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Waking At 2-3 Am And Sleepy At 5-6 Pm

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Changing4Best

MyPTSD Pro
Thankfully I am not having nightmares at least (not that I know of anyway). However, I am waking at 2-3 in the morning every morning, no matter what time I go to bed. It would be hard to go to bed later than around 6 PM anyway, since I get extremely tired around then anyway.

I have tried the going to bed later routine, only to wake up at 2-3 AM anyway, and then I am super tired by 3-4 PM the next day.

This has been going on since November or so, and it could be to do with my reaction to the elections or it could be to do with the newest medicine I was prescribed for Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) [Wellbutrin] or both. Either way, my health and well being has been being affected by this schedule.

I am frustrated, and I don't know what to do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Has anything like this ever happened to you? If so, what did you do about it!?!
 
yes. i found out that between 2 and 4 am (roughly) is when the body produces the most cerebral spinal fluid. if you are prone to migraines or have any issues with CSF, then that might explain it. some folks, i've read, also just wake up during that time period and are very alert for a few hours (sans migraine or other issues) and their body will gradually wind back down for sleep.

i also read a rather interesting article a while back about how industrialization has affected our sleep patterns. (forgive me as i cannot recall the article's title or where i read it.) the premise was that folks used to have an initial period of sleep punctuated by several hours of wakefulness and then a second period of sleep before waking for the day.

my own experience has been this: i don't fight my body and what it wants to do around this; i've tried to find ways to work with the wakefulness and keep to activities that won't help wake me up further. i used to read random wikipedia articles but that kept me up too long. eventually, i found, my body has fallen into a rhythm of wake for an hour or two and then go back to sleep. it did take a while to figure that out, however.

i hope this helps.
 
I am doing the same thing right now. I understand your frustration. I woke up at 4 today and was alert. I then got up at 8 after laying there upset about not sleeping enough yet another night. Sometimes I can fall back asleep but it's rare.
I found some yoga poses to do from prevention magazine that are for exhaustion. The article had three poses that are for insomnia and exhaustion. I have been trying melatonin, but I don't think it's working. The yoga poses make me feel a bit more rested because they are relaxing and restoring to my brain. I tried magnesium salt, and I think it helps to get to sleep but I still keep waking up alert and thinking. :wideeyed:
 
Well, I went to bed at around 5PM and then I awoke around midnight or 1 AM, I think, finally got sleepy around the time I finished breakfast and went back to sleep from 6:30 AM - 8 AM or so. I do find it interesting that sleeping in spurts or on and off may have been more our original pattern before clocks and schedules for working in industry set in. I do sleep in spurts a lot too. That makes it difficult to get the proverbial 8 hours, because it is harder to set an alarm clock or time such spurts. I might lay awake for an hour or more, before getting tired again.
 
Going to bed at 6pm and waking up at 2 am is 8 hours. Going to bed at 5 pm and waking up at midnight is 7 hours. I expect you're going to bed too early if you are waking up at that time in the early mornings... but you are getting around 7-8 hours.

If you're super tired at 3 pm, take a 30-45 minute nap but aim for a later bedtime afterward. Reading, a quiet activity, exercise, personal hygiene... fill up the time with some self care?
 
I too have recently read about two sleeps...something I learned about years ago, but totally forgotten about. Apparently eight hour sleep is a modern idea...before, we used to go to bed around 7.30, sleep for four hours, up for two, then back to sleep for another four hours.

I'm seriously thinking about trying this, as I think I would benefit from it.
 
I have Lyme Disease, so I think this may have to do with that. Some Dr.s don't think Lyme lasts past the antibiotic treatments they give you for it, others know that it does. Back in 1990, when it was first diagnosed, the Dr. also said I had Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. So when I get tired, I get so tired that I cannot stay awake. It is almost painful how tired I get. I just get weak, and have trouble staying awake.

So "just go to bed later" or "take a nap in the afternoons" does not work for me. First of all, I have muscle spasms in my thighs, which keep me awake, unless I am really tired. So in the afternoons, when I am not yet super tired (because I have had some coffee probably), I cannot sleep. Also, I am not usually tired then either anyway. When I get tired is right after I eat. It happens somewhat after breakfast and lunch, but after supper is when it REALLY HITS ME THE HARDEST. I just cannot stay awake then. (I eat supper at 4:30 PM which is the right time, because I eat lunch at 11:30 AM and breakfast at 6 AM). If I were to change my mealtimes, my sleep times would adjust, yes, but they would adjust to more or less the same number of hours of sleep....

So yes, I am getting 7-8 hours of sleep maybe, but not really, because I wake up at around 9 PM (at which time I take my bedtime meds), and fall back to sleep again maybe by 10 PM or 11 PM. So I am sleeping in spurts. Also, my memory is not great, and I am not watching the clock when I wake up and I don't know for sure how long it takes me to get back to sleep, so I really have no clue as to how much sleep I am really getting. It just does not feel like it is enough sometimes.
 
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Well, Last night was different. I went to bed at around 5 PM, awoke at around 9 PM, Got back to sleep around 10 PM and slept straight on through until about 6 AM! Let's see, that's 12 hours of sleep.

Then, this afternoon, I got so tired around 3 PM that I could hardly stay awake. I had company and I was yawning and trying to keep my eyes open, until I think they figured they should leave, at which point I went to bed and immediately fell asleep until just about supper time. (That's an hour and a half more of solid sleep).

I am now, however, wide awake, at the time I have usually been unable to stay awake, although I did lay down to rest for a bit, just to be sure. I'm being careful.

I have been thinking.... about a year ago I had a bad reaction to Prednisone and I was put on a lot of Geodon. This was to bring me down from a Super Manic state which the Prednisone caused. We have been cutting down on this medicine and others since then, and I am now taking One 20 mg cap at lunch and 2 at bedtime. I'm thinking it might be time to further cut down on this stuff. I will be asking for a medicine readjustment from my psychiatrist.

In the meantime, I guess I will just have to deal with what is going on and hope that it is not my Lyme Disease kicking in on me again. Sometimes it is tough, having so MANY things wrong with me. My Dr.s don't always even know what to do with me and Hospitals have to sometimes send me to more advanced Hospitals too, because they cannot figure out what is wrong with me. Thankfully the larger hospitals have always been able to figure it out and solve it so far. I just hope I won't need to go to a Hospital to get this situation solved. Because if it gets worse and worse, I might end up going to the ER (like if I start sleeping round the clock, which has happened before).
 
Considering it was about a year ago, I think I'd not ask for a medication readjustment unless or until you can do all the least invasive things to regulate your sleeping pattern first. Do you want 8 hours sleep, 12 or ?

I'd nix the coffee in the afternoons.
 
Well. I did cut back on one of my meds by ONE capsule, the one I take at lunch. I still take 2 caps at bedtime. I have done this for 3 days now and I am doing better already. My psych Dr. allows me to take LESS of a medicine if I want to, just not more. He trusts my judgement. He is also very hard to reach, so that is also why I can do this without his getting upset.

I was put on this higher dose of this med a year ago, under emergency conditions which no longer exist today. For me to be on that high of a dose even required a special permission from the insurance company, because they usually only OK the dose I am on now, not the dose I was on before I started to cut down.

I know that most patients are not allowed to do this, but my Dr. says he is always in favor of LESS medicine, if it is helpful. If it did not help the situation, I would have immediately gone back on the higher dose, but since it seems to be working out and helping, I know I did the right thing.

I am drinking one cut of tea at 1PM or so, that is my last one for the day each day. I drink coffee in the morning, and it helps me. Going without it makes me miserable, so I hope and pray I never have to go without it! I LOVE my coffees and teas.
 
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