SLEEP

[Doolhof]

Hi All,

In the past there may have been threads on sleep and how to improve our quality of sleep.

I am starting this thread up and hope to include past thread titles.

For some of us sleep is a real issue, the more we can learn about it the better informed we will be.

Funny stories on weird places you have fallen asleep are welcome as well.

For me, I had just moved house and was very busy getting everything organised. Friends invited me to the drag races. I was so tired and exhausted that I sat down, leant against the fence right near the starting line and fell asleep for most of the evening.

Hope to read some of your stories and tips.

Cheerio for now, from Mrs. Dools

[fred4761]

Has anyone tried Floatation therapy - as in the sensory deprivation tanks? I have tried all the natural things that I can think of but my sleep has been all over the place for about a week now. Google brought up floatation therapy so I might look into that. I have sleeping tablets but for some reason they are no longer putting me to sleep . . . I just end up feeling very drowsy. I am seeing my psych next week but am willing to try anything else in the meantime.

[Ggrand]

Hello Fred,

No I haven't tried it but have read a little about it, I'm just wondering if you are getting around 20 minutes of sunshine or at least half hour of sitting outside in the daylight hours, this is supposed to reset our body clocks..

I have sleeping difficulties a lot, with my high anxiety, so not much helps me, unless I can bring down my anxiety usually meditation works and spending time outside..

Good luck and if you try the floatations therapy, if possible it would be nice to hear how you go with it..

Grandy..

[fred4761]

Hi Grandy, I generally spend the first 45 minutes or so of each day outside to try and get my "morning sunshine", it is just that there hasn't been any sunshine for a few days now. I looked online for how to get in my morning sunlight when it is overcast and I have come across people using 10,000 lux light therapy lamps first thing in the morning to help. They seem to be expensive to buy in Australia so I am thinking that I might order a smaller, cheaper one from Amazon while they still post to Australia - they are not for sale on the Amazon Australia site.

I found a nearby float therapy place and ended up going in for a session this afternoon. It was a very strange sensation just floating and not being able to sink! I regularly do yoga and meditation but when I am really anxious it is hard to shut off my brain. The floatation tank helped me to do that. It was so relaxing that I even fell asleep. I guess that I will wait and see how my sleep goes tonight, but my tension and anxiety levels feel a lot lower than they were before the floating.

[Doolhof]

Hi Fred4761, Grandy and All,

I like the idea of a floatation therapy, I live out in the country so it may be a little hard to access. I realise you need some kind of device to be able to float in, but I am wondering if there may be some way to create something similar at home without actually needing to float.

Maybe lying on a soft quilt with pillows as support under the knees and arms might replicate the feeling just a little with a blanket on top to keep you warm.

Was there music involved Fred or was it very quiet?

Yes it is hard to have the benefits of the sun when it is not present! Hope you have success with the light. It is interesting that it is suggested we do not have too much artificial light, especially from electronic devices at night time.

I had my dose of sunshine just a while ago, arrived home and soon after it started to rain, so good timing on my part.

Cheers all from Dools

[Ggrand]

Hello Fred,Dools, Everyone,

Sounds like the floatations would have been so relaxing, I used to enjoy floating at the local pools when I was younger, I'm also country and nothing like that is available around here...

I wonder Dools if we could. I don't have one or never have but I'm wondering if a waterbed would give you the sensation of floating. They were a big item in the 80-90s..

Their has been no sunshine now 2 days here..I have sat outside for an hour just to get out, daylight without the sun is still beneficial but not as good as direct sunlight..

Thanks for coming back Fred and letting us know..

Grandy.

[Lici]

Hi all 😊

Sorry to jump in in the middle of conversation but I just saw this thread. I was diagnosed with delayed sleep phase disorder last year after spending since my teenage years struggling to get to sleep at a "normal" time. Basically, my body clock is delayed so I don't feel tired until 3am and don't wake up until 10:30-11am. I started medication for anxiety which has helped me get to sleep at 1am.

I noticed that Fred mentioned getting his morning sunshine. That's actually part of my treatment for delayed sleep phase syndrome and they call it bright light therapy. I have to spend an hour in sunlight or in front of one of the lights Fred mentioned. As Fred said though, the lights are way too expensive for me to buy. The university I go to has made what they call retimer glasses that are specially for bright light therapy though so I'm hoping to be able to try them out at some stage.

I also covered sleep in my psychology studies this semester. I found it really interesting because I always thought we just went to sleep, went into a deep sleep and then woke up. But we actually have 4 levels of sleep that go in 90 minute cycles and waking up 2-3 times a night for short periods is normal. Was quite interesting to learn about especially since sleep has been such a lifelong issue for me.

It's great to read that I'm not alone in my struggle with sleep. It can be quite anxiety provoking when I know I need to get up early and know that I'm not going to get enough sleep to function just so I can get up at that time!

I hope everyone is keeping warm and has a good sleep tonight!

Lici

[fred4761]

Hi everyone, I had a lovely 13 hour sleep last night! I am not sure if it was the extra magnesium from the floating or the actual sensory deprivation of the floating, but either way I would call floating a success and will definitely do it again.

To answer your question Dools, they played music for the first 10 minutes and then the music faded out to silence. The music gradually started up again at the end of the session to indicate that the session was finishing. Part of what I really enjoyed was the sense of just floating and being unable to touch the sides of the tank. The tank was huge and I could spread out in a scarecrow position without touching the sides. I would love to be able to recreate that feeling at home but I don’t think it is possible. Maybe I could try some visualisation techniques while in the bath tub with Epsom salts! The float tanks actually have 500kg of Epsom salts in the water to create the buoyancy.

Lici, how did you get your diagnosis? Did you have to go to a sleep clinic? I too have always had problems getting to sleep. I feel tired but just can’t get to sleep. I was talking about it with my parents and Mum said that even as a baby/toddler I was prescribed medication to help me sleep. They would give it to me a couple of nights a week. I am wondering if that somehow set bad sleep habits in me or if it means I have always had some underlying sleep issue.

[Lici]

Hi Fred,

Yes I was referred to a sleep clinic by a gp. I then had to do a sleep diary for a week and then had a home sleep study for a night. I was then diagnosed from there. The sleep doctor wasn't very helpful on how to treat it though. I then had the opportunity to speak to the top researcher on DSPD at my uni as he was one of my lecturers. He told me to get rapid release melatonin (not the stuff over the counter and not the usual prescription that a gp would usually give as that's a slow release and not helpful for people with DSPD), go to bed at the normal time and then do bright light therapy of a morning and after three days move my wake up time back 15 mins and then move the melatonin back as well and repeat until I got to my desired wake up time.

I didn't get the chance to try the melatonin as I was put on the anxiety meds, but I'm slowly trying the rest using my meds as a replacement for the melatonin. It's worked fairly well so far.

I highly recommend getting a referral to a sleep clinic if you can. It's great to get a diagnosis just to know that there's actually a reason that you don't sleep well. I went through life being told I was just lazy etc but it was literally impossible for me to get to sleep early and wake up early. It's made a huge difference to my self-esteem just knowing that I'm not lazy and it's an actual problem.

Kind regards,

Lici

[Doolhof]

Hi Lici, Fred, Grandy and All Reading,

Thanks for all the information everyone is sharing here. We never know what may help someone else.

I have heard Melatonin mentioned but have never tried it.

I used to do hydrotherapy in a warm swimming pool. At the end of the session I liked to have pool noodles under my neck, my knees and my shoulders so I could float for a while in the pool, that was relaxing...not always peaceful though if the pool was full of excited children yelling and shouting and making waves in the pool. Ha. Ha.

Maybe some really soft quilts piled on top of each other might sort of work.

Visualising might help trick the mind into thinking you are floating as well.

As a child I didn't sleep well either. We lived in the country. I used to grab a torch and go walking for a couple of hours. As a teenager I would walk for miles then have to turn around and walk home again. I would get back to sleep about 4.00 a.m. only to have Mum wake me at 6.00 a.m.

Ear plugs at night are helping me too, once I was able to get used to listened to the blood pumping in my ears!

Cheers all from Dools

[Speak Your Truth]

Hi everyone on this ‘Sleep’ thread

I’ve been scrolling through the posts on this thread looking for someone who has my sleep problem, but not found one yet ....

Normally I have no difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep all night, but even after a big sleep my problem is that it’s not unusual for me to feeling overwhelmingly sleepy during the day.

Does anyone know if this is a symptom of depression and/or anxiety and if not any ideas why this may be ? It can be really difficult to badly want to sleep during the day when there are basic things to do to keep up with life in general - and when you also know that you will go to bed to sleep at night time.

Thank you in anticipation, Cala