June 01, 2009 at 18:40:15:

In Reply to: feedback would be appreciated posted by lulubelle on June 01, 2009 at 10:04:26:

Hello Lulubelle,

Sleep Restriction has helped me in the past and it is helping me right now during my taper off valium. During the work week i don't allow myself to fall asleep until 10:30 and i set the alarm for 5am.
Most of the time i sleep the entire 6.5 hours. Because of the taper my sleep is light but my dreaming is intense. I actually remember most of my dreams and they are really wild. I actually have dreams of my early childhood which was very exciting and joyful. I'm totally amazed that my dreams have reawakened long forgotten memories of my early childhood. I remember the nuns and getting whacked on the knuckles for misbehaving. Back in the old days we used to play a lot of ice hockey, and everybody wanted to be Bobby Orr of the big bad boston bruins. I rambling on now to a simpler but happier time. No computers and we only watched sporting events on tv.
We were always outside playing sports or riding our dirt bikes. Great memories. Back to sleep restriction, on the weekends i allow my self to sleep until 6am so i'm getting around 7 hours of sleep saturday and 7 ours on sunday.

If i have a bad sleep night and wake up at 2am and am unable to fall back asleep within 15 minutes i will get up and listen to a relaxation tape and as i start to feel sleepy again i will bring the i-pod into bed with me and fall asleep . Sometimes i will turn the tv on and find the most boring program and that will usually knock me out. I also have a routine where i will stand on my head for 3 minutes and listen to a bernie segal tape where he talks about different people who have had out of body experiences and that will put me to sleep. The trick is to distract yourself and generally that will relax you enough to fall back to sleep. You have to find your own distraction and at the same time don't try to fall back to sleep but allow the distraction to to do the work. I think these distractions allow you to fall asleep without thinking about it. I wish that i had a tape recording of my aunt. She is deceased but she had the most loving and kindest voice that totally mesmerized me . I know that her voice would gently put me into sleep mode.

I know that sleep restriction has worked for mko,paul, beth, cassidy,jewels,lynne,and John Wiedman the author of "Desperately Seeking Snoozin". It doesn't have to be super strict. Basically you just need to go to bed at roughly the same time(within an hour) and get up at the same time (within an hour). Instead of getting out of bed you could have your relaxation tapes or boring tv or boring book to read at your bedside. Do what ever is most relaxing and comfortable for you. Sweet dreams!

Scott M.

Follow Ups:

• Re: feedback would be appreciated sleeplessinPA 05:03 6/03/09 (0)
• Re: feedback would be appreciated lulubelle 07:46 6/02/09 (0)
• Re: feedback would be appreciated wolverine 06:32 6/02/09 (3)
  • Re: feedback would be appreciated MKO 10:57 6/02/09 (1)
    • Re: feedback would be appreciated lulubelle 11:32 6/02/09 (0)
  • Re: feedback would be appreciated lulubelle 07:53 6/02/09 (0)

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